Ancient Japanese proverb.
A man is cutting wood in the forest and his axe falls into a lake. A goddess emerges from the lake holding a silver axe and a gold axe. She asks the man which axe belongs to him. He says neither of them are his. She praises him for his honesty and gives the man both axes as a reward.
Strange women lying in lakes distributing axes is no basis for a moral framework!
agreed. real ethics lie with the consensus of the people, not in some farcical aquatic ceremony. you can’t claim to be the supreme arbiter of right and wrong just because some watery tart lobbed a hatchet at you.
I got it! I understood that reference.
He never got his steel axe back. That poor man returned home without firewood because gold is too soft to cut trees. He tried to sell the gold, but was attacked by robbers and didn’t have a steel axe to defend himself. He died and his children froze to death the next winter. Arigatou Amaterasu-sama.
But animal crossing said the gold axe is the most durable :(
Gold might be too soft to chop wood (or robbers), but silver should do okay. It won’t last as long as steel, but it should be good enough for one day’s chopping.
Gold is basically lead, so it should be fine as a bludgeoning hammer.
It’s Greek, not Japanese.
It’s also not a proverb.
Miriam: just stop that bickering like I care about that. Give me gold! Gimme-gimme-gimme!
![Honesty. [249]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/3388f548-f12f-4d2f-9a3f-222c28cec572.jpeg){kind=link}