Last night I was reading Aesop’s Fables to my four year old boy, Little Star.

His favorite story is Hermes and the Woodsman.

The story goes like this:

A woodsman had been laboring long and hard, chopping down trees. He grew tired from his work, and his axe slipped out of his hand and fell into the Lake.

Hermes showed up, and being helpful to mankind, he dove into the lake looking for the axe. He came to the surface and showed the Woodsman an axe made of Gold. The woodsman said it was not his axe. Hermes dove under the water again and came up with an axe made of Silver. The Woodsman shook his head sadly, and told Hermes that his axe had a handle made of plain old wood.

Hermes dove a third time and came up with the Woodman’s axe. He told the Woodsman that he admired his honesty, and as a reward could have all three axes…the axe made of Gold, the axe made of Silver, and the Woodmans own axe made of wood.

The Woodsman went back to his village, telling of his good fortune, and some others decided that they would get axes of gold. They threw their wooden axes into the lake, and Hermes showed up with the axe of Gold. These men eagerly proclaimed that the golden axe was theirs…and Hermes promptly thwacked them on the head with it, and sent them home to their village.

I asked Little Star what the moral to the story was…and this was his response:

“Hermes doesn’t like liarheads.”

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Tags: Ethics