STORY OF AN HONEST WOODCUTTER
Once upon a time, there was a small village near a forest. The men of this village would cut trees in the woods and sell them to keep food on the table. One of these men was the most honest woodcutter in the village. He would never lie and never cast his eyes on someone else’s property.
One day, the honest woodcutter went to the forest. Leaving his axe under a tree, he started to search for a tree he could cut down. He found one appropriate tree and came back to take his axe. However, he couldn’t find his axe where he had left it before. He looked around but the axe was nowhere. The desperate man started to cry. He shed tears saying;
“What am I going to do now? How can I cut wood and earn my living without my axe?”
A forest elf saw the woodcutter and felt sorry for him. The elf immediately sent a golden axe to the woodcutter. But the honest woodcutter didn’t accept the axe saying;
“My axe was not made of gold!”
The elf sent a silver axe to the woodcutter.
The woodcutter did not accept it either, saying;
“My axe was not made of silver!”
This time the forest elf sent the woodcutter’s own axe to him. The woodcutter was very pleased to see his own iron axe with a wooden handle.
“Here is my axe!” he said while he was shouldering his axe.
The forest elf was delighted at the woodcutter’s honesty and gave him the other golden and silver axes too as a reward.
The woodcutter, happy with the gifts, went to his village. He told about what had just happened to other woodcutters. Seeing the gold and silver axes with their own eyes, the other woodcutters immediately ran into the woods with their axes.
They pretended as if they lost their axes in the woods too and started to cry. The forest elf sent a golden axe to each one of them. When the woodcutters saw the golden axe, they all held it tight and shouted;
“Here is my axe!”
The forest elf got very angry at the woodcutters’ greed. Suddenly the golden axes relapsed into iron axes with wooden handles.
Not just that, the wooden handles came out from the axe and started to hit their owners on the head. The woodcutters started to run and barely escaped with their lives.
They promised not to act greedily ever again.
