The Wise Daughter In Law

Hello, everyone.

    Today I am going to tell you a folktale which was told to my aunts by my grandmother. My aunts then shared this story with me.

    It is a story of a very rich old man and his three sons and three daughters in law. Read on and find out what happened to them when they thoughtlessly used up all their wealth.

The Wise Daughter In Law

    Long long ago there was a very rich old man living in a village in India. He had three sons and they were all married. Now these people never gave a thought to their future. They just used money any way they wanted. They would buy expensive clothes and perfumes and jewelry. They had many servants to look after their house and children. They never lifted a finger. They always expected the servants to do everything for them. The old man always warned them not to misuse the wealth but nobody was ready to listen, that is, everybody except the youngest son’s wife.

    The youngest son’s wife came from a rather poor family. She knew the value of money and wealth. The other members of the family, except the old man. They laughed at her when she sided with him and called her old fashioned. They spent the money faster then they earned. Their wealth began to reduce, but they were so used to living in luxury that they started to borrow money from people. The debts began to grow. Finally there came a time when they could not pay the money back to their debtors. The debtors went to court and the court ordered their house and all their things to be auctioned to pay back the debtors. The debts were so big that their house and all the jewelry and everything in it were not enough to cover it all. They were told to leave their house with only the clothes they were wearing. As they were about leave the house the youngest daughter in law came forward and made a request to the auctioneer.

    “Please, Sir,” she said in her humblest voice, “can I just take this basket of cow dung? As you know it is a cold season and the children will need some warmth at night.”

    The auctioneer looked at her and saw her begging eyes and felt pity on her and decided to let her take the basket of cow dung with her. It was just cow dung. It was worthless.

    “Alright,” he said, “you can take the cow dung. I wouldn’t get anything for it anyway.”

    “Thank you, kind Sir,” she said, gratefully and placed the basket on her head.

    With that the whole family left not knowing where to go. Everybody was puzzled as to why the youngest daughter in law had asked to take cow dung with her but nobody said anything. Everybody was regretting the way they had lived. They wished they had listened to the old man.

    They walked on until they were out of the village. Now the youngest daughter in law told them to stop. Nobody could understand her odd behaviour. They all stopped wondering why she had done that. She put down her basket of cow dung. What did next blew everyone’s mind!

    She took up one cow dung cake and broke it into two halves. In the middle sat a very shining diamond!

    Everyone’s mouth dropped open! They couldn’t believe their eyes!   Seeing their bewilderment she laughed.

    “You see, Father always warned us not to spend money badly,” she said. “I knew that the day will come when we will have to leave the house. So whenever I got money, I went to a jeweler and got a diamond. When I heard that there was going to be an auction I gathered all the cow dung I could get and made cow dung cakes and in each of them I put a diamond. I knew they wouldn’t refuse to let me take the cow dung as it is a worthless thing.”

    Everyone was impressed by her intelligence. The old man felt really proud of her.

    “I am so proud of you, my Daughter,” he said, “because of you won’t go hungry and we will soon have a roof over our heads. I hope the rest of you have a learnt a lesson.”

    “We have, Father,” they all said in a small voice.

    Then they went to the next town and settled down there. From that day onwards everybody was careful with their money.