Legend of Minho – Eggs and Chestnuts

It was there was a boy who went to work as a sailor on a ship heading to India. So, because he arrived early, he went to a tavern for lunch. However, the owner of the tavern had only four boiled eggs, and that was what did he ate. When it was time to pay, the tavern girl said it was two coins, but she didn't have change for the bill that he wanted to pay with. Therefore, it was agreed that he would pay when he returned from India.

At the old days travel was long and it took almost three years before the boy came back to that port. Because he was honest, he went straight to the tavern to pay, putting the two coins on the counter.

But the tavern-keeper was angry:

– How then, you think it still only two coins, boy? Now it's more money! You can see: four eggs would give four hens, and those hens would put more than three hundred eggs every year, each egg would hatch many chickens that would put eggs ... - and so on, reaching an amount of money that was impossible the boy to pay even if he was very rich!

And because the sailor didn't get all that money, he was arrested and thrown into jail. However, the boat captain, a close friend of him, went to court and asked the judge to judge him, and he would be the defence attorney. The judge start the court.

The sailor was sitting in the stand, when the captain came all covered in ash the judge ask him what had happened. And he replied:

– Your honour, I was roasting some chestnuts while waiting for the trial to start because I need to plant a chestnut tree before heading to India.

The tavern-keeper laughed and said:

– Your honour, that is some foolish lawyer! He wants’ to plant a chestnut tree with roasted chestnuts?!

And the captain replied:

– And did you not want to charge for hens that would come from boiled eggs, which is the same type of mistake?

The judge understood the lesson the captain had given and even dismissed the sailor to pay the two coins to the tavern lady who wanted to take from the sailor more money than he owed!