There once lived a woodcutter who was so poor he couldn’t enjoy life at all; he thought he was by nature a most unlucky fellow.
One day, at work in the woods, he was moaning away, as usual, when Jupiter, king of the gods, appeared unexpectedly, thunderbolt in hand. The woodcutter was very frightened and threw himself on the ground, apologizing profusely for ever having complained about anything at all.
‘Don’t be scared,’ said Jupiter. ‘I’m deeply touched by your misfortunes. Listen. I am the king of the gods and the master of the world. I’m going to grant you three wishes. Anything you want, anything at all, whatever will make you happy – all you have to do is wish for it. But think very carefully before you make your wishes, because they’re the only ones you’ll ever get.’
At that, Jupiter went noisily back to heaven and the woodcutter picked up his bundle of sticks and trudged home, light at heart. ‘I mustn’t wish for anything silly,’ he said to himself. ‘Must talk it all over with the wife before I make a decision.’
When he reached his cottage, he told his wife, Fanchon, to pile more wood on the fire.
‘We’re going to be rich!’ he said. ‘All we’ve got to do is to make three wishes.’
He told her what had happened to him and she was dazzled at the prospects that opened up before her. But she thought they should plan their wishes very carefully.
‘Blaise, my dear, don’t let’s spoil everything by being too hasty. Let’s talk things over, and put off making our first wish until tomorrow, after we’ve had a good night’s sleep.’
‘Quite right,’ said Blaise, her husband. ‘But let’s celebrate; let’s have a glass of wine.’
She drew some wine from the barrel and he rested his bones in his armchair beside a roaring fire, glass in hand, happier than he had ever been in his life.
‘My, oh, my,’ he said, half to himself. ‘I know just what would go down well on a night like this; a nice piece of black pudding. Why, I wish I had a piece of black pudding right now!’
No sooner had he spoken these fateful words than Fanchon beheld an enormous black pudding make an unexpected appearance in the chimney corner and come crawling towards her like a snake. First, she screamed; then, when she realized that the black pudding had arrived solely because her stupid husband had made a careless wish, she called him every name under the sun and heaped abuse on his head.
‘We could have had an entire empire of our own! Gold and pearls and diamonds and nice clothes, any amount of them – and what do you go and wish for? What’s your heart’s desire – why, a bit of black pudding!’
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘What else can I say? I admit it, I’ve done something very foolish. I’ll do better, next time. Haven’t I said I’m sorry?’
‘Words, words, words,’ said the woodcutter’s wife. ‘Why don’t you go and sleep in the stable; it’s the best place for an ass like you.’
Her husband lost his temper completely at that and thought how much he’d like to wish to be a widower; but he didn’t quite dare say it aloud.
‘Men were born to suffer! To hell with the black pudding! I wish that black pudding were hanging from the end of your nose!’
Now, Fanchon was a very pretty woman and nobody would have said her looks were improved by the black pudding but it hung over her mouth and muffled her nagging and, for a single, happy moment, her husband felt he could wish for nothing more.
‘After these disasters,’ he announced, ‘we must be more prudent. I think I shall use my last remaining wish to make myself a king.’
But, all the same, he had to take the queen’s feelings into account; how would she like to be a queen and sit on a throne when she had a nose as long as a donkey’s? And, because only one wish was left, that was the choice before them – either King Blaise had for his consort the ugliest queen in the world; or they used the wish to get rid of the pudding and Blaise the woodcutter had his pretty wife again.
Fanchon, however, thought there was no choice at all. She wanted her nose in its original condition. Nothing more.
So the woodcutter stayed in his cottage and went out to saw logs every day. He did not become a king; he did not even fill his pockets with money. He was only too glad to use the last wish to make things as they had been again.
Greedy, short-sighted, careless, thoughtless, changeable people don’t know how to make sensible decisions; and few of us are capable of using well the gifts God gave us, anyway.