Fowler’s Fowl

In a bustling market town surrounded by meadows and forests, there lived a fowler named Thomas who was known throughout the region for his skill in catching birds. He was not a large or imposing man, but he possessed something far more valuable than physical strength—a quick wit and a clever mind that could solve any problem.

Thomas made his living by catching wild fowl and selling them at the market. He had an extensive knowledge of bird behavior and could fashion the most ingenious traps and snares. But more than his technical skill, it was his sharp intelligence that set him apart from other fowlers.

One autumn morning, as Thomas was walking through the forest checking his traps, he discovered that several of his finest snares had been robbed. The birds were gone, but the traps remained, carefully reset as if nothing had happened.

“This is strange indeed,” Thomas muttered to himself, examining the disturbed earth around his traps. “Someone has been stealing my catch, but they’re clever enough to cover their tracks.”

For several days, this continued. Thomas would set his traps in the evening, and by morning, any birds he had caught would be gone. He began to suspect that someone was systematically robbing him, but he couldn’t determine who it might be.

One evening, Thomas decided to test his theory. Instead of going home after setting his traps, he hid himself in a large oak tree where he could observe his snares without being seen.

Just before dawn, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching through the forest. To his surprise, he saw a well-dressed merchant from the town creeping through the underbrush, carefully checking each of Thomas’s traps.

“Aha!” thought Thomas. “Master Heinrich, the cloth merchant. I should have known. He’s always boasted about having the finest birds for his table, and now I know where he gets them.”

Thomas watched as Heinrich efficiently collected three fat partridges and two pheasants from the traps, resetting the snares with practiced ease. The merchant clearly thought himself very clever.

Instead of confronting Heinrich immediately, Thomas decided to teach him a lesson using wit rather than accusations. He climbed down from his tree and hurried home to prepare his plan.

The next evening, Thomas set his traps as usual, but this time he also prepared a special surprise. In his workshop, he constructed a large, elaborate trap that looked like it contained the most magnificent bird anyone had ever seen. Inside the trap, he placed a beautifully carved wooden decoy covered in the most brilliant feathers he could find—peacock plumes, pheasant tail feathers, and exotic plumes he had traded for at the market.

From a distance, it appeared to be a bird of incredible value, the kind that would fetch a fortune at market. Thomas placed this special trap in a prominent location where Heinrich would be sure to see it.

That night, Thomas again hid himself in the oak tree to watch.

Sure enough, just before dawn, Heinrich arrived to check the traps. When he saw the magnificent “bird” in the special snare, his eyes widened with greed.

“By my faith,” Heinrich whispered to himself, “what a prize! This bird must be worth more than all my cloth sales this month. I’ve never seen anything so magnificent.”

Eagerly, Heinrich approached the trap. But as he reached inside to grasp the valuable bird, his hand triggered a mechanism that Thomas had carefully prepared. The trap snapped shut, not around a bird, but around Heinrich’s arm!

“Help!” cried Heinrich, unable to free himself from the cleverly designed snare. “Someone help me!”

At that moment, Thomas climbed down from his tree and approached the trapped merchant with a knowing smile.

“Good morning, Master Heinrich,” Thomas said pleasantly. “You’re up quite early for a cloth merchant. What brings you to the forest at this hour?”

Heinrich’s face turned red with embarrassment and anger. “Thomas! This is your doing! Release me at once!”

“Release you?” Thomas asked innocently. “But you seem to have caught yourself quite effectively. Tell me, what were you trying to catch in my trap?”

“I… I was just… that is to say…” Heinrich stammered, unable to come up with a convincing lie.

Thomas walked around the trapped merchant thoughtfully. “You know, Master Heinrich, I’ve been puzzling over a strange mystery. For weeks now, someone has been stealing the birds from my traps. I couldn’t imagine who would do such a thing, since everyone in town knows that stealing is wrong.”

Heinrich squirmed uncomfortably. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you?” Thomas asked. “That’s curious, because I happened to be watching from that oak tree over there. I saw exactly what you were doing. In fact, I’ve been watching you for several mornings now.”

The cloth merchant’s face went from red to pale as he realized he had been caught.

“Perhaps,” Thomas continued, “we can make an arrangement. I’ll release you from my trap, but first, you must compensate me for all the birds you’ve stolen. Let’s see… three partridges at two silver pieces each, two pheasants at three silver pieces each, a dozen quail at one silver piece each… that comes to quite a sum.”

“But I don’t have that much money with me!” Heinrich protested.

“No problem,” Thomas said cheerfully. “You can send your apprentice with the payment later today. But there’s one more condition.”

“What’s that?” Heinrich asked warily.

Thomas grinned. “You must tell everyone in the market exactly how you came to be trapped in a fowler’s snare while trying to steal a wooden bird covered in feathers.”

Heinrich looked horrified. “But that would ruin my reputation!”

“That’s the point,” Thomas replied. “You see, reputation is like trust—easy to lose and difficult to regain. Perhaps this lesson will help you remember the value of honesty.”

Reluctantly, Heinrich agreed to Thomas’s terms. The fowler released him from the trap, and the embarrassed merchant hurried away, nursing his bruised arm and his wounded pride.

Later that day, Heinrich’s apprentice arrived with the payment, and by evening, word had spread throughout the town about the merchant’s humiliating encounter with the fowler’s clever trap.

From that day forward, no one dared to steal from Thomas’s traps. But the story didn’t end there.

News of Thomas’s cleverness reached the ears of the local lord, who was impressed by the fowler’s wit and ingenuity. The lord summoned Thomas to his castle and offered him a position as his gamekeeper, responsible for managing all the hunting grounds on the estate.

“A man who can outwit thieves so cleverly,” the lord said, “is exactly what I need to protect my lands from poachers.”

Thomas accepted the position gladly, and he proved to be exceptionally skilled at his new duties. He designed innovative traps and snares that caught poachers without harming them, always preferring to use intelligence and ingenuity rather than force.

Under Thomas’s management, the lord’s hunting grounds became the most productive in the region. Game flourished, poaching decreased dramatically, and Thomas earned a reputation as the cleverest gamekeeper in the land.

As for Master Heinrich, the humiliation of being caught in the fowler’s trap proved to be a valuable lesson. He became an honest merchant from that day forward, and eventually, he and Thomas became friends. Heinrich would often buy game birds from Thomas legitimately, and they would laugh together about the morning when the cloth merchant was outsmarted by a wooden bird.

Years later, when Thomas had become a prosperous and respected man, he would tell the story of Fowler’s Fowl to young people in the town, always ending with the same moral: “Cleverness used honestly will always triumph over cunning used dishonestly. The mind is the greatest tool a person can possess, but it must be guided by wisdom and integrity.”

And indeed, Thomas’s reputation for fair dealing and clever problem-solving made him one of the most trusted and respected men in the region, proving that wit and wisdom, when combined with honesty, can lead to both success and happiness.

The wooden bird that had trapped Heinrich was kept on display in Thomas’s home as a reminder that sometimes the most effective traps are the ones that catch greed and dishonesty, rather than mere birds.