A Gift for the king

Summarized by Rebecca Cann
Retold and Illustrated by Christopher Mason
This story was first written by the third-century Roman writer Aelian, and it has been based on the book of the same name by Christopher Mason published in 1989. You can purchase it from amazon.com.


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Long time ago there was a king in Persia whose name was Artaxerxes* who was very rich and ruled over a huge empire. He had hundreds of servants and lived in a large, wonderful palace full of beautiful things. 

One day, King Artaxerxes decided to walk out of his palace and explore the countryside. His many servants were surprised to see the king walking and ran after him wondering where the king was going. 

Outside the palace, the king met two merchants who presented him with a bottle of a rare perfume 
and some incense from afar away place. But the king was not impressed. He told his servants to keep the perfumes and later put them with the rest of his perfumes in the palace.

    *King Artaxerxes or Ardeshir the Long Hand ruled the Persian Empire from 465 BC to 424 BC. He showed his generosity by giving asylum to the disgraced Greek Politician Themistocles who had defeated the Persians in the Battle of Salamis.
As he was walking down a hill, the king met a group of his soldiers who had just returned from a war.
The soldiers gave the king a golden quiver full of golden arrows. But the king was not impressed with this gift either 
as he owned many golden quivers already.

The king kept walking and walking until he met some ambassadors from a neighboring country who offered him wonderful presents of gold and silver vases, precious rugs and colorful jewels. But the king had seen many gifts before and the gifts did not excite him at all.

The king continued his long walk until he felt really thirsty. 
He said, “I have never walked this far and I feel really thirsty. I need some cool water.”

The servants frantically looked through all the gifts, but they couldn’t find any water.

The King was getting very annoyed and screamed, “I am very thirsty. WHERE IS MY DRINK?”

Just then a poor shepherd boy appeared and said, “O great King! I am just a poor shepherd and do not have any gifts for you, but I can give you this old jar.”
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      • The king took the jar which was filled with fresh cool water. He got very happy and drank the water eagerly.
        Nothing tasted as good as this water to him.
      • The King turned to the boy and said, “Nothing pleased me as much as this jar of water. 
        I will give you all my precious gifts in exchange for this jar.”

        So the boy took King Artaxerxes’s gifts and the king happily returned to his palace with the old jar of water.