A king had two sons. As he grew older, he wanted to pass on the kingdom to one of these two sons and make him his heir. He assembled all the wise men and women of the land, and called his two sons to present themselves. He gave each of them five pieces of silver and told them: ‘By evening, I want you to have filled up this whole hall. What you fill it up with is up to you. You can use the silver pieces if you have to.’
And the wise folk said, ‘This is a great task.’
The older son went off, and came to a field where the farm laborers were harvesting sugar beet, and putting it through a press. The remainder, after pressing, was discarded. So the older son made an arrangement with the foreman of the laborers, to take all the discarded sugar beet and fill up the hall with it. When the task was complete, he gave the foreman the five pieces of silver, and told his father that the task was done. There would be no need for his younger brother to try. He had filled the hall. But his father replied, ‘There is still time. We will wait.’
The younger son came back, and asked for the sugar beet remains to be moved out of the hall again. He had nothing in his hands but a candle. When the hall was completely empty once more, he carried the candle into the middle of the hall and lit it. Immediately, the whole hall was filled with light. Light streamed into every remote corner.
And the king said to the younger son, ‘You shall be my heir. Your brother has spent five pieces of silver to fill up the hall with useless rubbish. You haven’t used even a single piece of silver, yet you have filled the hall with light. You have filled it with the very thing that our people need above all else.’
No comments:
Post a Comment