A soldier returns from serving the Tsar with nothing but the clothes on his back and a spirit worn thin by years of war. But when he gives his last bread to a mysterious old man in a dark forest, he sets in motion a chain of wonders: a magical towel that dries itself, a sack that captures whatever it's asked to hold, and a game of cards that wins him a kingdom. Ransome's retelling bristles with the raw energy of oral tradition, where devils lurk in empty palaces and a man can trap Death itself in a sack. The soldier's son falls ill, and the soldier discovers that his strange bargain with the old man might be the only thing that can save the boy. But a world without death is a world of unbearable suffering, and the soldier must make an impossible choice. What follows is one of folk literature's most haunting meditations on mortality, wrapped in a tale of magic, courage, and a kindness that echoes across generations. The ending lingers like smoke: a soldier wandering the earth, neither here nor there, because he has glimpsed the secret that every culture eventually learns. For readers who believe fairy tales are for children, this is proof they're wrong.
