Somehow rumors reached Shilda that there would soon be a war. Fearing for their property, the Schildburgers first of all thought about the bells on the town hall - as if they would not be removed in order to pour them into the cannons. They convened a council and, sooner or later, decided to drown the bells in the lake, and when the war was over, raise them again from the bottom of the lake and hang them in the town hall.
They loaded the bells onto a large boat, drove out to the very middle of the lake and were about to push them into the water, but then one Schildburger shouted:
- Stop, brothers! How will we find this place when we have to get the bells again?
- I would like your worries! - answered the mayor. He stood up and made a notch on the side of the boat. “That’s where I made the notch, that’s where we’ll find them.”
The Schildburgers were delighted with the resourcefulness of their heads, pushed the bells into the water and swam to the shore.
And a year later, when the trouble was over, they again boarded the same boat and sailed to raise the bells from the bottom. And they found a notch on the side of the boat, but they could not find the bells, even though they poked the whole lake with poles.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru