Tales from silver lands

by Charles Joseph Finger

“Why do you complain?” asked the fox-faced one, who knew very well what was afoot.

“All day I cut and chop, and chop and cut, but at the end of the day little is the work that I have done, and my very children for whom I toil, and for whom my wife toils, do but grumble that I am not rich,” answered the poor fellow, who was indeed a very worthy man.

“Lucky for you, then, is it that you have seen me,” said fox-face. “For know that I have it in my power to grant you a wish. What then would you have?”

Hearing that, the woodcutter was thoughtful, for, in the manner of those who see a dream man, everything seemed right and proper. Still, while he had in his life wished for many things from day to day, when the time came to make a wish he had none ready. Then his eye fell on his ax and he said without thinking: “For one thing I wish that my ax was an ax so that when I cut a stick or anything, I would have two as big as the first one.”

To be sure, had he given thought he might have seen how foolish a wish was that, as both cat and fox-face knew. But he spoke as the wind blew. Then fox-face said some words which the woodcutter did not understand, and added: “Try now your ax.”

So the man took a stick about the size of a man’s arm and brought down his ax in the middle of it, and lo, there were two sticks, each the size of a man’s arm, instead of two pieces each the half of that. The man looked up, open-mouthed and surprised, to say something, but fox-face had vanished, for the cat had wakened and so her dream ceased.

But greatly amazed was the man, for, as he soon saw, all his chopping was of no account, for a tree cut down became at once two trees and one of those trees cut in halves became two trees again. As for cutting smaller wood, that, too, soon became impossible, seeing that each stick grew to two sticks, so that soon he had to cease work because of the wood all about him. Worse still, as he went to the place where he lived, there came across his path a poisonous serpent, and forgetting for a moment the power of his ax he cut the snake in two, and there, hissing before him, were two snakes. So he fled to his people and told them the tale, at which they wondered greatly. But to make sure that the ax would do no mischief, and in truth somewhat fearing it, they hung it in a tree, and each man told his son the story of it, so that all might come to know it as a thing best left alone.

II

Now in the course of time there came to that place a very wise man who had seen many wonders. It had come to his ears that the cat was a creature of darkness, teaching harmless things evil tricks, but of the fox-faced man he knew nothing. The cat only, he considered. So the wise man walked the mountains for many days, and one day when the sky was low and it was a day of rain, an unpleasant day for the cat, he came upon the evil-minded creature hurrying somewhere.

“Why in so great a hurry?” asked the wise man. “Sit awhile with me and talk.”