The Honest Woodcutter

A poor woodcutter, working along a riverbank, accidentally dropped his only axe into the deep water and sat down at the bank in despair, weeping over the loss of his one means of earning a living.

A river god, moved by his genuine grief, rose from the water carrying a golden axe and asked if this was the one he had lost. The honest woodcutter shook his head — it was not his. The god dove again and returned with a silver axe, and again the woodcutter said truthfully that it was not his either, however tempting it looked.

Finally, the god returned with the woodcutter's own plain, ordinary iron axe, and the woodcutter, relieved, confirmed it was indeed his. Impressed by such rare honesty, the river god gave him all three axes — gold, silver, and his own — as a reward. When a dishonest neighbor heard the story and tried the same trick, claiming a golden axe as his own when it wasn't, the god saw through the lie instantly and left him with nothing at all, not even the axe he'd actually lost.