- English translation
They fetched a blind woman to push the scattered fodder back under the threshing sledge.
- Literal wording
They brought the blind woman to return the thrown bundle.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying mocks a poor choice of helper. Someone with work to be done turns it over to a person who has no real prospect of managing it, and the remark points to how badly the helper and the job are matched.
The image comes from a threshing floor, where fodder thrown beneath the threshing sledge must be pushed back when it scatters. Sending a blind woman to do that work is offered as a mismatch between helper and task. The saying treats blindness as incapacity, a view that is unfair to people with visual impairments.
- When it is used
Use it when a responsibility has been handed to someone poorly matched to it, to signal that the choice of person was misguided from the start.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: They fetched a blind woman to push the scattered fodder back under the threshing sledge.