Reading Task 3

MERCURY AND THE WOODMAN Aesop for Children A poor woodman was cutting down a tree near the edge of a deep pool in the forest. It was late in the day and the woodman was tired. He had been working since sunrise and the strokes of his axe were not so sure as they had been early that morning. As he began to grow even more tired, thus it happened that the axe slipped and flew out of his hands into the pool. “Oh no!” the woodman cried. He couldn’t believe what had happened. Since it was made of wood, it was the end of the axe.
The woodman was in despair. The axe was all he possessed with which to make a living, and he did not have enough money to buy a new one. As he stood wringing his hands and weeping, the god Mercury suddenly appeared and asked what the trouble was. The woodman told him what had happened to his axe, and straightway the kind god Mercury dived into the pool. When he came up again he held a wonderful golden axe. “Wow!” said the woodman. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was the most incredible axe he had ever seen! “Is this your axe?” Mercury asked the woodman. “No,” answered the honest woodman, “that is not my axe.” Mercury laid the golden axe on the bank of the river and sprang back into the pool. This time he brought up an axe of silver, but the woodman declared again that it was not his own axe since his axe was just an ordinary one with a wooden handle.
Mercury dived down for the third time, and when he came up again he had the very axe that had been lost. The poor woodman was very glad that his axe had been found and could not thank the kind god enough. Mercury was greatly pleased with the woodman’s honesty. “I admire your honesty,” he said, “and as a reward you may have all three axes, the gold and the silver as well as your own.” The happy woodman returned to his home with his treasures, and soon everybody in the village knew the story of his good fortune. As they heard the story of the honest woodman, there were now several woodmen in the village who believed that they could easily win the same good fortune. They hurried out into the woods and hid their axes in the bushes. They pretended they had lost their axes. Then, they wept and wailed and called on Mercury to help them. “Oh Mercury!” they cried. “I have lost my axe in the woods and it’s nowhere to be found! Please help me. I’m just a poor old woodman!” And indeed, Mercury did appear, first to this one, then to that. To each one he showed an axe of gold, and each one eagerly claimed it to be the one he had lost. But Mercury did not give them the golden axe. Oh no! He knew what they were up to. Instead he gave each of them a hard whack on the head and sent them home. And when they returned next day to look for their own axes, they were nowhere to be found. Honesty is the best policy.

If the reader of this passage wanted to learn more about making axes, which key words should they enter into a computer search engine?