The Day It Snowed Tortillas

Plot

There once was a woodcutter who was very good at his work. However, he wasn't very educated. He couldn't read, nor write and he was always doing foolish things. His wife was smart. She used her wit to save her husband from troubles that arose from his foolishness.

One day, after a day of working chopping down trees in the mountains, the woodcutter saw three leather bags by the side of the road as he was walking home. He soon discovered that they all contained gold, and hurried back to his wife with them. The wife was pleased, but worried because she knew her husband couldn't keep secrets. She also knew that whoever the bags belonged to would come sooner or later to reclaim them. So she told the woodcutter to buy 100 pounds of flour. Then, after telling him to go to bed after buying the flour, she made batches of tortillas until the house was overflowing with them. When she could no longer make any more, she took the ones she had made and threw them over the ground outside.

When the woodcutter awoke (which was the next morning), he saw the tortillas outside on the ground and told his wife. The wife told him it must have snowed tortillas. The woodcutter denied it, and in turn, the wife sent him to school claiming he wasn't very educated. At school, he was put with the very youngest children, and it was very disturbing to him that these children were smarter than him. So after the school day finished, the woodcutter announced he was going to chop wood.

About a week later, three robbers turned up at the woodcutter's house, demanding that they wanted the three bags of gold. The wife claimed she knew nothing about the three bags. The robbers then said that her husband had been telling the whole village he had found three bags of gold. Again, the wife denied that she knew anything about the bags of gold. So the robbers stayed at the home until the woodcutter came home. When the woodcutter returned home, the robbers asked where the gold was. The woodcutter scratched his head and said his wife had hidden it somewhere. The wife said she didn't know anything about the gold.

The woodcutter responded by saying "It was the day before it snowed tortillas. I returned home with three bags containing gold, and the next morning sent me to school." Upon hearing this, the robbers concluded he was crazy and left the couple alone.

And so the woodcutter and his good wife kept the bags of gold and lived happily ever after.