timelets

He claimed to be a ratcatcher, and he promised that for a certain sum he would rid the city of all mice and rats. The citizens struck a deal, promising him a certain price.

Now that the citizens had been freed of their plague, they regretted having promised so much money, and, using all kinds of excuses, they refused to pay him.

https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/hameln.html

This is an interesting fairy tale about a physician (and his father) who made a deal with Death, but tried to cheat it. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/033.txt

He led him forth into a forest, and showed him a herb which grew there, and said, now you shall receive your godfather's present. I make you a celebrated physician. When you are called to a patient, I will always appear to you. If I stand by the head of the sick man, you may say with
confidence that you will make him well again, and if you give him of this herb he will recover, but if I stand by the patient's feet, he is mine, and you must say that all remedies are in
vain, and that no physician in the world could save him. But beware of using the herb against my will, or it might fare ill with you.

I guess, the moral of the story is that in a deal like that you gain a superior capability, but surrender your free will to use it.

A headset with a prompter:

Then he had to sing a mass, and did not know one word of it, but the two doves sat continually on his shoulders, and said it all in his ear.

-- Grimm's Fairy Tales. The Three Languages.

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/025.txt

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