The Story of Good Faith

The Story of Good Faith

In a mountain forest stood a sturdy wooden cottage belonging to a woodcutter. One day, a young tiger wandered into it by chance. The door swung shut, the outside latch fell into place, and the tiger found himself inside.

At first he was angry.

“What sort of door is this?” he grumbled, shoving it with his shoulder.

But the cottage was built of thick logs. However much the tiger pushed and scratched, the door would not open.

A day passed. Then another. The tiger grew very thirsty, and he began to regret entering so carelessly.

A small musk deer came to drink from a nearby stream. She bent toward the water and suddenly heard a weak voice from the cottage.

“Sister Deer! Help me!”

She started.

“Who is there?”

“It is I, the tiger. I am locked inside. Please lift the latch.”

The deer came a little closer, but not too close.

“How do I know you will not rush at me as soon as you get out?”

“I give you my word,” said the tiger. “If you open the door, I will not harm you. I promise.”

The deer hesitated for a long time. She was afraid of the tiger, but she could see that he truly needed help.

“Very well,” she said. “I will trust your word.”

She lifted the latch.

The door opened, and the tiger sprang outside. He greedily breathed the fresh air, ran to the stream, and drank. Then he looked at the deer.

His eyes grew stern.

“I am very hungry,” he said. “Perhaps I will have to forget my promise.”

The deer took a step back.

“Forget it? I opened the door precisely because you gave your word.”

The tiger shrugged.

“A word, a promise, good faith. Do such things matter when keeping them is inconvenient?”

“They matter,” said the deer firmly. “Otherwise, no one could trust anyone.”

“I think the world is not like that,” the tiger replied.

Then the deer proposed, “Let us ask three whom we meet. Let them tell us whether good faith exists. If all three say that promises are worth nothing, I will admit that I was wrong. But if even one of them shows that a word has meaning, you will let me go.”

The tiger agreed.

First they met a great tree beside the road. Its branches spread so widely that travellers often rested in its shade.

“Brother Tree,” said the deer, “tell us, is there gratitude and good faith in the world?”

The tree rustled its leaves for a long time.

“I would like to say that there is,” it said at last. “But I have often seen otherwise. People rest in my shade and shelter from the heat, and then sometimes break my young branches without thinking that they hurt me. So my experience is a sad one.”

The tiger smiled.

“Did you hear that?”

The deer lowered her ears, but said, “That is only one answer.”

Farther on they saw an old buffalo with her calf. She pushed the juiciest grass toward the little one and chewed the drier grass herself.

“Aunt Buffalo,” said the deer, “does kindness always return as kindness?”

The buffalo thought.

“Not always,” she replied. “Parents often give their children the best, and when the children grow up, they do not always remember. But should we become ungrateful because someone else is ungrateful? I do not know. I can speak only of what I have seen.”

The tiger flicked his tail impatiently.

“The second answer is not in your favour either.”

The deer was worried, but she reminded him, “We agreed on three.”

Around the bend in the road, a hare came hopping toward them.

“Good day!” he said. “Why are you walking together and looking as if you have been arguing for half a day?”

The deer told the whole story: the cottage, the latch, the promise, and how the tiger had decided to break his word.

The hare scratched one ear.

“That is very tangled. The tiger was by the stream, and you were inside the cottage?”

“No!” cried the tiger. “I was inside the cottage!”

“Oh, then the deer locked you in?”

“Not at all,” said the deer. “I found him already locked in.”

“Hm,” said the hare, wrinkling his nose. “Words are words, but I want to see everything where it happened. Otherwise I cannot judge honestly.”

They returned to the cottage.

“Show me where you stood,” the hare asked the deer.

“Here, by the stream.”

“And where were you?” he asked the tiger.

“Inside.”

The tiger entered the cottage.

“Like this?”

“Exactly so.”

“And the door was shut?”

“Yes.”

“And the latch was here?”

“Yes.”

The hare shut the door and put the latch in place.

Click.

The tiger was inside once again.

“Hey!” he roared. “Open up!”

The hare sat in front of the door.

“Now I understand everything. Sister Deer, you are free. You kept your part of the promise, and the tiger did not.”

“But what will happen to him?” asked the deer quietly.

“The woodcutter will soon return,” said the hare. “He knows this cottage and can decide how to let the tiger out safely. We should not answer a broken promise with cruelty.”

An angry grumble came from behind the door.

Then the tiger fell silent.

A moment later he spoke more quietly.

“Deer...”

“I am listening.”

“You helped me though you were afraid. I nearly repaid you with harm. Now I understand why you spoke of trust.”

The hare smiled.

“That is wiser talk already.”

Soon the woodcutter appeared on the path. The deer and the hare told him what had happened.

The woodcutter thought, then said to the tiger, “I will open the door, but you will go into the forest in the opposite direction and will not come near them. Do you give your word?”

For a long time, the cottage was quiet.

At last the tiger answered, “I do.”

“This time, think carefully before you speak,” said the woodcutter.

“I have thought.”

The door opened. The tiger came out, looked at the deer, then at the hare, and silently turned toward the mountains.

He did not break his second promise.

On the way home, the deer said, “It is strange. The tree and the buffalo have seen so much ingratitude that they have almost stopped believing in goodness.”

“That is why,” replied the hare, “someone must begin with themselves. Another person’s bad word does not make our word less important.”

From then on, whenever anyone in that forest made a promise, the old animals would say, “Remember the tiger and the wooden cottage. A word weighs exactly as much as your wish to keep it.”

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