The Helmet And The Cedar

The Helmet and the Cedar.

After an ancient battle, the helmet of a slain soldier was abandoned in a forest. Beneath the helmet a sapling cedar had sprouted, and, as the years went on, the sapling became a tree which grew around and through the helmet - its wood intertwined with the helmet's metal.

The tree came to resent the helmet, complaining, "Curse my luck to have planted down right here! This blasted helmet has bent and twisted me as I have grown. I shall never be as fine and lofty as my fellows in this forest."

Then one day a lumberjack, who had been working through the woods, came upon the cedar and spoke: "This tree is too gnarled and not worth the effort to fell. Cedar, I will leave you in peace."

The helmet, who had long remained silent, at last spoke up: "Cedar, my friend, it seems that we are partners in oddity and accident. Just as you have been made strange by the accident of my fall, accident too has it that I now protect a tree instead of a soldier. Your odd life has become my odd purpose."

Even ends may be accidental.