The Stone Lion
A Tibetan story, retold from the excellent collection of Captain O’Connor. Although a fairy-tale in form, it has the well marked purposive quality so characteristic of Eastern stories. Adapted from Folk-Tales from Tibet, by Captain W. P. O’Connor.
This story was voted to be the best story told during two years to a class of younger children at Bancroft School, Worcester. Twenty-two children whispered their votes to the story teller. Ten chose The Stone Lion, while no other story received more than four votes.
This story, by permission of authors and publishers, is taken from Story Telling in School and Home, by Emelyn Newcomb Partridge and George E. Partridge. Sturgis & Walton Company, New York.
Once there were two brothers who lived with their mother in a large house on a farm. Their father was dead. The older brother was clever and selfish; but the younger was kind and gentle. The older brother did not like the younger because he was honest, and never could get the best of a bargain; so one day he said to him:
“You must go away. I cannot support you any longer.”
So the younger brother packed all his belongings, and went to bid his mother good-bye. When she heard what the older brother had done, she said:
“I will go with you, my son. I will not live here any longer with so hard-hearted a man as your brother.”
The next morning the mother and the younger brother started out together. Toward night they came to a hut at the foot of a hill. It was empty except for an axe, which stood behind the door. But they managed to get their supper, and stayed in the hut all night.
In the morning they saw that on the side of the hill near the hut was a great forest. The son took the axe, and went up on the hill side and chopped enough wood for a load to carry to the town on the other side of the hill. He easily sold it, and with a happy heart brought back food and some clothing to make them both comfortable.
“Now, mother,” he said, “I can earn enough to keep us both, and we shall be happy here together.”
Day after day he went out and cut the wood, and at night carried it to the village and sold it; and they always had plenty to eat and what they needed to make them happy and comfortable.
One day the boy went further up the hill than he had ever gone before in search of better timber. As he climbed up the steep hillside, he suddenly came upon a lion carved from stone.
“O!” thought the boy, “this must be the guardian deity of this mountain. I will make him some offering tomorrow.”
That night he bought two candles, and carried them to the lion. He lighted them and put one on each side of the lion, praying that his own good fortune might continue.
As he stood there, suddenly the lion opened his great stone mouth, and said:
“What are you doing here?”
The boy told him all the story of his hard-hearted brother, and how he and his mother had left home, and were living in the hut at the foot of the hill.
When he had heard all of the story, the lion said:
“If you will bring a bucket here tomorrow, and put it under my mouth, I will fill it with gold for you.”
The next day the boy brought the bucket and put it under the lion’s mouth.
“You must be very careful to tell me when it is nearly full,” said the lion, “for if even one piece of gold should fall to the ground, great trouble would be in store for you.”
The boy was very careful to do exactly as the lion told him, and soon he was on his way home to his mother with a bucketful of gold.
They were so rich now that they bought a great, beautiful farm, and went there to live. Everything the boy undertook seemed to prosper. He worked hard, and grew strong; and before many years had passed he was old enough to marry, and bring a bride to the home. But the mother still lived with them, and they were all very contented and happy.
At last the hard-hearted brother heard of their prosperity. He too had married, and had a little son. So he took his wife and the little boy, and went to pay his younger brother a visit. It was not long before he had heard the whole story of their good fortune, and how the lion had given them all the gold.
“I will try that, too,” he said.
So he took his wife and child and went to the very same hut his brother had lived in, and there they passed the night.
The very next morning he started out with a bucket to visit the Stone Lion.
When he had told the lion his errand, the lion said:
“I will do that for you, but you must be very careful to tell me when the bucket is nearly full; for even if one little piece of gold touches the ground, great misery will surely fall upon you.”
Now the elder brother was so greedy that he kept shaking the bucket to get the gold pieces closer together. And when the bucket was nearly full he did not tell the lion, as the younger brother had done, for he wanted all he could get.
Suddenly one of the gold pieces fell upon the ground.
“O,” cried the lion, “a big piece of gold is stuck in my throat. Put your hand in and get it out. It is the largest piece of all.”
The greedy man thrust his hand at once into the lion’s mouth—and the lion snapped his jaws together.
And there the man stayed, for the Lion would not let him go. And the gold in the bucket turned into earth and stones.
When night came, and the husband did not come home, the wife became anxious, and went out to search for him. At last she found him, with his arm held fast in the lion’s mouth. He was tired, cold and hungry. She comforted him as best she could, and brought him some food.
Every day now the wife must go with food for her husband. But there came a day when all the money was gone, and the baby was sick, and the poor woman herself was too ill to work. She went to her husband and said:
“There is no more food for you, nor for us. We shall all have to die. O! if we had only not tried to get the gold.”
The lion was listening to all that was said, and he was so pleased at their misfortune that he began laughing at them. And as he laughed, he opened his mouth, and the greedy man quickly drew out his hand, before the lion had a chance to close his jaws again!
They were glad enough to get away from the place where they had had such ill luck, and so they went to the brother’s house once more. The brother was sorry for them, and gave them enough money to buy a small place, and there the hard-hearted brother took his family and lived.
The younger brother and his wife and his mother lived very happily in their beautiful home, but they always remembered the Stone Lion on the hillside, who gave them their good fortune.