Once upon a time there lived a hunter. His house stood in the middle of the forest. There he lived with his family. Every day he went hunting and brought all the catch to his family. He also sowed rice, millet and maize, but still lived mostly by hunting.
The hunter had a crow - it fed from him. Early in the morning the crow flew away and returned home only at night. She spent the whole day in the courtyard of the god Brahma. There was a big tree at the gate. A crow sits on a tree and listens to what Brahma has to say. In the evening at home, she recounted to the hunter everything that she had heard during the day, and he did not yawn and turned it to his advantage. That is why he lived with his family in contentment and happiness.
And this is what happened one day. A crow sits on a tree and hears Brahma's scribe writing and saying:
“Now there will be no more rain, and there will be a great famine.” Only in the mountains will it rain.
This is the important news the crow learned.
The crow quickly flew to the hunter and said:
“Brahma just ordered it to be written down that it would rain only in the mountains.” Grind up and dig up a field for yourself high in the mountains - and everything will be fine. There you will grow rice, but in other places there will be crop failure.
The hunter listened to the crow and went to clear a field for himself in the mountains. When it was time to sow, his field was already dug up and fertilized. He sowed this field with rice. Plenty of rain fell in the mountains, but not a drop fell in other places.
The crow kept flying and flying to Brahma's yard. And then the news reached Brahma that the hunter’s field had turned green. He says to his scribe:
– Today let there be an unprecedented famine. If a field somewhere turns green, a hundred thousand beetles and worms must be sent there. Let them reduce the entire harvest to the roots. There will be a great famine.
The crow heard about this, hurried home and told the hunter. The hunter was alarmed, and the crow said to him:
- There will be one hundred thousand beetles and worms. Call two hundred thousand sparrows and starlings and you will save the harvest.
So the hunter did. Two hundred thousand sparrows and starlings flew to his call. Their winged army surrounded the field on all sides. As soon as the beetles had time to fly in and the worms crawled in to destroy the harvest, the birds rushed at them and pecked them all. But the field was still green.
The hunter's rice is ripe. It's time to clean it up. The harvest turned out to be a success. Brahma found out about this too.
“Today, no one will escape hunger,” he says to the scribe. “Let no more than a measure of grain be threshed from each stack.”
The crow heard this and flew home.
“Do not put all the rice in one stack,” she told the hunter. “Brahma says: “From each stack they will grind only one measure of grain.”
The hunter obeyed. He squeezed the rice and folded it into small piles. There were a lot of them - there were coins all over the threshing floor. Whoever passes by laughs:
- Look! The hunter went crazy: he scattered his rice into small piles.
And the crow again flew into the yard to Brahma. And then she hears Brahma say to the scribe:
- The famine today will be the most severe. One hundred thousand mice must be sent to the rice that has already been harvested and stacked. Let them devour everything down to the grain.
The crow flew home and told the hunter:
“Tomorrow at dawn a hundred thousand mice will fall from the sky onto your field.” Call two hundred thousand cats, then your rice will remain intact.
The hunter obeyed. The next morning two hundred thousand cats gathered around the threshing floor. They sharpened their claws and meowed loudly. As soon as the mice landed on the ground, two cats rushed at each one at once. Before the hunter could blink an eye, not a trace of the mice remained. Again Brahma failed to destroy the harvest.
Brahma found out that all his mice had disappeared to no avail, and thinks: “I commanded a great famine, but at least the hunter will have nothing!”
“Take paper and write,” he says to the scribe. “If someone, before starting to thresh, does not plant a sheaf of rice on the stakes around the threshing floor, he will receive little grain.” And if after threshing he does not throw a cow dung on the pile of grain, all the grain will be lost.
The crow heard this too. She flew home and told the news to the hunter. So he did as Brahma ordered: he planted a sheaf on each stake. His initiative was good. The hunter threshed all his rice, winnowed it, raked the grain into a pile and threw a cow pat on top. He made a lot of rice, measuring every penny. That year the hunter's house was full of bread, but Brahma's command did not come true.
It turns out that through diligence and labor one can achieve the machinations of fate.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru