The Poor Miller's Boy and the Cat

A dying miller left his mill to his eldest son, his donkey to his second son, and, having nothing else left, only his clever cat to his youngest, who felt understandably cheated by such an apparently worthless inheritance compared to his brothers' real property.

The cat, however, spoke to him and promised that if the young man provided him with a fine pair of boots and a sturdy sack, the cat's own cunning would prove far more valuable than any mill or donkey. Trusting the talking cat out of sheer desperation, the young man complied, and the cat set off on a series of clever schemes — catching game to present as gifts "from the Marquis," his invented title for the young man, currying favor with a nearby king through carefully staged flattery and manufactured reputation.

Through a final, bold trick — convincing a wicked ogre to transform himself into a mouse, which the cat promptly ate, then claiming the ogre's castle and lands as the young man's own ancestral estate — the clever cat secured his master both a fortune and eventually the hand of the king's own daughter, proving that a single loyal, clever ally could accomplish far more than any inherited property ever could on its own.