The parable of the plough

Let me tell you the parable of the plough, as related to me by a wandering preacher in the high country, long ago.

A wandering preacher came upon a farmer. The land was fertile, but the farmer was thin and his family was thin.

‘Why are you so thin?’ the preacher asked. ‘Surely the land here is rich? You, your family and your horses should eat well.’

‘It’s my plough’ the farmer said. ‘It is a very bad plough: it’s enormously heavy, it’s really blunt, it doesn’t have proper attachments for the horses to pull it and anyway it’s too heavy for them. Also the horses don’t like to work. And they bite, you wouldn’t believe how they bite. The other day they ate two of my children!’

The preacher asked the farmer to be allowed to look in the barn. The farmer agreed and the preacher went to look. A little later she came back. She was trying not to laugh.

‘Farmer, I have to tell you something.’ the preacher said. ‘That isn’t a plough: it’s an electron microscope. And your horses are not horses: they are tigers. You should go to the blackmith and buy a plough: they will give you some money off in exchange for the electron microscope I am sure. And I will take your tigers as they will defend me at night, and you may have my two fine gypsy cobs.’

But the farmer said ‘No, no, I like my horses and my plough, even if I am starving and my horses are eating my family.’

The preacher shrugged and went on her way. A month later she returned, buried the remains of the farmer and his family, freed the pair of tigers and exchanged the electron microscope for a copious supply of tiger food.

As the preacher told me this parable in the high country, long ago, I could see reflected in the firelight the great glowing eyes of the two great tigers who guarded her and their three fine cubs.