The Boastful Gambay

In a village, there lived a peasant named Gembey. The neighbors didn’t particularly like Gembey because he was very boastful. Whenever something unpleasant happened to someone, Gembey would laugh and say:

"That would never happen to me! You can’t fool me so easily!"

One day, Gembey decided to go to town. He planned to buy a heifer at the market. Gembey’s wife picked out the strongest rope and, handing it to her husband, said:

"Lead the heifer home with this rope. And make sure thieves don’t steal her along the way."

"What nonsense are you talking about!" Gembey got angry. "Someone stealing my heifer? No, you can’t fool me so easily!"

That same day, Gembey set off for town. He wandered around the market for a long time and finally spotted a tall, well-fed white heifer.

"This is exactly what I was looking for!" Gembey rejoiced. "No one in our village has a heifer like this!"

And out of sheer delight, Gembey even clicked his tongue.

He haggled with the seller and drove the heifer home. On the outskirts of town, Gembey remembered that his old friend, a shoemaker, lived nearby.

Gembey dropped by his friend’s place and immediately started boasting:

"Look at the heifer I bought! You’ve never had a heifer like this in your life!"

And again, out of delight, Gembey clicked his tongue. The shoemaker had an apprentice, a boy named Ichiro.

Ichiro looked at the heifer, clicked his tongue too, and said:

"It’s true, the heifer is good. Just be careful, Gembey-san, that she doesn’t get stolen on the way."

Hearing this, Gembey laughed:

"Of course, they’d steal her from you, but not from me! I’m not that kind of person!"

With that, he said goodbye and headed home to the village.

As soon as Gembey disappeared, Ichiro said:

"Master, let me teach that man a lesson about boasting."

"Nothing will cure him of that," replied the master.

"Still, I ask for your permission. Let me try."

"How will you do it?"

"I’ll steal his heifer."

"Go ahead, if you want. But nothing will come of it—he’s leading the heifer on a rope."

"We’ll see, we’ll see!" exclaimed the apprentice, grabbing a new pair of geta from the wall and running outside.

Ichiro knew the road Gembey was taking. Using side paths, he got ahead of the braggart, tossed one sandal onto the road, and hid in the grass.

Meanwhile, the pleased Gembey was pulling the heifer along, humming some tune. Suddenly, he spotted a sandal on the road.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk!" the braggart lamented. "Too bad there’s no second one. I won’t even bother bending over for just one..."

And, tugging on the rope, he led the heifer onward. He walked safely for maybe a *ri* or less, but as soon as he entered an oak grove, he came across another sandal.

"What a shame I didn’t pick up the first sandal!" Gembey lamented. "But it’s probably still lying back there."

Gembey quickly tied the heifer to an oak tree and rushed back to where he had seen the first sandal. The sandal was still there.

Grabbing it, Gembey hurried back to the grove. But when he reached the oak tree, the heifer was gone.

Gembey searched the entire grove, but the heifer seemed to have vanished into thin air.

"How did she manage to untie herself?" Gembey fretted. "I just hope no one finds out what happened to me..."

Unable to find the heifer, he headed back to town—he couldn’t return home to his wife without the heifer. Otherwise, he’d have to confess everything.

By then, Ichiro had already driven the stolen heifer home and hidden her in the yard. Ichiro told the master how he had outsmarted the boastful Gembey, and they both laughed for a long time.

"What should we do with this heifer?" asked the apprentice.

The master didn’t have time to answer because at that moment, the doors slid open, and Gembey walked in.

"So where’s your heifer, honorable Gembey-san?" the master asked, as if nothing had happened.

"The heifer? Oh, the heifer! You know, I didn’t like her anymore, so I sold her to some passerby. I want to buy a different one now. That’s why I came back."

The master offered Gembey some tobacco and said:

"You’re in luck—I’ve been meaning to sell my heifer for a while now. If you’re not too stingy, I can let you have her."

And he ordered the apprentice to bring the heifer.

"How much do you want for her?" Gembey asked when Ichiro brought the heifer.

"The same price you paid for yours."

"Come on!" Gembey waved his hands. "How can you compare my heifer to yours? Mine was bigger and fatter! And the fur on yours is much shorter!"

"As you wish, but I won’t sell her for less."

Gembey had to pay for his own heifer again.

As he led her out of the yard, the master said:

"I hope, Gembey-san, that no one steals your heifer on the way?"

And once again, Gembey declared boastfully:

"Oh no, you can’t fool me! I’m not that kind of person!"

As soon as Gembey left, Ichiro asked again:

"Master, let me steal the heifer one more time."

"Well, you won’t succeed a second time! He won’t be fooled so easily now."

"Still, let me try. I really want to cure him of his boasting."

"Fine, go ahead..."

Ichiro rushed back to the grove to get ahead of the braggart. Hiding near the road in the bushes, he waited. As soon as Gembey appeared on the path, the apprentice loudly mooed:

"Moo-oo-oo, moo-oo-oo..."

"That’s my missing heifer!" Gembey exclaimed joyfully. "I’ll catch her now, and I’ll have two heifers!"

And, tying the heifer to the oak tree with a triple knot, Gembey dashed into the bushes where the mooing was coming from.

Meanwhile, Ichiro, still mooing, began moving from place to place. After luring the braggart deep into the thicket, the apprentice hurried back to the oak tree, untied the heifer, and drove her home.

It wasn’t until sunset that Gembey made it back to the path. There, he immediately saw that his second heifer was also gone.

Once again, Gembey trudged back to town.

Entering the shoemaker’s house, he silently stopped by the door.

"What brings you back to town, and where’s your wonderful heifer?" the cunning Ichiro asked.

"Well, you see," the braggart began lying, "on the way, I stopped by a temple and gave the heifer to the priest so the gods would be even more merciful to me. Tomorrow morning, I’ll go to the market and buy a new one."

The master smirked and said:

"No need to wait until morning. I have another fine heifer ready for sale."

Barely holding back laughter, Ichiro brought out the white heifer. To keep from laughing, the master kept covering his mouth with a fan. Gembey saw the heifer and muttered unhappily:

"This heifer is a hundred times worse than mine!"

At that, the master and the apprentice couldn’t hold back anymore and burst into such loud laughter that the neighbors came running. Everyone started asking what had happened.

Then the master told them how the boastful Gembey had twice bought the same heifer and had come back for her a third time.

The neighbors also started laughing merrily. When the laughter died down a bit, the master said:

"Gembey-san, promise never to boast again, and I’ll give you back the heifer and your money."

Gembey had no choice but to agree—he couldn’t return home without money or a heifer. He took the heifer, asked for a thicker rope, and trudged back home.

Soon, the story reached his village.

From then on, whenever Gembey started boasting, someone would exclaim:

"Gembey-san, tell us how you bought the same heifer three times!"

And the braggart would fan himself sheepishly with his fan and fall silent.

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The Boastful Gambay

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