From a Gypsy folk tale

Peace!

Draw near and listen, and you shall hear the Legend of the forging of the nails for the crucifixion of Yeshua ben Miriam, whom the world later called Jesus. His person had been given to the Roman jailors because he had talked ill of the Emperor of Rome, and two Roman soldiers were sent out, the day before he would be crucified, to get four stout nails for the task.

To buy the four nails, the soldiers were given eighty kreutzers, but on their way they tarried at an inn, drinking and drinking, and boasting of their mission.

It was late in the afternoon when they finished drinking, and they had spent half the money given to them. leaving only forty kreutzers. Furthermore, they had to be back with the nails by nightfall that they might crucify Yeshua ben Miriam, he who had talked ill of the Emperor of Rome, early the next morning.

So they hurried off to find someone willing to forge these four stout nails, in such haste, and for only forty kreutzers. Draw nearer, and you shall hear of who was so eager to sell his soul for so little, if you will but listen.

The first blacksmith they found was an old Jew. “I will not forge nails to crucify Yeshua ben Miriam,” said the Jew. And the soldiers set his beard on fire with coals from his own forge. They laughed as they ran him through with their lances.

The afternoon sun was lowering to the horizon when they arrived at the next smithy. “Make us four stout nails,” demanded the Roman soldiers, “and we will pay you forty kreutzers.” “For that price,” said the blacksmith, “I can make you only four small nails,” for he was one who loved to drive a hard bargain. Then the soldiers set his beard on fire with coals from his own forge and, frightened out of his wits, the blacksmith begged for mercy and set to work.

“Make them good and strong, old Jew, for at dawn we must take out Yeshua ben Miriam that we may crucify him,” said one of the soldiers as the smith worked at his forge. At the mention of that name, the hand of the Jew was stayed as if by magic and the hammer remained poised in the air over the anvil. And the voice of the first blacksmith, whom the soldiers had killed. sounded in his ears faintly, as it were only the shadow of a voice: Aria, do not make the nails. They are for one of our people. An innocent man. Do not make the nails.

And suddenly his arm was freed from the enchantment and his fingers let the hammer fall, to lie by his forge. “I will not make the nails,” he said.

Furiously, in their drunken rage, the soldiers ran him through. They consulted with each other what they should do. Had they not spent forty of the eighty kreutzers on drink, they could have returned to barracks reporting what had happened, saying “No Jew will make these nails for the crucifixion of Yeshua ben Miriam”. But they were forty kreutzers short, so they ran on out of the gates of Jerusalem, determined to desert if they could find no one to make the mails. Just outside the city they stumbled upon a gypsy who had just pitched his tent and set up his anvil.

The Romans ordered him to forge four stout nails without telling him their purpose, and they put the forty kreutzers down. The gypsy tested them in his teeth, spat on the coins, put them in his pocket. and set to work immediately.

As he set about his work, the voices of the two murdered smiths could be heard. And he hesitated, but the soldiers prodded him with their lances.

“Hurry, gypsy,” said the soldier, “and put the nail in this bag.” And that was the forging of the first nail.

“Make haste,” said the other soldier, “for the sun is about to set.” And that was the forging of the second nail.

“Why do you take so long,” they both said, “for we must be in barracks by nightfall.” And that was the forging of the third nail.

And as the gypsy begun to forge the fourth nail, one of the soldiers said: “Thank you for working so quickly, gypsy. For with these four nails, at dawn we shall crucify Yeshua ben Miriam.” And once again the voices of the two murdered smiths could be heard, but again he ignored them, and continued with his work.

Night was falling. The voices of the two murdered smiths had so terrified the soldiers, that they ran away, saying they would not wait for the last nail. But the gypsy thought only that he was glad he had been paid in advance, that he had the forty kreutzers in his pocket, as he finished the fourth nail and waited for it to grow cold and black like the rest.

It would not cool, so he poured water on the hot iron. But the water sizzled off like spit on a hot griddle, and the iron remained as red and hot as when he had held it with his tongs in the fire. So he poured more water upon it. but the nail was still glowing, as red as if the iron were a living bleeding body, and the blood was spurting fire. So he threw still more water on it. The water sizzled off and the nail went on glowing and glowing.

Terrified, trembling as he remembered the warning voices of the two dead smiths, the gypsy packed his tent and anvil upon his donkey and fled into the desert, leaving the nail behind him, still glowing. At midnight, his feet weary and his animal near dying with thirst and cold, the lone traveller pitched his tent by an oasis. But there, at his feet, lay the still glowing nail, even though he had left it on the ground at the gates of Jerusalem.

