The Straw, the Coal and the Bean

In a village there lived a poor old woman. One day she wanted to cook a dish of beans. She lit a fire in her stove, and to make it burn quickly she put in a handful of straw. As she was pouring the beans into the pot, one of them dropped to the floor without her noticing and rolled up beside a straw. Soon afterwards a glowing coal jumped out of the stove and landed next to the two of them.

The straw began to speak: "Dear friends, where have you come from?" The coal answered: "I was lucky enough to jump out of the fire. If I hadn't escaped by force, my death would have been certain; I'd have been burned to ashes." The bean said: "I barely saved my skin too. If the old woman had put me into the pot, I'd have been cooked to mush like my friends." "Is my fate any better?" said the straw. "The old woman sent all my brothers up in fire and smoke. She grabbed a whole handful of straw at once. I slipped through her fingers."

"So what shall we do now?" asked the coal. "I think," said the bean, "that since we've been lucky enough to escape death, we should live together as good friends. And so that no new misfortune befalls us here, let's set off together and travel to a foreign land." The others liked this idea, and they set off together.

Soon they came to a little stream. There was no bridge and no plank to cross it. They did not know how to get across. The straw had a good idea: "I'll lay myself across, and you can walk over me as if I were a bridge." The straw stretched itself from one bank to the other. The coal, who had a fiery nature, boldly stepped onto the newly built bridge.

But when it reached the middle and heard the water rushing below, it was afraid, stopped, and did not dare to go any further. The straw began to burn from the heat of the coal, broke in two and fell into the stream. The coal slid in after it, hissed and went out.

The bean, which had cautiously stayed behind on the bank, could not help laughing at what had happened. It laughed and laughed so hard and so long that in the end it burst! If, by good luck, a tailor who was out on his travels had not been resting nearby, the bean would have been done for. The kind-hearted tailor took out his needle and thread and sewed the bean back together.

The bean thanked him very much. But the tailor had used black thread, and ever since then every bean has had a black seam down its middle. If you look at a bean in the kitchen, you'll see that seam too.

This little story tells us something while it makes us laugh: when something happens to a friend, we should help instead of laughing. And also: standing frozen with fear in the middle of a stream is more dangerous than going on or turning back.