In a village lived a poor old woman who had gathered a dish of beans to cook. To make the fire on her hearth burn faster, she lit it with a handful of straw. As she poured the beans into the pan, one unnoticed bean fell to the ground beside a straw. Soon, a burning coal from the fire jumped down to join them.
The straw spoke first: "Dear friends, where do you come from?"
The coal replied, "I luckily sprang out of the fire. If I hadn't escaped by force, I would certainly have died—burned to ashes."
The bean said, "I also escaped unharmed. But if the old woman had put me in the pan, I would have been mercilessly turned into broth, like my comrades."
"And would I have had a better fate?" said the straw. "The old woman destroyed all my brethren in fire and smoke; she seized sixty at once and took their lives. I luckily slipped through her fingers."
"But what shall we do now?" asked the coal.
"I think," answered the bean, "since we have so fortunately escaped death, we should stay together as good companions. To avoid another misfortune here, we should leave together for a foreign country."
The idea pleased the other two, and they set off together. Soon they came to a little brook. With no bridge or plank, they wondered how to cross.
The straw had an idea: "I will lay myself straight across, and you can walk over me as on a bridge." So the straw stretched from one bank to the other.
The coal, who was of an impetuous nature, stepped boldly onto the new bridge. But upon reaching the middle and hearing the water rush below, she grew afraid, stopped, and dared go no further. The straw, however, began to burn, broke in two, and fell into the stream. The coal slipped after, hissed as she hit the water, and breathed her last.
The bean, who had prudently stayed on the shore, could not help laughing at the event. She laughed so heartily that she burst. She too would have perished if, by good fortune, a tailor traveling in search of work had not sat down to rest by the brook. Having a compassionate heart, he took out his needle and thread and sewed her together. The bean thanked him most prettily, but because the tailor used black thread, all beans since then have had a black seam.