Too Good to be True

I am just catching up on a backlog of reading and came across this epic story.................................

There was once a King who possessed a vast fortune in silver.

No previous ruler of the kingdom had amassed as much.

As always with great wealth comes a fear that it will be stolen or otherwise diminished and so the King commissioned construction of a huge square shaped stone walled vault with one side forming part of the external wall of his stronghold palace.

The builder was envious of the wealth of the King and so ingeniously, but deviously, constructed the external face of the wall in such a way that one of the large blocks could be easily removed by a couple of men as and when required.

The new Treasury Building appeared impregnable in its design and materials and the King was happy to deposit his silver hoards in it.

Only after many years had elapsed the builder, when on his death bed, called in his two sons and told them about the means by which the building could be entered. His intention all along had been to provide for his sons that they might live in affluence for the rest of their lives, especially if they went about the theft of the silver carefully.

Armed with the precise location and instructions for the removeable stone the two sons fulfilled the bequest of their father, now passed, and after easily sliding out the stone block they got away with a good haul of the contents of the Treasure House.

The King on his usual inspection was surprised to see that the level of coins in some of the storage vessels was lower than before but as the door seals had showed no signs of entry of tampering he could not explain why that was the case.

The two thieves made repeated forays in the same manner and again the king found his resources lacking but with no obvious explanation.

He nevertheless ordered that traps be laid near the money jars.

On the next occasion of a raid by the brothers through their privileged route one of them became snagged in a trap. Realising the peril of his situation the unfortunate brother begged the other to cut off his head so that identification would not cause certain death for both of them. This he did and left through the hole in the wall, closing it up, and taking the severed head with him.

The subsequent discovery of a headless body by the King gave no closure to the crime as there was still no damage to the building from a forced entry or apparent escape. The body was removed and hung on the wall with instructions for the Palace Guards to arrest anyone displaying any tears or signs of mourning at this gruesome sight.

A mothers grief could not be denied and she gave her surviving son an ultimatum. Either he brought the body back in the name of decency or she would personally inform on him to the King.

After delaying tactics and motherly pressure the young man hatched a plan.

He filled some skins with wine and loading them onto a small convoy of donkeys made for the Palace. Whilst the soldiers looked on the brother contrived a scene of panic by inciting the donkeys to break loose, feigning a head injury induced confusion and in the melee two or three of the wine skins intentionally burst spilling their contents out in a steady stream. The soldiers ran forward from their post under the headless corpse to catch the wine in their pots and helmets.

The young man eventually gained control of the cavorting mules and going along with the jollity of the soldiers from their attempts to help to salvage the load it was not long before all participants were enjoying the contents of more than one or two of the wine skins together.

Such an abundance of wine proved too much for the troops and they were soon drowsy and inattentive.

This gave an opportunity for the body to be removed and returned for a proper burial.

The King was furious at the theft of the body and set about trying to find out who the miscreant had been. Such was his desire to seek the clever trickster that he ordered his own daughter to work in a brothel so that after having plied her trade she could compel the clients to tell her what was the cleverest and wickedest thing that they had ever done. If the story tallied with the previous incident then she was to physically hold onto him to allow formal capture.

Our man, upon learning from local gossip that this was the intended means of entrapment could not resist the temptation to try to outwit the King for a third time.

He attended at the brothel and sure enough had his way and then in answer to the question spilled out the full tale of the robbery and rescue of the body right from under the nose of the King.

Unbeknown to the working princess, between the act and confession the brother had inserted into the sleeve of his tunic the hand and arm of a dead person and so when she made the grab for capture she got a huge surprise.

He simply slipped away leaving the gruesome limb in his place.

As with many tales of cleverness and audacity this final exploit astonished the King and out of admiration for being so skillfully and persistently thwarted he offered a free pardon and rewards should the perpetrator identify himself.

This came to pass and the sole brother trusted the King's offer and was soon wed to the princess and widely acclaimed across the land as the most intelligent thief in all of mankind.


The story appears in the history of Egypt as told by Herodotus in the fifth century B.C.