Clever Enough to Cheat a Swindler

Although many like to think they are clever, there are always some who think they are cleverer than everyone else. But then there are only one or two who really are

Video not yet publicly available

This tale has been recorded and will be uploaded to the video gallery later in 2026. where it will be available to watch for free - together with many, many other tales.

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I first met this story told by Marion Strencioch as Der Lastenträger und der List, and later found a longer text version from Yugoslavia.

It should be noted that while the judge in the story is given the customary title of "hodja", of course this does not relate to the much-loved character, Nasruddin - who is often referred to as "hodja".

Following a posting on Storytell, my near-namesake Richard Marsh (of Dublin) tells me he has included a similar tale in his A World of Tricksters.
"It's an Irish story! At least it's known here, with famous real-life TD and attorney John Philpot Curran (1750-1817) as the hero who tricks the villain into restoring the money."
(A TD is a Teachta Dáil, a member of the Irish parliament, the Irish version of an MP, Member of Parliament. Curran was an MP during the time Ireland was under the tender care of the UK, when there was no Dáil.)
The innkeeper tale is probably the most popular of the migrant international folk tales attracted to him. A Protestant, he once defended a Catholic priest in court against a landlord when no other attorney would accept the case -- fact.
When he was a student at Trinity College in Dublin, the authorities accused him of keeping idle women in his lodgings. He protested that he never kept them idle. Possibly non-factual.
His son published a mix of fact and legend in 1819: The Life of the Right Honourable John Philpot Curran, which is still widely available including on archive.org.
Curran is the originator in 1808 of the dictum "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

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For those who are teachers: Telling stories in the classroom: basing language teaching on storytelling