The First Well

There once was a small kingdom
around a lake.
One very hot summer,
it did not rain
and the lake dried up.
People grew anxious
and went to the King.
“It has not rained for so long.
Our fields are barren!”
said the farmers.
“There are no fish to catch.
How shall we earn a living?”
asked the fishermen.
“Save us from disaster,
good King,”
urged the women,
as their children cried with thirst.
The King sent his four generals
in all directions
to look for water.
The first general went east,
towards the sunrise;
the second went south,
to the dust and heat;
the third went west,
where the sun sets;
and the fourth
followed the North Star.
They searched day and night,
night and day;
high and low
they searched everywhere,
but in vain.
Three of the generals returned,
empty-handed.
But the general who had gone north
was determined not to fail his King.
At last, he reached
a cold mountain village.
As he sat
at the foot of the mountain,
an old woman came by
and sat next to him.
The general pointed at the horizon
and said,
“I belong to a beautiful kingdom,
where it has not rained
for a whole year.
Can you help me find water?”
The woman motioned the general
to follow her up the mountain
and into a cave.
“We have no water
in our country either,” she said.
Then,
pointing to the icicles in the cave,
she continued:
“We call this ice.
Take some,
and your kingdom will never go
thirsty again.”
The general broke off a huge piece,
loaded it onto his horse-cart
and rushed back home.
By the time he reached the court,
the enormous icicle had melted
into a small lump of ice.
Nobody in the court had ever
seen ice,
so everybody gazed at it
with wonder.
“This must be a water-seed!”
one of the ministers exclaimed
suddenly.
The King ordered the ‘water-seed’
to be sowed immediately.
While the farmers dug a hole,
the lump dwindled in the sun.
They swiftly placed the seed
in the hole,
but before
they could cover it up,
it had vanished.
The farmers there
grew confused and worried.
They dug deeper and deeper
into the earth,
all night long,
looking for the mysterious seed.
At the break of dawn,
the King found the farmers
fast asleep around a hole.
Curious, he peeped in
and cried out in amazement:
“Wake up, my worthy men –
the water-seed has sprouted!
There’s water in the hole!”
This is how the first well was created.