The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean

In a village lived a poor old woman, who had gathered together a dish of beans and wanted to cook them. She made a fire in her fireplace, lighting it with a handful of straw so that it would burn more quickly. When she was emptying the beans into the pan, one dropped without her observing it. It lay on the ground beside a straw, and soon afterwards a burning coal from the fire leapt down to the two.

The coal replied: 'I fortunately sprang out of the fire. If I had not escaped by sheer force, my death would have been certain — I should have been burnt to ashes.' The bean said: 'I too have escaped with a whole skin, but if the old woman had got me into the pan, I should have been made into broth without any mercy, like my comrades.'