The Traveler and Fortune

Summary

This short narrative presents a tale where a traveler, exhausted from his lengthy journey, takes a nap dangerously close to a deep well. As he is about to fall in, Dame Fortune appears and alerts him to the impending danger, pointing out that people often blame her for their hardships, despite their own actions being the actual cause. The story uses this encounter to offer a moral lesson about accountability and the human tendency to attribute personal misfortunes to external forces or luck, rather than recognizing their own responsibility in creating or preventing problems. This fable can be used to teach children about the importance of accountability and the consequences of negligence.

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A Traveler wearied from a long journey lay down, overcome with fatigue, on the very brink of a deep well. Just as he was about to fall into the water, Dame Fortune, it is said, appeared to him and waking him from his slumber thus addressed him: “Good Sir, pray wake up: for if you fall into the well, the blame will be thrown on me, and I shall get an ill name among mortals; for I find that men are sure to impute their calamities to me, however much by their own folly they have really brought them on themselves.”