Three very simple souls… (From: Stimulating stories from Northern Thailand; no. 51)
He was a smart man, and he had a goat. He set fire to a pile of rubbish and the next morning he spread the warm ashes and embers on the ground and then threw them into the river. He lived close to the Ping River. Then he swept the ground clean.
Finally he rammed a stick into the ground and tied the goat to it. Then he lay down on the floor, which was still nice and warm. And just then three simple souls passed by.
'Oh! Say, isn't it too cold to just lie on the floor?' "No, it's not cold at all." "How come?" 'Because I have an animal that gives off heat. That goat over there. When you travel for trade and you have such a beast, you don't have to think about blankets and such.'
An animal that gives off heat? Link Michel! He wanted to sell his goat. Anyway, the three guys asked him "Don't you want to sell it?" And they bought the goat for two hundred and also gave him all their blankets because they didn't need them anymore… Proudly they walked on with their goat.
Evening came. They rammed a stick into the ground and tied the goat and lay around it. But folks, it was cold! 'Are you WW-hot?' Nobody was hot. Their teeth were chattering as if they were chewing tamarind seeds. 'An animal that gives off heat,' he said! My ass!'
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Then fish?
They continued on their way and encountered a man carrying overflowing fishing baskets. It was packed with fish. The fishmonger had a small cat and was also a lefty….
"How did you get all those fish?" the simple souls asked him. "Well, I'll throw my cat in the water." The man was also a smooth talker. 'But why?' My cat catches the fish. Then I pry open its mouth and take out all the fish. Just look in my baskets!'
'Have a look! He really has a bunch of fish. Quite a mess, isn't it? Don't you want to sell your cat?' The three gentlemen paid two hundred for the cat and went on their way. And then they saw a buffalo! Well, they thought it was a buffalo… It wasn't a buffalo. A man had put the head of a water buffalo, with the horns still attached, in a hole in the mud.
But the man had put a snakehead fish, a large perch, in it, and when the fish moved, the buffalo head moved too. And he sat next to it to look after his buffalo. 'What are you doing here?' asked the three men. "I'll take care of my buffalo." 'Oh, and where is it then?' "Here, in that mud puddle." "Do you want to sell it?"
They saw the head move and thought it was a real buffalo. They paid their last penny to the salesman who ran off. Then they tried to get the buffalo to stand up with 'kst, kst', but it didn't respond. They pulled his head but more than a dead head and a fish did not come out of the ground. They didn't have a penny left!
A proverb says: Three men together in the field is not good. And six men together in a boat neither. These men were out of luck. Or rather, they were stupid….
Source:
Titillating tales from Northern Thailand. White Lotus Books, Thailand. English title 'The three foolish fellows'. Translated and edited by Erik Kuijpers. The author is Viggo Brun (1943); see for more explanation: https://www.thailandblog.nl/cultuur/twee-verliefde-schedels-uit-prikkelende-verhalen-uit-noord-thailand-nr-1/