Polish

Once upon a time lived a farmer with no wife. He toiled alone on a small plot of land, and knew not the pleasures of leisure. In the morning he tended his animals, and worked his fields. At midday he ate his meal, and slept through the hot and bright hours.

At night, he wandered in the wood near his home, searching for the wolf that killed his brother. He never wanted for food or shelter, and had many who sought his company. Yet he never could forget the animal that took his only sibling from this world, and so went out with a lantern and a pole at midnight, thinking only of revenge.

So much time he gave to this mission that he never went to the market to sell his meat and produce. Years passed, and though his animals were fat and his storehouse was full, he never found the wolf that killed his brother, nor made he any fortune from his labor.

One day came a merchant, who knew well of the bitter recluse whose inventory overflowed. A clever man, he saw a chance to do business. He knocked on the farmer's door, and said, I have heard you toil yet never sell. I ask that you allow me to take charge of commerce, and make us each a healthy fortune. To which the farmer said, Begone, for I am eating my meal, and soon shall sleep.

Said the merchant, Sleep? The sun is shining. The farmer, a simple and honest man, said, At night I search in the woods for the wolf that killed my brother. He left one day, and traveled through the wood. He never came back, and at night I heard the howls of a wolf. Later, I found his clothing soaked in blood, and the fresh prints of a wolf, surely the same one that took from me a sibling.

The merchant has the farmer toil harder to make the money to find better equipment for scouring the wood. When both are rich, the farmer dies from burning down the forest.

The merchant cried at the farmer's funeral, and gave up his career for the monk's habit, and carried to his own grave the truth: that he was the farmer's brother, that the blood on the clothing was of the wolf, that he had ran away in search of riches, that the pelt of the animal had made his fortune. If only the farmer knew that all these years his brother had become the very wolf that left him all alone.