Once upon a time there were two brothers. They didn’t have much in common except their appearance. One was staggeringly rich and the other was as poor as a church mouse. The rich brother’s name was Vince. One day he asked his poor brother Jacob to look after his sheaves in the field. So Jacob came and kept watch.
Suddenly he saw a female figure dressed in white, picking up forgotten ears of corn in the field and adding them to the sheaves. She was almost translucent.
“Who are you?” asked Jacob, urgently.
“I am Vince’s fortune. I help him to prosper in all things,” said the woman, busily continuing to gather the remaining ears so that the rich brother would have even more wheat.
“Fortune? Well, I’m so happy for my brother then. But isn’t there my luck somewhere in the world, too?” Jacob said with a smile.
The woman quickly gathered the last of the ears and then said to Jacob, “Head in this direction, where the sun rises. There you will find your fortune.” As soon as she finished, she disappeared.
Jacob thought about all this for the rest of the day. The next morning he decided to go east and try to find his fortune there. He was almost out of his house when a grey figure in torn rags jumped on his back from behind the stove and shouted, “You can’t go anywhere without me. I will stay with you forever!”
“And who are you?”
“I am your misery. I’ve lived happily with you for so many years and I’ll never leave you,” the grey person explained to him.
“Well, no wonder that no matter what I do, I hardly have enough money for food and a bare roof over my head,” assessed Jacob, to whom everything was now clear. In the meantime, a plan to get rid of his misery was being born in his head. He certainly had no intention of taking it with him.
Then he said aloud: “Well, my dear, I can’t drag you on my back. Come on, try to slip into this bottle and then I’ll put you in my traveling bag.”
The grey old lady squeaked triumphantly and slipped into the bottle like nothing. Once she was in, Jacob thoroughly plugged the bottle. He then buried it in the woods on his way to his fortune, so that it could never get out again, and at the same time no unfortunate person would accidentally discover it. He didn’t want to bring misery to anyone else.
And then he just walked east to find his fortune.
After a while he arrived in town and decided to try and find some work to earn some extra money until he could find happiness. The fortune smiled on him because he found work very soon. One of the rich lords of the town entrusted him with digging a cellar. He wasn’t supposed to get any pay, but he could keep everything he dug. Jacob dug and he was good at it, he was used to hard work. After a few hours, he hit something hard. He dusted it off and the hard lump glistened. It was a golden boulder. According to the agreement, the lump of gold should have been all his, but he had split the money for it with the man on whose land he had dug it up. It seemed fair to him.
The next day Jacob continued digging to finish what he had promised. He had already finished digging up the whole cellar when he came to an end, where he discovered an iron door. He opened it and saw gold and precious stones, great riches. There was a chest in the room, from which he heard a voice: “Open, my lord.” And he opened it, and a figure dressed in white sprang out of it. She looked like the sister of the woman in white from Vince’s field.
“My lord, I am your fortune,” said the figure. “I have waited here a long time for you. Now that you have found me, I will stay with you.”
Jacob again shared the wealth he had found with the lord who had entrusted him with the work on his property. Yet he had so much left that he could hardly figure out how to spend it. Moreover, he was already prospering in everything, for he had found his fortune.
Soon Jacob’s brother Vince was passing through the town on business. When he ran into Jacob, he couldn’t believe his eyes. His poor brother was dressed like a gentleman! Jacob was very happy to see Vince and invited him to his fancy new house for dinner. He told him how his life had been turned upside down for good when he discovered his fortune and was free from poverty.
Vince allowed Jacob to entertain him, but soon hurried home. He made excuses for pressing duties. But the truth was he left because he was consumed with envy and wanted to spoil Jacob’s happiness. The desire to harm his brother drove him into the forest, to a place Jacob had described to him as the hiding place of the bottle of sealed misery.
He dug quickly until he came upon the bottle. He opened it immediately and let the misery jump out. He wanted to send it to Jacob right away, but something happened that he didn’t expect. The freed wretch thanked him and promised: “Thank you for getting me out of that bottle, my back was already broken. I’ll never leave you or your family for a reward. Never!” Vince tried in vain to wriggle out of it, the misery never left him again. He could not bring any business to a successful conclusion; on the contrary, he was mugged and robbed along the way. His house burned down and poverty followed him wherever he went. In the end, he ended up a beggar.
In fairy tales and in life, stories are often told of evil rich men and virtuous poor men. But Vince was consumed with envy whether he was rich or poor. Jacob, on the other hand, was a hard-working and good man with and without money. It is possible to get rich by both effort and luck, but you have to appreciate the luck and not get proud. Just as once poor Jacob did when he came into wealth. For fortune is a fickle thing, and money get scattered easily.
