He cleared his throat slightly and began. "Once, in a little farming village, there lived a man named Tothor," he began. "Though Tothor was hard-working and generally well thought of, he was regarded as a simple man with a simple mind. A man with no great ambition or ability beyond working his farm."
"Now, every harvest season, the villagers dreaded the inevitable plague of ravenous forest rats. Though they stood guard night and day, they could not keep the nimble vermin from their crops. When eventually it was hard-working Tothor's turn to keep watch, however, he did the unthinkable; he removed the fences from around his own well-tended field of beans, and even put out pails of fresh water."
"When the other villagers saw his ravaged field in the morning, they mocked him for his fool-headed actions, but their derisive laughter lasted only until the rats appeared. Sluggish and drowsey from their feast of beans, the bewhiskered pests were easily caught. Thus was the diligent Tothor praised for his sacrifice on behalf of the village and later raised up as a saint blessed of the goddess Nophica."
"Though mocked for his supposed lack of intelligence, Tother proved to be far cleverer than any had expected," he said. "And his solution- and the willingness to see it through- proved to be just what was required. Which goes to show that, as my mother was fond of saying, a sharp mind can often solve far more problems than a sharp blade. And unlike a blade, a mind only gets sharper the more it's used."
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chiming
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Date: 2025-05-31 10:09 am (UTC)From:"Now, every harvest season, the villagers dreaded the inevitable plague of ravenous forest rats. Though they stood guard night and day, they could not keep the nimble vermin from their crops. When eventually it was hard-working Tothor's turn to keep watch, however, he did the unthinkable; he removed the fences from around his own well-tended field of beans, and even put out pails of fresh water."
"When the other villagers saw his ravaged field in the morning, they mocked him for his fool-headed actions, but their derisive laughter lasted only until the rats appeared. Sluggish and drowsey from their feast of beans, the bewhiskered pests were easily caught. Thus was the diligent Tothor praised for his sacrifice on behalf of the village and later raised up as a saint blessed of the goddess Nophica."
"Though mocked for his supposed lack of intelligence, Tother proved to be far cleverer than any had expected," he said. "And his solution- and the willingness to see it through- proved to be just what was required. Which goes to show that, as my mother was fond of saying, a sharp mind can often solve far more problems than a sharp blade. And unlike a blade, a mind only gets sharper the more it's used."