In the past, there was a little village in the middle of the forest. The men of this town would hack down trees in the woods and sell them to keep food on the table. One of these men was the village’s most trustworthy woodcutter. He would never tell a falsehood or look at someone else’s stuff. The honest woodcutter went to the forest one day. He hid his axe under a tree and began looking for a tree to cut down. After finding an adequate tree he returned with his axe. However, he was unable to locate his axe, that he had abandoned previously.
He was looking for his axe anxiously but couldn’t find it. Then he got desperate and begin to cry. “What am I going to do now?” he asked, tears streaming down his face. Without my axe, how will I be able to cut wood and earn a living?” The woodcutter was noticed by a forest elf, who felt sorry for him. The elf dispatched a golden axe to the woodcutter right away. The honest woodcutter, on the other hand, did not accept the axe’s statement;
The narrator exclaims, “My axe wasn’t made of gold!” The elf presented the woodcutter with a silver axe.
The woodcutter refused to accept it, saying, “My axe was not made of silver!” This time, the forest elf delivered the woodcutter’s own axe. The woodcutter was ecstatic to see his own iron axe with a wooden handle. “Here’s my axe!” he said as he hefted his axe.
The forest elf was so pleased with the woodcutter’s honesty that he rewarded him with the other golden and silver axes as well.
The woodcutter returned to his hamlet, pleased with the gifts. He described what had transpired to the other woodcutters. The other woodcutters immediately hurried into the woods with their axes after seeing the gold and silver axes with their own eyes.
They began to scream like if they had also lost their axes in the woods. Each of them received a golden axe from the forest elf. The woodcutters all grabbed the golden axe and shouted when they saw it. “Here’s my axe!” exclaims the narrator.
The greed of the woodcutters enraged the forest elf. The golden axes reverted to iron axes with wooden grips all of a sudden.
Not only had that but the wooden handles of the axe begun to strike their owners in the head. The woodcutters began to flee and barely made it out alive.
They agreed not to be greedy in the future.