The Storyteller (TV Series)

The Luck Child (1988)

Robert Eddison: Ferryman

Quotes 

• Lucky : What are those lights on the shore?

  Ferryman : Jewels, riches. No one brings them back...

  Lucky : I shall, I shall come back.

  Ferryman : If you do, perhaps you may discover why I must continue this weary way back and forth? Without ending... I am weary and sick to the soul.

  Lucky : I'll remember.

• Ferryman : I dare not think it possible you found the answer, but then you did come back... No one has ever come back.

  Lucky : I have come back and I have the answer: the next passenger you have, give him your oar. Then your lot will be his, his freedom yours.

  Ferryman : So simple...

  [fights back tears] 

  Ferryman : so simple.

  The Storyteller : And for the first time in years, centuries, hope fires the ferryman. A smile is forming in his mind, a tiny smile growing, getting ready to be born...

• King : Come on, come on, come on, can't we go any faster?

  Ferryman : Oh, yes, sir, there is a way...

  [gestures for the king to take over the ore] 

  The Storyteller : Take it, he says, take it, take it... So if you come one day to a lake and there's an island and a ferry goes back and forth rowed by an old sad man, turn around. Griffins live there, you may never get off the boat. For the ferryman was once a wicked king who ignored a prophesy, whose heart was cruel. And nature, my dears, is a wize woman who pays us back, tit for tat.