Once there was a rich merchant who held that anyone poor deserved to be poor. "Anyone can be wealthy if they have enough drive and courage; so anyone who's poor must lack the one or the other."
One particularly cold day, he repeated this in the market and a poor man swore to prove him wrong. "Set me a task that you couldn't do," he challenged, "and that will show the truth."
"Do that and you'll never go hungry again," said the rich man. He thought for a moment then pointed to the snow-covered peak outside the town. "I own a good farm and sheep high up that mountain. Near the farm there is a cliff where the wind never stops and the ice hangs down like knives. It's the coldest spot I know. If you can survive a whole night alone at the edge of that cliff, without clothes or blanket or fire to warm you, the farm will be yours."
"I'll do it," said the poor man. "We can leave tomorrow."
When he spoke with his wife that night he asked her, "Do you think it's possible? Do you think a man really could survive at the top of the mountain with no clothes and no fire all night?"
"You can do it," she said, "so long as you don't despair. I'll keep a lamp in our window all night. When you need me, look for it and you'll know that you're not alone."
So the next day the poor man climbed up the mountain with the rich man's servants, and when night fell he took off all his clothes and went to stand by the edge of the cliff. The icy wind bit through him. He stamped his feet and beat his arms, fighting the bitter cold. Every so often it began to seem impossible and he'd feel the cold sinking inside. But when that happened he turned his gaze down toward the town and saw the single window that still blazed bright. The thought of his wife warmed his heart, and so he managed to endure.
The merchant cried out when he saw him the next morning. "However did you manage to survive?" The poor man told how his wife had kept vigil for him down in the town, and how the glowing light in their cottage window had been his beacon of hope. "I knew you must have cheated!" the rich man said. "You were forbidden to use a fire."
"That's unfair," the poor man protested, and he took his case to court. The judge heard from both sides and then announced, "The rich man has won. You did not keep the terms of your contract."
The judge was a man blessed with a clever wife who felt pride when her husband's decisions were wise, and shame when they were not. When he came home that night, he found her sitting by an empty table.
"Where is dinner," he asked? "It's not yet cooked," she answered.
After an hour of silence he stood up and walked back to the kitchen. It was empty and the fires were out, except for a pot standing in one corner and two lamps sitting on the table.
"I told you it wouldn't be cooked yet," said the wife.
"It will never get cooked like this!" he replied.
"Surely that can't be so," she said. "If a lamp can warm a man high up on the mountain, then two can cook our meat across the length of a room."
He gaped at her a moment, then laughed and agreed to change his decision. The poor man and his wife were given the house, the land and the sheep - and there they lived happily until the end of their days.
