The Gullible Carpenter

A carpenter, having heard persistent village gossip questioning his wife's faithfulness, devised a test: he announced a multi-day trip to another village, watched her prepare his travel food with suspicious eagerness, then secretly returned that same evening and hid beneath their own bed to observe what would happen.

His suspicions proved correct almost immediately -- his wife, believing him truly gone, invited an old lover to visit that very night. As the man climbed into bed, the carpenter beneath it debated silently whether to strike immediately or wait and listen first, ultimately choosing to watch and see how the situation unfolded.

When his wife accidentally stepped on her hidden husband while locking the door, she realized instantly what was happening -- and, thinking quickly, invented an elaborate story on the spot: she claimed a goddess had appeared to her that very morning, warning that her husband was fated to die within six months unless she embraced another man, an act that would supernaturally transfer the doomed fate onto him instead.

Hearing this explanation from his hiding place, the carpenter was completely won over -- not suspicious of the wife he had just caught in the act, but grateful and relieved, believing he had witnessed genuine devotion rather than betrayal. He emerged from under the bed praising her loyalty, then insisted on carrying both his wife and her lover triumphantly on his shoulders through the streets to celebrate what he believed was a life-saving sacrifice.

The tale is remembered as a sharp caution about willful blindness: a clever enough story, offered at exactly the moment someone wants to believe something, can make a person celebrate the very thing they set out to catch.