In a village, somewhere in northern Histria region of Ilyrian provinces lived a simple but tall man named Gaius Faber Silvanus. He was a kind person that spent most of his days cooking food for his villagers in an open fire pit. Being a proud Histrian, he was also very stubborn and would never let others take control of his territory, whether Greeks, or Romans passing by, he maintained his proud independence. His stubbornness was also noticeable in other aspects of his life. For example, he could never just burn an average wooden log to make food. The wood log would need to deserve it. He could spend hours, sometimes days, searching for the best and highest quality tree branch to be used for his extraordinary food.
And so he did on a sunny Friday morning. He needed to find the best possible wood to burn and cook his renowned Friday meat stew that makes everyone in the village relaxed.
While walking through the forest between the towns of Capris and Tergeste, he noticed a suspicious looking tree that he had never seen before. The shapes of its leaves were something unusual; instead of fruits it had some stone-shaped green balls. It was also very tall and it looked quite old. Its tree branches just looked incredibly perfect!
When approaching it, the tree would act as if it was more intelligent than others. When trying to grab its branch, the branch moved, throwing him stone-like round shaped shells. This made him furious!
A proud Histrian he was, he was determined not to give up to anything and anyone, so he decided to chop it down. Gaius grunted: “throwing stones at me?! You will see now! I am Histrian and we never give up. Krepat ma ne molat!”. He grabbed the axe and prepared to chop it down.
But suddenly the tree started to move in a hurricane style, throwing every stone-shaped piece at him and whistling in the wind: “hooooowwww daaareee youuuu?!”. “You little human think you can chop meee?”.
Gaius was forced to find shelter and re-think his strategy. While caressing his beard and thinking out loud, he decided: “It whistles. So maybe the solution is to talk to it!”.
He decided to approach the tree again and asked it cautiously: “Hey Mr.Strange Tree! No hard feelings here, but it’s already 10AM and by 13 my stew needs to be cooked. Just tell me, where can I chop you and we can stay friends?”
The tree replied: “Do I look like a bamboo, or ashwood, that you can simply chop into pieces? We are walnuts! And walnuts are hard, unshakeable, and stylish by nature. I can only give you wisdom on how to take care of my branches.”
Gaius: “But,…I need to burn a fire..?”
Tree: “No burning on my watch!”
Gaius: “So you are useless?”
Tree: “Useless?! Meee?! Oh you little human have no idea. But you are still young. Maybe one day you can understand what life is all about. And when you do, come back to talk to me so we can discuss further”
Gaius: “But what is there to understand? I always cut the cheapest tree, take the best pieces that I carefully select, and burn to make a stew..”
Tree: “Do you think I grow for 500years, just to make you burn me? I am made to be caressed, polished, shaped, and admired!”
Gaius: “And how do you suggest I make a stew today then?”
Tree: “I will give you wise advice for free now – take my branch and use it. Polish it, shape it, respect it, and use it to your advantage. Open your eyes and your heart and you will realize there is much more to the walnut wood than just burning it. We are made to decorate your village, store important pieces of information and history, and be regularly used instead.”
Gaius thinks deeply and comes up with an ide: “..this could actually work! I can polish it, shape it, craft it into a stash box, and then sell it to the wealthy Roman patricians! They always need a stash box to store their herbs when travelling across the empire, or to decorate their palaces back in Rome!”
Tree nods:”You are smarter than I thought it seems. Just remember – for every walnut wooden stash box, you can get more than 50 logs of cheap wood like bamboo or ashwood. Your village can eat for months with that…”
And so the wisdom was passed and cemented into Gaius’ brain. He immediately followed the advice and started producing high quality walnut wooden stash boxes that led him to many more adventures to come.
