The Well of the Forty Brothers

In a village lived forty brothers. The village had only one well. One summer a drought came; the streams dried up and the water in the well grew scarce. The forty brothers began to fight at the well: "Me first!" "My field is bigger!" "I'm the eldest!" Buckets were knocked over, and the water went to waste.

The youngest brother climbed onto the edge of the well, raised an empty bucket in the air and shouted: "Look!" Everyone fell silent. "This bucket is empty. While we were fighting, the water spilled on the ground. There are forty buckets of water left in the well. There are forty of us. If everyone takes one bucket, everyone drinks. If we fight, nobody drinks."

The eldest brother grumbled: "One bucket isn't enough." The youngest said, "It isn't. But if forty people carry forty buckets and dig the bottom of the well, the water will increase. One person can't dig. Forty can."

Silence. Then the eldest brother picked up a pickaxe. Then the middle ones. The forty brothers dug for three days. On the third day a new vein of water gushed from the bottom of the well; the well filled to the brim.

That summer nobody in the village went thirsty. They set up a stone by the well and wrote on it: "Water spilled by quarreling, a well filled by brotherhood."

When the youngest of the forty brothers grew up, he became the headman of the village. In every dispute he took the villagers to the well and showed them the stone.