When Johann went into the wood to gather nettles and goldenrod for his sick sister, an angel appeared.
‘The spider or the snake,’ said the angel, and drew a spider and a snake from his robe.
Johann dropped his basket.
‘The spider or the snake,’ the angel repeated.
‘The spider,’ stammered Johann, who had gone quite pale.
‘Good, the spider,’ said the angel, and laid the spider in Johann’s hand, and kept the snake for himself.
‘You may ask me eight questions. A spider’s leg for each.’
‘Why do angels never show themselves?’ Johann burst out, and he closed his fingers around one of the spider’s legs and tore it off, and the creature twitched.
‘Because then you would no longer believe,’ said the angel.
‘And why do you show yourself to me?’ asked Johann, and tore the second leg from the spider.
‘Because you do not believe,’ said the angel.
‘Will my sister die?’ asked Johann, and plucked out the third leg, and the creature twitched a little less, and Johann sobbed.
‘Yes,’ answered the angel.
‘Is there nothing I can do?’ asked Johann, and the tears fell, and he plucked the fourth leg, and the creature went still.
‘No,’ said the angel. ‘There is nothing.’
‘Can you do something?’
‘I have never yet done anything, but I can.’
‘Will you do something?’
‘No,’ answered the angel.
‘Why will you do nothing?’ cried Johann, and crows flew up from the boughs of the firs.
‘Because she believes.’
Johann hesitated, and at last tore out the spider’s last leg and threw its body onto the forest floor.
‘What would have happened if I had chosen the snake?’
‘Nothing, of course,’ said the angel, and the snake ate the spider’s body. ‘Snakes have no legs, after all,’ said the angel, and vanished.
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