There were once three brothers who were traveling along a lonely, winding road at twilight. in time, the brothers reached a river too deep to wade through and too dangerous to swim across. however, these brothers were learned in the magical arts, and so they simply waved their wands and made a bridge appear across the treacherous water. they were halfway across it when they found there path blocked by a hooded figure. and Death spoke to them. he was angry that we had been cheated out of three victims, for travelers usually drowned in the river. but death was cunning. he pretended to congratulate the three brothers upon their magic, and said that each had earned a prize for having been clever enough to evade him. so the oldest brother, who was a combative man, asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence: a wand that must always win duels for its owner, a wand worthy of a wizard who conquered death! so death crossed to an elder tree on the banks of the river, fashioned a wand from a branch that hung there, and gave it to the oldest brother. the second brother, who was an arrogant man, decided that he wanted to humiliate death still further, and asked for the power to recall others from the death. so death picked up a stone from the riverbank and gave it to the second brother, and told him that the stone would have power to bring back the dead. and then death asked the third and youngest brother what he would like. the youngest brother was the humblest and also the wisest of the brothers, and he did not trust death. so he asked for something that would enable him to go forth from that place without being followed by death. and death, most unwillingly, handed over his own cloak of invisibility. then death stood aside and allowed the three brothers to continue on their way. and they did so, talking with the wonder of the adventure they had had, and admiring deaths gifts. in due course the brothers separated, each for his own destination. the first brother traveled on for a week or more, and reaching a distant village, sought out a fellow wizard with whom he had a quarrel. naturally, with the elder wand as his weapon, he could not fail to win the duel that followed. leaving his enemy dead upon the floor, the oldest brother proceeded to an inn, where boasted loudly of the powerful wand he had snatched from death himself, and how it made him invincible. that very night, another wizard crept upon the oldest brother as he lay, wine-sodden, upon his bed. the thief took the wand and, for good measure, silt the oldest brothers throat. and so death took the first brother for his own. meanwhile, the second brother journeyed to his own home, where he lived alone. here he took out the stone that had the power to recall the dead, and turned it thrice in his hand. to his amazement and his delight, the figure of the girl he had once hoped to marry, before her untimely death, appeared at once before him. yet she was sad and cold, separated from him as by a veil. though she had returned to the mortal world, she did not truly belong there and suffered. finally the second brother, driven mad with hopeless longing, killed himself so as truly to join her. and so death took the second brother for his own. but though death searched for the third brother for many years, he was never able to find him. it was only when he had attained a great age that the youngest brother finally took off the cloak of invisibility and gave it to his son. and then he greeted death as an on old friend, and went with him gladly, as equals, they departed this life.
the irony is that a curious legend has grown up around this story, which precisely contradicts the message of the original. this legend holds that the gifts death gives the brothers are genuine objects that exist in the real world. the legend goes further: if any person becomes the rightful owner of all three, then he will be become 'master of death', which has usually been understood to mean that they will be invulnerable, even immortal. true invisibility cloaks, though rare, exist in the world; however, the story makes it clear that deaths cloak is of a uniquely durable nature. either the third brothers descendants do not know where their cloak came from, or they know, and are determined to show their ancestors wisdom by not trumpeting the fact.
Naturally enough, the stone has never been found either. it remains incapable to raising the dead, and there is every reason to suppose that this will never happen. vilesubstitutions have, of course, been attempted by dark wizards, who have created inferior. what is more, the story is quite explicit about the fact that the second brothers lost love has not really returned from the dead. she has been sent by death to lure the second brother into deaths clutches, and is therefore cold, remote, tantalizing both present and absent.
That leaves us with the wand, and here the obstinate believes in the story's hidden message have at least some historical evidence to back up their wild claims. for it is the case that wizards down the ages have claimed to possess a wand more powerful than the ordinary, even an 'unbeatable' wand. some of these wizards have gone so far as to claim that their wand is made of elder, like the wand supposedly made by death. such wands have been given many names, among them the ' wand of destiny' and the ' deathstick'.
By: JG
