A recording of Sean Buvala’s “Iron John” as told live in 2005. Can be found on his CD “Calling Out a Rising Sun” available online.
The story of Iron John comes from a collection of traditional tales gathered by the Brothers Grimm in the early 1800s. Originally titled Der Eisenhans (“Iron Hans”), it grew out of much older oral storytelling traditions in Germany. Over time, readers have seen it as more than just a fairy tale. It’s often viewed as a story about growing up, stepping into the unknown, and learning from unexpected mentors.
Transcript. May contain grammatical and punctuation issues.
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The story is Iron John. Once upon a time, there was a king who ruled over a kingdom that was covered almost entirely in forest. Almost all of the kingdom was forest.
And for the longest time, nothing happened in this forest. People could go to the forest, they could hunt in the forest, they could do whatever they needed to do in the forest, and come back, and nothing would happen. But there was a time in history when people would go into the forest and never return.
They would go and they would be gone. They would go with their dogs and their horses and their animals, their carts, and they would be gone and never return. So the king ordered that the bravest men in the kingdom would go into the forest and find out why no one would return.
But even those men would never return. And so the king set a decree. And the decree was that no one was allowed into the forest.
And this was difficult as the whole kingdom was mostly forest. That no one was allowed into the forest because those who went would not return. And for the longest time this was the decree that went over all of the kingdom and the people were very unhappy.
One day an outsider comes to the kingdom. And he goes to the king and he says, Why is it that you have said that no one is allowed into the forest? The king said, Because no one returns. And the man said, I will go.
I will go. And I will find out why no one returns from the forest. And so he did.
And as he journeyed through the forest, he came upon a lake in the center of the forest. And as he moved through the forest with his animals and with his dogs, as the dogs got closer, a hand reached out of the lake, grabbed the dog, and pulled it under. The man saw this and knew something was amiss.
How often does the hand come out of the lake? He went back to the kingdom and called some of the king’s bravest men and told them to bring barrels and buckets. And the men went into the forest with the barrels and buckets, and they emptied the lake. And as they emptied the lake, in the bottom of the lake lay a man who was covered in hair, covered in mud, and covered in rust.
They took the man, they bound the man up that was in the center of the lake, they brought him back to the king and they said, This is the one who has taken all of your men, all of your carts, for the lake is strewn with bones. The king immediately ordered that this man, this Iron John, would be put into a cage and said, No one is allowed to open the cage. And the cage sat in the center of the court.
No one came near Iron John. They threw food at him, but no one came near him until one day the prince, the son of the king, the eight-year-old son, came and he played in the courtyard and he had with him this ball, this golden ball, which was one of his favorite things. And as he played with it, it rolled to the cage of Iron John.
Iron John reached to the bars of the cage, took the golden ball and kept it to himself. The prince, keeping his distance, said, Return my ball to me. Iron John said, Open the cage.
The prince said, No, I cannot open the cage. And for several days this conversation went on. The prince would come back several times a day. Give me my ball.
And Iron John would simply say to him, Open the cage. Well, after some time, the prince was missing his favorite toy. And he said, Give me my ball.
Open the cage. The prince said, No, I can’t. And even if I wanted to, I don’t have the key.
Iron John said, “Your father took the key and hid it under your mother’s pillow.” If you’ll go get the key, I will return the ball to you. The prince thought about this for the longest time and finally sneaked into his mother’s room, reached under her pillow, took the key to the cage, and returned to where Iron John was.
He approached the cage and opened the lock. He pulled on the bars, but as he did so, his fingers were caught in the hinges and his finger was cut and bloody. He winced in pain and pulled back.
Iron John pushed the rest of the cage open, got out of the cage, and handed the golden ball to the boy. And he began to run from the court back to the forest. The prince cried out, Wait! I will surely be punished for this.
You cannot leave me here alone. Iron John said, Very well. Will you come with me? The prince thought.
And he said to him, to even his own surprise, Yes. Iron John picked up the boy, put him on his shoulders, and returned to the forest.
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