【英】《伊索寓言》第32集：The Milkmaid and Her Pail

The woodman took the beautiful ax heads to town and sold them for enough to feed his family for many years. The greedy merchant who bought the ax heads asked where the woodman had found them. He told the story of the kind mermaid.

The greedy merchant smiled. The next day, he went into the woods with an old iron ax. He came to the pool and tossed in the ax. Then he began to cry and wail about his lost ax.

The mermaid appeared carrying an ax of the most beautiful finely tooled gold with jewels set into the metal.

“Is this yours?” she asked.

“It is,” the man said reaching for it. “That’s mine for sure.”

The mermaid pulled it back so hard the man tumbled into the water.

As the man scrambled out of the water, his fine clothes soaked and ruined, the mermaid scolded him. “You knew that was not your ax! I will have nothing more to do with you!”

Then she vanished back into the pool and the man had to walk home without any ax at all. When he told the tale to his wife, she shook her head and scolded, “You should have heeded the old truth. Eventually greed will be rewarded with want!”

One fine spring day, a young milkmaid carried her pail of fresh, creamy milk on her head as she hurried down the road to the market.

“This is such fine milk, I am sure it will fetch a good price,” she said. “I will use the money to buy a pair of young hens from Farmer Brown.”

Then she walked a bit farther and thought a bit more. “My fine new hens will lay an egg every morning. I will collect the eggs and keep them until I have a nice basketful. Then I will sell them to the parson’s wife. She always pays a good price for eggs, and mine will be the biggest and the best. She will choose them over any other.”