Cock-and-Bull

3. A PAIR OF SWALLOWS

      “Enacted misery leads towards the real one.”

Once there was a poor blacksmith. Loharu was his name. He lived in a village, posited near a jungle. Loharu was living from hand to mouth. He had a large family of nine children. They have not their own house rather they were living in the house of a landlord. Loharu used to work from dawn to dusk but earn very little money. One day the landlord, suddenly, asked Loharu to leave his house. Loharu became tense and helpless. He didn’t know what to do, where to go and live with a large family. The landlord was too much greedy, selfish and proud. Loharu, time and again, asked him to take pity on them but in vain.

In the evening, the distressed and destitude family set out for jungle to reside there because it was the only place where no one can throw them out. It was getting dark then. The miserable Loharus took shelter under a large thick Peepal (a tree). Loharu and his wife were anxious enough about their condition. The children began to weep bitterly and queched of hunger. Loharu couldn’t do anything except of yelling at them. But the chidren kept on yawping.

After a while, lying on the ground, Loharu, abruptly, glared at the peak of Peepal tree. He found a pair of fleshy swallows. He asked his sons to collect woods to raise fire and took the direction of swallows with his bow. As he was about to shot the swallows, they spoke out in human voice. They requested Loharu to leave them alive.

“Please, the kind man don’t kill us.” begged the swallows in human voice.

Loharu responded, “I couldn’t do so because my children are hungry and I have to feed them.”

“If you would let us alive, we would tell you about a treasure.” replied the swallows.

Loharu, at first, hesitated, ponder over for a while. Then agreed upon and began to dig out the soil around a tree pointed by the swallow. Loharu got the treasure and was too much grateful to the swallows and to the God as well. The swallows banished him to leak out the secret of treasure. Loharu and his family went back happily to the village.

Within a few days, Loharu built a huge villa containing all the commodities of world in it. Everyone was stunned. How was it possible?

The landlord was on the top of the list of astounded ones. He sent his wife to Loharu's mension to detect. Loharu's wife,  at first, restrained herself to tell the story. But the perpetual assertion of the Landlady forced her to spit it out. She told her the whole incident from beginning till end.

Landlady came back with a beaming face and thrilled heart and told the miracle of jungle in detail to her husband.

In the evening, the greedy family of Landlord was on their way to the jungle to rework the history of Loharu's luck. They enacted like Loharu's family and dug out a tree referred by the swallows. But the result was quite contrary to the former. They found a huge black dragon who rushed to swallow them. The landlord escaped along with his family but they were so much frightened that they didnt show greed for money in future.

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