A poor Woodman was cutting down a tree
near the edge of a deep pool in the forest.
He had been working since sunrise
and his strokes were not so sure
as they had been early that morning.
Thus it happened that the axe slipped
and flew out of his hands into the pool.
The axe was all he possessed with which to make a living,
and he he didn’t have enough money to buy a new one.
As he stood wringing his hands and weeping,
the god Mercury suddenly appeared
and asked what the trouble was.
The Woodman told him what had happened,
and straightway the kind Mercury dived into the pool.
he held a wonderful golden axe.
"No," answered the honest Woodman,
Mercury laid the golden axe on the bank
and sprang back into the pool.
This time he brought up an axe of silver,
but the Woodman declared again
that his axe was just an ordinary one
Mercury dived down for the third time,
he had the very axe that had been lost.
The poor Woodman was very glad
that his axe had been found and could not
Mercury was greatly pleased with the Woodman's honesty.
"I admire your honesty," he said,
"and as a reward you may have all three axes,
the gold and the silver as well as your own."
The happy Woodman returned to his home with his treasures,
and soon the story of his good fortune
was known to everybody in the village.
Now there were several Woodmen in the village who believed
that they could easily win the same good fortune.
They hurried out into the woods,
and hiding their axes in the bushes,
and called on Mercury to help them.
And indeed, Mercury did appear,
To each one he showed an axe of gold,
and each one eagerly claimed it to be the one he had lost.
But Mercury did not give them the golden axe.
Instead he gave them each a hard whack over the head with it