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How the Insulted Rice-Plant Got Its Revenge

Once upon a time, long ago, when things were much better in the world than they are today, rice came from the field as a single large grain, enough to satisfy a whole family. It came of its own accord, rolling in when it was ripe and ready to be cooked and eaten. People were better in those days too - wiser, stronger and more beautiful. But even then things were not perfect, and it was because of human imperfection that we now have to labour to produce our staple food as we do - with back-breaking toil and sweat.

It happened like this.

There was a widow woman, short of temper and sharp of speech. One year when the crop promised to be even better than before, she said to her daughter, "Our granary is too small. Let's pull it down and put up a bigger one."

But when they'd pulled the old one down, before they'd put a bigger one in its place, the rice had ripened in the fields and rolled in as it usually did - as one great grain per family. The widow and her daughter were still at work when their own grain arrived, and angered to be hurried, the widow struck it, shouting, "Why have you come before we've called you? You should have waited till we were ready. You can go back to the field right now and come again when the time is right."

Insulted, the rice shattered itself into a thousand pieces, exactly the size we see it today, saying as it did so, "Very well. We'll wait in the fields till you are ready to welcome us. But you'll have to come and carry us in with the strength of your arms."

And that's the way things have been with the rice ever since: small grains on many stalks that have to be cut, threshed, winnowed and brought to the granaries by our own hard labour…and all because of the bad-tempered widow.