Chapter 26 25. The Farmer Who Can Divinate

There was a king who lost a precious ring.He searched everywhere, but couldn't find it.So he sent someone to post a notice saying that if any fortune-teller could tell him where it was, he would make that person rich for life.There was a farmer named Gambala who was penniless and could neither read nor write.He thought: Is it difficult to be a fortune teller?I'd love to try it.So he went to the palace to meet the king. The king believed his words and locked him in a room to study.In the room, there was only a bed, a table, and a thick divination book, paper, pen, and ink bottle on the table.Gambala sat down at the table, flipped through the book, but he didn't know any of the words on it, and he scribbled some marks on the book with a pen.Because he couldn't write, the marks he drew were very strange, and the servants went in twice a day to bring him meals, and they thought he was a very learned fortune-teller.

In fact, it was these servants who stole the king's ring. Every time they went in, the fortune-teller cast a glance at them in order to show confidence. Because of their guilty conscience, they always felt that it was a suspicious look.They start to worry about being found out.Because of this, they appear respectful in front of the fortune-teller, answering every question: Yes, Mr. fortune-teller!Do as you bid, Mister Seer! Gambala was not a soothsayer, but a farmer, but he was also very cunning, and he immediately thought that the servants must know something about the ring, so he set a trap to deceive the servants.

One day, when it was time for them to bring him his lunch, the fortune-teller hid under the bed.The first servant came in and found the house empty.This is Gambala saying under the bed: "One!" The servant put down the plate and ran away in fright. The second servant came in, and he heard a voice that seemed to come from underground: "Two." He also ran away in fright. A third person came in, and the voice said, "Three!" The three servants met together and said, "We have been discovered. If the fortune-teller denounces us to the king, we will be finished."

So they decided to go to a fortune teller and confess their theft.They said to the soothsayer, "We are poor people. If you tell the king what you have predicted, we will die. This is a bag of gold. Please give us a way out." Gambala took the bag of money and said, "I'm not going to tell you, but you have to do what I tell you. Get that ring out and let the turkeys in the garden swallow it. The rest Leave it to me." The next day Gangbala went to the king and told him that after a long period of divination he had finally figured out where the ring was now. "Where?"

"Swallowed by a turkey." The turkey was cut open and the ring was found.The king gave the soothsayer a great deal of treasure, and gave a banquet for his merits, and invited all the earls, marquises, barons, and dignitaries to attend. Among the various main courses served at the banquet, there was a dish of shrimp.You know, no one in that place has ever seen a prawn, it was the first time people saw it, and it was a gift from the king of another country. The king asked the farmer: "You are a fortune teller, you should be able to tell me what these things on this plate are called."

The poor country bumpkin had not only never seen such a thing, he had never even heard of it.He said to himself in a low voice, "Well, Gambala, Gambala. Now you're in trouble." "Brilliant!" said the king, who did not know the farmer's real name at all. "You guessed it, that's his name: Shrimp. You are the greatest soothsayer in the world." (Mantua area) -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ [1] Shrimp is called gambero in Italian, which is close to the pronunciation of the farmer's name Gambara (Gambara).