One day a woodman came to the forest to ask the trees to give him a handle for his ax. They all decided to let him use the ugly ash tree. They were too beautiful to be made into an ax handle. So the woodman cut the ugly tree and made an ax handle. However, as soon as he had an ax handle, he began to cut down all the other beautiful trees as well. ”We should never have given in to his request and none of us would be cut down,” all the proud trees said sadly.