The Wicked Wizard Punished
: MORAL TALES.: Aino Folktales
One day a wizard told a man whom he knew that, if any one were to climb
a certain mountain-peak and jump off on to the belt of clouds below, he
would be able to ride about on them as on a horse, and see the whole
world. Trusting in this, the man did as the wizard had told him, and in
very truth was enabled to ride about on the clouds. He visited the whole
world in this fashion, and brought back a map which he had drawn of the
whole world both of men and of gods. On arriving back at the
mountain-peak in Aino-land, he stepped off the cloud on to the mountain,
and, descending to the valley, told the wizard how successful and
delightful the journey had been, and thanked him for the opportunity
kindly granted him of seeing sights so numerous and so strange.
The wizard was overcome with astonishment. For what he had told the
other man was a lie, a wicked lie invented with the sole intention of
causing his death; for he hated him. Nevertheless, seeing that what he
had simply meant for an idle tale was apparently an actual fact, he
decided to see the world himself in this easy fashion. So, ascending the
mountain-peak, and seeing a belt of clouds a short way below, he jumped
off on to it, but was instantly dashed to pieces in the valley below.
That night the god of the mountain appeared to the good man in a dream,
and said: "The wizard has met with the death which his fraud and folly
deserve. You I kept from hurt, because you are a good man. So when,
obedient to the wizard's advice, you leapt off on to the cloud, I bore
you up, and showed you the world in order to make you a wiser man. Let
all men learn from this how wickedness leads to condign
punishment!"--(Written down from memory. Told by Ishanashte, 21st July,
1886.)
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