Once, so runs the legend, there lived in far Judean hills two affectionate brothers, tilling a common field together. One had a wife and a houseful of children; the other was a lonely man. One night in the harvest time the older brother said to his wife: “My brother is a lonely man. I will go out and move some of the sheaves from my side of the field over on his, so that when he sees them in the morning his heart will be cheered by the abundance.” And he did.
That same night the other brother said to his workmen: “My brother has a houseful and many mouths to fill. I am alone, and do not need all this wealth. I will go and move some of my sheaves over on his field, so that he shall rejoice in the morning when he sees how great is his store.” And he did. They did it that night and the next, in the sheltering dark. But on the third night the moon came out as they met face to face, each with his arms filled with sheaves. On that spot, says the legend, was built the Temple of Jerusalem, for it was esteemed that there earth came nearest heaven.
THE STRAND FROM ABOVE
From the Danish of Johannes Jörgensen
The sun rose on a bright September morning. A thousand gems of dew sparkled in the meadows, and upon the breeze floated, in the wake of summer, the shining silken strands of which no man knoweth the whence or the whither.
One of them caught in the top of a tree, and the skipper, a little speckled yellow spider, quit his airship to survey the leafy demesne there. It was not to his liking, and, with prompt decision, he spun a new strand and let himself down straight into the hedge below.
There were twigs and shoots in plenty there to spin a web in, and he went to work at once, letting the strand from above, by which he had come, bear the upper corner of it.