The gypsy carried water from the well all that night, trying to extinguish the fire of the nail. When he had drawn the well dry, he tried throwing desert sand on the nail, but it never ceased its sizzling and glowing. Crazed with fear and despair, the gypsy ran further into the wilderness.

During the next morning, the gypsy came to an Arab village and set up his tent there. But the glowing nail had reached the village first. It was there, at his feet. And then an Arab came to him with some work, and the blacksmith thought of a way to rid himself of the cursed nail. You shall see what happened.

The Arab brought to him a broken wheel and asked him if he could patch its iron hoop. Quickly, the gypsy took the glowing nail and with it he patched the broken joint of the wheel's iron hoop.

And he waved farewell to the Arab with joy in his heart, for surely he had rid himself of the curse now.

When the Arab had driven into the darkness, the gypsy struck camp and drove off as fast as he could in the opposite direction, hardly daring to look around. After days of travel, still keeping his eyes an the horizon before him, afraid to open his eyes if he awoke during the night, the gypsy reached the city of Damascus. There he set up his forge again and lived in peace for many months.

Then a man brought him the hilt of a sword to repair. In front of his very eyes, the hilt began to glow from the iron of the nail upon the hilt before he had even begun to kindle his forge. Screaming in terror, he packed and ran away.

That nail always appears in the tents of those descended from the man who forged the nails for the crucifixion of Yeshua ben Miriam. And when the nail appears, the gypsies run.

It is why they move constantly from one place to another, to Constantinople, to Vienna, even across the seas to England. But the nail is always there before them.

Wherever they go, the age–old curse follows them. There is nowhere they can escape to, however far they run.

And that is why the Romans crucified Yeshua ben Miriam, he whom the world later called Jesus, using only three nails. The fourth nail wanders about from one end of the earth to the other, pursuing the gypsies.

But wait. The story is not yet completed.

It came to pass, in an encampment of the Roma, in the rocky hills above Albania, that a certain smith sat gazing into a dying fire, fancying he could see the glowing nail in its embers. “Stir yourself, smith,” said his comrades, “for the armies of our enemies are on the march to destroy us.”

And the smith rose to his feet and raised his fists to the sky in protest.

“Enough!” he cried. “Haven't we been punished enough for the act of one man so long ago? Must we always be persecuted, always banished, always wandering? Cursèd be he who forged the mails and, yes, even they who drove them into his hands and feet, but we, we who are innocent, why should we be always cursed, even unto the hundredth generation? Even the murderer Cain was not treated so.”

And his comrades bade him hush, lest the angel of death descend upon them for such blasphemy, even as the armies of their enemies marched to seek them out and destroy them.

Then, behold, among them stood a young man, barely thirty summers in age.

“Peace, smith,” he spoke. “Why do you cry out so that even the angels in heaven are disturbed by your anger? For he whom the world called Jesus, the man Yeshua ben Miriam, promised that he would return and ransom all the souls of the earth from condemnation.”

“Do not speak to me of him,” cried the smith. “It is because of him that we must wander to the ends of the earth, with no place to rest our heads.”

“The birds of the air have nests, and the foxes have holes,” said the young man, “but the son of man has nowhere to rest his head.

“Have you not heard his promise, that he would be with you always, even until the end of time?”

“He is not with us,” the smith replied. “I have seen his image, in scarlet and gold, in the great cathedrals. It is there he lives, dressed in fine clothes, while we must go in rags.”

“Do you not recall that he prophesied that the temple would be cast down, and that it was for this prophecy he was crucified? He abides among the living, not the dead.

“For this he was born, and for this he died, that not one should be condemned, no, not even he who forged the nails for his crucifixion, nor yet his descendants. He forgave the soldiers who drove those nails into his hands and feet; why then should you expect that he would withhold his forgiveness from those who wander the earth burdened by the part they played in his death?

“For was not he himself a wanderer, born of a couple whose only shelter was a stable, forced to flee the swords of Herod into the land of Egypt, taken into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, moving from town to village, scorned by the holy men and loved by the people, the friend of drunks and tax-collectors and all the rejected and outcast of the earth, to whom he gave it as an inheritance?

“Come,” said the young man, “pack up your things and go with your people into a place of safety. And do not fear the glowing nail of your bad dreams, for like the mark on the brow of Cain, like the rainbow God set in the sky above Ararat, it is a sign of his protection and presence, not of condemnation.”

And he vanished, as if he had never been.

The Roma people threw dust upon their fire, and resumed their wandering. And in every generation, there will always be those who cannot understand the legend of the nails, and see in it their condemnation. But I am here tonight to tell you of its true meaning, and of the young man who will manifest himself, when we call upon the name of the Lord in our agony and pain, to show that he is always with us, even until the end of time.

1975?–October 10, 2000