The foolish monkeys

In a forest, there lived a group of foolish monkeys. One night, the weather was so cold and freezing. They started shivering. Then one of the monkeys said, “We need some fire to keep us warm.”

Then they saw a firefly flying around them. They thought it was fire. They caught the fly and put it under some dry leaves and sticks. They started to blow at it as they thought it would catch fire. All monkeys started blowing at it.

A clever sparrow was seeing all these foolishness. He asked the monkeys to stop this and take shelter under some cave. But the foolish monkeys didn’t listen to the sparrow. The monkeys continued blowing the firefly and waited for the fire.

They got tired after sometime and they took shelter under a cave as said by the sparrow.

Moral :: The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who listens to counsel is wise.

Honesty is rewarded

A Folk tale from Japan

Once upon a time, in a Japanese village, there lived two men, who were neighbors. One was very honest, always speaks truth and everyone loved him. The other man was wicked. He was jealous of other’s happiness.

 One day, the honest man told the villagers, “I saw a dream that I will get luck from the sky.”
Hearing this, the wicked said, “I also had a dream that I will get good luck from the earth.”
Next day, while working in his field, the honest man found something solid buried in the earth. It was a box. He opened it and was surprised to see that it was full of gold.

But he thought “My luck is from the sky. This may be the other man’s luck. Not mine.”

He gave the box to the wicked man. The wicked man was happy to have the box full of gold. But he didn’t open it until midnight.

When everyone slept, he opened the box and he was shocked to see that box was full of snakes. The man was angry that he thought the honest man had made him a fool. So he went to the honest man’s home and climbed up the chimney and emptied the box into the chimney.

The honest man and his wife woke up hearing the clinking noise of the coins. They saw a pile of gold coins coming through their chimney. He told his wife, “My dream come true. This is my luck from the sky.”

Next morning, he told the villagers about his luck. But the wicked man was surprised and thought “How the snakes turned into gold coins?”

Moral::  Honesty is the best policy (William Shakespeare)