A Tale of Golden Apples

In the time of King Zantios, when the sun was high, the gods saw the lands crusted over with heartlessness and greed. The people had grown cold to each other, and hoarded the wealth of the great green land. The Valòmar spoke for his own heart alone, and the pleas of the Wild Gods fell deaf on his ears. So they sent a bolt of cleansing fire across the homeland, that the people might heed their wrath enough to start anew.
One day, after the fire had raged its last, a youth came down from the mountains—a runaway warrior who had left his family's home to seek a master's sword. He returned to the lands they once had claimed to find them burnt and lying fallow. He mourned their loss, but knew he must move on; the winter had raged long and harsh, and he needed food and shelter. He wandered Eldar Wood until he found a burnt-out cabin, and a stash of eight acorns half-buried and forgotten by a careless squirrel.
Before he could settle in for his meager meal, a red-bearded stranger came to the cabin and greeted him. "Fair weather to you, son!" he said with a rosy-cheeked smile.
"I cannot call this weather fair, stranger," he answered. "But weather to you all the same."
"All weather is fair to me. But could you spare a hungry traveler food and shelter for the night?"
The young man had little, but the stranger seemed to have even less. So he agreed, giving the man four of his acorns and a spot in the cabin underneath the meager roof.
When he woke from his trance in the morning, the young man was amazed to find that spring had blossomed quickly around him. The air was fresh, the forest green. Across the way from the cabin was the red-bearded stranger, beneath a tree in full leaf. Its branches were heavy-laden with ripe apples, gold as the sun.
"Son!" called the stranger. "We have found great prosperity together. Your generosity has planted some seed of good in the earth."
The youth laughed. "If this is the fortune we find together, my friend, I will share half of what I have with you forever. Come, let us make this our home."
"It is your home now," the stranger answered, "for soon I must wander on. I will come back at the changing of the seasons. Keep your promise, young man, and never ask my name. You shall want for nothing beyond your hearth and home."
So the red-bearded stranger stayed, a week and a day, long enough to harvest the apples and chop wood to repair the cabin. The youth sent him on his way with half of the apples and half of the wood.
The apples were sweet and filling, and the youth quickly gained strength from them. He lived off the apples and the bounty of the wood. By the time the red-bearded stranger returned in the summer, he had built a simple hut.
The youth greeted him as warmly as any friend. He shared half of his golden apples, half of his blackberries and dandelion greens, half of the venison he had hunted just for the occasion. He offered the stranger a place to sleep, in the coolest spot in the hut, where the air stayed fresh even on the hottest days.
In return, the red-bearded man showed him down a trail by the stream, to a bustling village the youth could not believe he had missed. "Sell your apples here," the stranger said, "but always for a fair price. The tree is heavy-laden once more. You will have all you need, and want for nothing beyond your hearth and home."
So the young man traded his apples for rice and milk, for bricks and mortar, for chickens and goats. He sent the stranger on his way with half of what he earned. The rest was more than enough to turn the hut into a proper home.
Each season, the red-bearded man returned to the home in the forest, and the apple tree burst into fruiting, even in the wintertime. Each season, the youth greeted him as a brother, and shared half of what he had without complaint. He had more and more to share each time, and never balked at giving half his wealth away. He found a beautiful wife, who bore him a strong and healthy son. The stranger feasted at their table in a seat of honor, and took home carts full to bursting with parcels: fine fabrics, sweet jams, prime cuts of meat, and always the golden apples that burst from the great tree each season.
In the eighty-eighth year, when the red-bearded man returned in the spring, the youth greeted him once more at the door. He held in his hand eight acorns.
"Belovéd stranger," he said. "Look in my hand. This is what we started with, so many years ago. Without you, I am certain this would be all I had today. I thank you for all your kindness, and I love you as a brother. But I must ask. You have graced my orchard for eight and eighty years, each time looking the same. Your beard is thick like a Human's, yet you age like an Elf. My wife worries that you are a witch. Soon my son will ask questions. I need not know your name, but I must ask you: how can this be?"
The red-bearded stranger shed a tear. "I am Dagda, father of the fields. It saddens me deeply that you broke your promise after all this time. This must be our last visit. I will be on my way, and you will see me no more."
Hearing this, the young man wept and embraced the god. "Father Dagda, I am sorry. You are welcome here forever, and you need not bless me any more than you already have. All I ask for is your company as my friend."
"Son, I cannot offer you that. The gods may not walk among mortals aware of their presence. But you have been as generous and good as I asked and more, so I will offer you this. For eight and eighty years more, I will bless your hearth, but then it will grow cold to your heart. Then eight and eighty years, my son will bless your son, and then he too will lose his way."
Dagda kept his promise, and the young man's home continued to thrive, though no more golden apples grew from his tree. The man sent offerings to Ruimenya each season, half of what he had, to distribute to the poor. He sat each morning at the apple tree and spoke to it as he once did to his friend.
In the eighty-eighth year, the young man's wife fell ill and died in his arms. His son had grown to be nearly a man, and was away studying to be a priest of Lugos, awaiting his blessing. The man looked at his grand house, at his full larders and many beautiful things, but they held no joy for him any more. His heart had grown empty, and his hearth had grown cold. So he took his sword down from the mantle, and returned no more.