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Overview

A devoted son accidentally drops his mother into a ravine while carrying her to a performance. A priest reassembles and revives her. When the son preserves a remaining piece of her flesh, the priest shapes it into a small boy and breathes life into it. He names the child Small Profit and tells the son to regard him as a brother. At the son’s request, Small Profit supplies food, money and cloth; the family consequently becomes prosperous.

The elder brother envies this fortune. He deliberately repeats the fatal fall and withholds one of his mother’s ribs when the priest restores her. The priest covers the bone with lime and earth, breathes upon it and creates a larger little man, Great Duty, promising that he will lend assistance. Unlike Small Profit’s provision of goods, no subsequent practical service by Great Duty is narrated before their departure.

The elder brother then encounters the younger one escorting Small Profit, who is described as a divine being unwilling to remain permanently among humans. As Small Profit rises into the air, the greedy brother drops his mother again and reaches for him. Great Duty also rises, takes Small Profit’s hand, and disappears with him into the clouds. The elder brother’s lament supplies the moral pun about losing great duty through greed for small profit. Their contrasting creation materials and actions remain distinct within this paired account; the mother’s fate after the final drop is not supplied, and their humanlike appearance does not make them ordinary human children.

Small Profit formed from fleshGreat Duty formed around a ribJoint ascent into the clouds
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Origins & earliest records

Chinese tales mediated by Richard Wilhelm and Frederick H. Martens

02

Records & interpretation

Complete tale and its attached source note read in the retained1921-edition transcription.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    The Chinese Fairy Book

    Richard Wilhelm, editor; Frederick H. Martens, translator · 1921

    How Greed for a Trifling Thing Led a Man to Lose a Great One, pp.6–9; New York, Frederick A. Stokes Company

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

Complete historical translated tale

Richard Wilhelm/Frederick H. Martens, The Chinese Fairy Book (Stokes1921)

Nursery Fairy Tales. How Greed for a Trifling Thing Led a Man to Lose a Great One, pp.6–9

Full tale and ending/source note read in29939.html/wilhelm-martens1921.txt, title/copyright/preface checked. No independently verified Chinese textual antecedent; source-specific identities retained.

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References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Historical translated taleWilhelm/Martens, The Chinese Fairy Book, How Greed for a Trifling Thing Led a Man to Lose a Great One, pp.6–9Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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