The Quarrelsome Woman
Once upon a time, at the edge of an old forest where cool waters flowed with great force, there lived an honest farmer and his ill-tempered wife. This woman had a harsh nature, known to everyone around her for her contrariness, and she opposed every word that was spoken. Though the poor man patiently tried to keep his household running, his wife's quarrelsome ways completely destroyed their peace. Whenever her husband said "white" about something, the woman said "black", and whenever he turned right, the woman turned left. Even the sweetest words were never enough to soften the hard heart of this stubborn woman. On a hot summer day the two spouses went to work in their fields on the bank of the river that flowed with great force. "The water is foaming very wildly today, do not go near the bank!" the man warned his wife politely.
The woman immediately frowned and shouted angrily, "It is not wild at all, how cowardly you are!" The ill-tempered woman walked right to the very edge of the wet rocks, only to prove her husband's words wrong. But when her foot slipped on a mossy stone she lost her balance and tumbled screaming into the rushing waters. The wild waves swept this stubborn woman away in an instant and carried her off with the current. The grieving husband at once called the villagers nearby to help and started a wide search. But the man, amid everyone's astonished looks, was running upstream, against the direction in which the river flowed. The villagers, amazed, tried to stop the man, saying, "Why are you searching upstream, the current of the water goes downward!"
The farmer sighed deeply and shook his head from side to side with sorrowful eyes. "You do not know what a stubborn and ill-tempered person my wife was," he said. "She had made it a habit to always go against everything and everyone." "Even if the waters flow downward, out of sheer stubbornness she has surely swum upward against the current!" Sadly, the searchers found no trace of the woman, neither below nor above; the woman never returned to that village again. Stubbornness that devotes a whole life to constant opposition and to disturbing those around it brings its owner nothing but ruin. Over-cleverness hurts the trickster.