মউঅর খেতি বারো হিয়াল

In a certain country, there lived an old man.

He cultivated bees and harvested honey on his land.

Enclosing it with a beautiful fence, he carefully protected and arranged his beehives.

One morning, waking up early to inspect the honey, he entered inside the beehives.

Upon entering he was astonished to see that someone had chewed up the honeycombs and finished all the honey.

The fence was so sturdy and perfect that there was no way for even a fox or a mongoose to get inside.

With deep sorrow in his heart, the old man walked around the fence and suddenly spotted a hidden hole underneath it.

Before evening fell, he sharpened a cleaver well and hid waiting behind a bush near that hole.

As the night deepened, a clever fox was seen quietly arriving and entering the sugarcane field through that hole.

After eating his fill of honey, as the fox was exiting through the hole, the old farmer suddenly struck with his cleaver, and the blow landed directly on the fox's tail, chopping it off cleanly from the base.

Screaming in agony, the tailless fox ran away into the safety of the forest.

As he was jumping and thrashing around the forest due to the intense burning of his wound, the other foxes curiously asked, 'Brother, why are you jumping so much? What happened to you?'

What's the point of saying anything else, I'm jumping in joy.

He said, 'Brothers, you cannot imagine how light and comfortable my body feels after getting rid of that heavy tail!

Believing his words, the rest of the foxes said, 'Is that so? Then why should we carry this heavy load for nothing? We too want to feel comfortable like you.'

The tailless fox then replied, 'Tomorrow morning, all of you line up and hide along the narrow path through the field at the edge of the forest.'

An old barber will walk along that path carrying his razor and tools.'

Surround him altogether and request him to chop off your tails as well.'

According to the plan, the entire pack of foxes gathered and lay in ambush along the narrow path through the field.

After a while, the old barber came walking down the path with his pouch of razors on his shoulder.

The moment he reached that designated spot in the middle of the woods, all the foxes surrounded him from all sides.

The old barber was terrified and asked, 'Why have you trapped me like this?'

The foxes chorused, 'Today you must chop off all our tails cleanly from the base!'

The old barber trembled in fear and said, 'No brothers, I am deeply afraid, I cannot perform this task, please do not harm me.'

Hearing his pleas, the foxes promised him that they would cause him no harm.

As the barber fearfully drew out his sharp razor, a commotion broke out among the foxes, with everyone shouting—'Do mine first, do mine first!'

The barber then went down the line and chopped off the tails of all the foxes one by one.

Unable to bear the burning agony after the mutilation, the foxes set out to hunt down the first tailless fox.

Upon finding him, everyone angrily spoke of killing him, but the wisest among them said, 'We can kill him later, first let us find out the truth.'

He asked, 'Brother, what did you use to cut your tail?'

Hearing that it was cut with a razor, he said, 'If you had cut your tail with a cleaver, it wouldn't have caused such pain!' Saying this, he fled through the forest.