In this Indian folktale, a man travels to a distant land to seek his fortune. He succeeds and decides to convert his riches to jewels and return home. As he nears home, a ‘friendly’ merchant warns him that there are robbers on the road ahead. The traveler leaves his jewels in the care of the merchant. He then travels home to hire men to help him get the jewels through safely. On his return, the merchant tries to cheat him. To get the jewels back, the traveler needs help from someone who is even better at cheating than the merchant.
Our source for this version of ‘Diamond Cuts Diamond’ was The Olive Fairy Book, one of a series of twelve collections of folk and fairy tales for children edited by Andrew Lang. This is the eleventh book in the series, and was first published in 1907. Lang wrote that this is a Punjabi story from a Major Campbell of Ferozepur in India. Although we have classified it as Indian, it may well be Pakistani as the original Punjab region covered parts of both countries.
This is the second folktale we have published with the title Diamond Cuts Diamond. The stories come from different countries and have very different plots, which have nothing to do with cutting diamonds. However the title, which is an English proverb, is appropriate in both cases. To read the other story (from Thailand) and learn a little about the history of the proverb, click here.
Original Text / PDF (2,681 words)