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A Chinese Tale

Ten peasants are working in the fields, planting rice, when a great thunderstorm comes over the mountain, with wind and hail, thunder and lightning strong enough to flatten men and crops alike. They run and take shelter in the ruin of a temple nearby, and there they cower against a wall, but still the rain drenches them to the bones, the thunder makes the ground tremble and lightnig strikes all around, and they are very afraid.
Finally, they say: "One of us must have angered the gods and they seek to slay him. So let's all hold our straw hats outside, and when lightning strikes on of them, we'll know the guilty one and send him out so that the gods will leave the rest of us in peace."
They all agree and hold their hats out into the storm. Before long, lightning strikes and one of the hats goes up in flames. The owner of the hat protests that he is innocent, he never did anything to anger the gods, but little good it does him: the others grab him and shove him out of the shelter.
The storm blows the man down and he falls flat on his face and the biggest lightning of all comes flashing down from the sky --

-- and hits the ruin of the temple, reducing it, and everything inside, to ashes.

Author's Notes & Documentation

None -- do not know where it comes from, do not know where I heard it.
Transcribed from memory by Ingeborg Thorulfsdottir.

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