A man once had seven sons. He was very rich and as he grew older, he bought a piece of land for each son. He then enjoyed life, spent the money lavishly and invited all his neighbours over for a feast. When his friends said: "You have to put money aside for your sons!", he replied: "I trust in the luck and intelligence of my sons!" But the sons were too lazy to work the land. When the father died, they waited forty days, then opened the box in which the father kept his money. But the box was empty, with only a letter inside. It said: "There is gold in the ground in every piece of land I have given you."

The sons were disappointed. Each had hoped to inherit a good piece of money. Finally, the eldest son said: "If there is gold in every piece of land, then we must dig up the fields to find the gold." The brothers agreed and so they dug up one field after another, but they did not find the gold.

Tired and exhausted, the younger brothers said: "We haven't found anything, so we'd rather seek our fortune elsewhere and work as farmhands on a farm." So they left, only the eldest brother stayed at home. As all the fields had just been dug up, the eldest son sowed barley. It grew so well that he brought in a rich harvest and was able to fill several barns. He sold the grain and bought more fields. Before long, he was the richest farmer far and wide.

The other brothers, however, had to do hard labour on other people's farms for small wages. After a while, they said to each other: "This life is far too hard. Let's go home and see how our brother is doing."

They set off home together. They arrived hungry, dusty and in torn clothes. They knocked on the door and when the brother didn't recognise them, they said: "It's us, your brothers! We have worked hard and suffered a lot. Tell me, have you found the gold?"

The eldest let the brothers in, gave them food and drink and said: "The gold our father meant was the fertile soil of our fields. Look, it has brought me a lot of wealth and I want to share it with you from now on."

From that day on, the seven brothers worked together in the fields and lived in happiness and wealth.

Fassung Djamila Jaenike, nach:  C. Detlef, G. Müller, Märchen aus Äthiopien, München 1992, englische Fassung Lysander Jaenike © Mutabor Märchenstiftung