Story of the Foolish Villagers who cut down the palm-trees.
Some foolish villagers were summoned by the king’s officers, and set to work to gather some dates in accordance with an order from the king’s court.[7] They, perceiving that it was very easy to gather the dates of one date-palm that had tumbled down of itself, cut down all the date-palms in their village. And after they had laid them low, they gathered from them their whole crop of dates, and then they raised them up and planted them again, but they did not succeed in making them grow. And then, when they brought the dates, they were not rewarded, but on the contrary punished with a fine by the king, who had heard of the cutting down of the trees.[8]
“I have told you this joke about the dates, now I am going to tell you about the looking for treasure.”