Fortune and the Wood Cutter

Don't push yourself until you're this overworked.

Greetings, reader! As some of you may have noticed, in When the Moon Catches Your Eye, I reference Luke and the Velvet Tango Lounge, which are both from my novel. The more eagle-eyed of you may have noticed there are a handful of other stories on this blog that also reference my novel. If you haven't noticed, go on a treasure hunt and find which of my modern fairy tales reference A Tale of Two Tricksters.

All of that aside, let's take a look at the fairy tale for this week. Fortune and the Wood Cutter is a funny story from somewhere in the Middle East. Unfortunately, my source couldn't be more exact than that. Click the link and check out the story, then continue with me below to analyze it.

I have to admit, the ending of this story threw me off. I thought that the wood cutter would be punished for his laziness. Although, thinking about it more clearly, he doesn't seem to be lazy, but a man pushed past his limit. Either way, many stories with this kind of setup have a lesson at the end about hard work. Well, this man has worked hard for years and is not any better off than when he started. It was only because he just couldn't take it anymore that his luck changed.

In some sense, it's the perfect crime for the wood cutter, especially since he doesn't know it was a crime. The sultan may notice his money is missing, if he ever bothers to try to dig it up, but he would have a hard time finding who stole it. The man who took it didn't profit off of it, and the man who ended up with it doesn't know it was stolen. Maybe he and his wife tried to find the man who borrowed the mules, but that man couldn't have admitted to stealing the money. He would have had to deny everything and leave it to the wood cutter and his wife.

In looking at these stories from a modern, jaded perspective it's kind of refreshing to see people were just as jaded back then. It's  sad that we've always been jaded, but refreshing to see not everyone was an optimist all the time. There have always been people who tried as hard as they could but never got anywhere. In this story, the wood cutter gets a happy ending because he breaks the cycle and fortune smiles on him.

It was only because the wood cutter stopped pushing himself past his breaking point that this good thing could happen to him. Otherwise the thief would have borrowed someone else's mules, and maybe the delay would have stopped him from seeing the soldiers. Then the thief would have kept his ill-gotten gains and perhaps been found out and punished for it. I wonder what the thief thought after he saw how prosperous the wood cutter suddenly became. Maybe he laughed or maybe he tried to pull off an even more elaborate scheme. I almost wish this story was longer, but because it isn't we can more easily assume the wood cutter and his wife lived happily afterward.

The moral of this story is that you shouldn't push yourself until you can't take it anymore. Alternatively, if you let someone borrow your mules, don't go with them and you may end up with what they wanted to steal.

Have a different moral? Wish you could get a windfall like this? Have a story you want me to analyze? Comment below! And if you like this blog, don't forget to subscribe.