Part 20

The old man set to and gourmandised, making the best of it. He ate the entire ox, and he drank the three casks of beer, croaked and said, “That was a small gift: still I cannot help it. I thank you for the bread and salt.” Then they went out of the palace, and the Cossack turned his keg to the left, and there was no sign of the palace.

“Let us exchange,” said the old man to the Cossack. “I will give you a sword, and you give me the keg: what is the use of the keg to you? This is a sword which slays of itself: you need only wave it, and however incalculable the force may be it will slay them all in front of it. You see that forest? Shall I show you what it can do?” Then the old man drew his sword and said to it, “Set to work, self-slaying sword, and despoil all the dreamy forest.” So the sword flew out of his hands, cut down the trees, and laid them all down in regular boards. Then, after it had cut them down, it came back to its master.

So the Cossack did not long bethink him, but gave the old man his keg and took the self-slaying sword, waved the sword, and killed the old man. Then he tied the keg to his saddle, mounted his horse, and thought he would go back to the King. But just then a terrible enemy was besieging the capital city of that King, and the Cossack saw an incalculable host and array, waved his sword and said, “Self-slaying sword, serve me a service and spill the hostile host.” And then there was a fine sight—heads flying about, blood flowing freely—and within one hour all the field was covered with corpses.

Then the King came out, kissed him, and decided to give him the fair princess to wife.

It was a gorgeous wedding. I was there at the wedding. I drank mead and wine: it flowed up to my whiskers, but it never entered my mouth.

BEER AND BREAD

In a certain kingdom, in a certain State, there once lived a rich peasant, and he had much money and bread; he used to lend money on interest to the poor husbandmen of his village. And, if he gave corn, then it had to be returned in full in the summer; and in addition to that, for every three pecks the debtor had to work two days on the lord’s field.

And one day it happened that there was a festival in the Church, and the peasants began brewing beer for the feast. But in this village there was a peasant who was so poor that there was no poorer to be found. And there he sat in the evening with his wife on the eve of the festival in his little hut. He was thinking: “What shall I do? All the good folk are now gadding about making merry, and we have not a crust of bread in our house. I might have gone to the rich man and asked him for a loan; but he would not trust me. Now what shall I do, I am so woebegone!” And he thought and thought, and he left the bench and stood in front of the icon, and sighed a heavy sigh. “Lord,” he said, “have forgiveness on my sins, for I cannot buy any oil with which to fill the lamp in front of Thy icon for Thy feast.”

And after a little while, an old man came into the hut.

“Hail, master,” he said. “Hail, old man! Can I stay the night here?”

“If you will. Stay the night if you like. But, Gossip, I have not a crust of bread in my house, and I cannot feed you.”

“Never mind, master, I have three crusts of bread, and meat: give me a ladle of water. I will take a taste of the loaf and a sup of the water, and we shall be satisfied.”

So the old man sat down on the bench, and spoke.

“Why are you so sad, master? What has made you melancholy?”

“Old man,” the master answered, “why should I not be heavy?—it is God’s gift. We were so looking forward to the feast. All the good folk are making merry and rejoicing, but we are clean swept out. All around me and within there is emptiness.”

“Well, be of good cheer,” said the old man; “go to the rich peasant and ask whatever you require of him as a debt.”

“No, I cannot go, for he will not give it.”

“Go,” the old man insisted. “Fear nothing. Ask him for three pecks of malt, and we will brew the beer together.”

“But it is so late. How shall we brew beer?—the feast is to be to-morrow.”

“Do what I say. Go to the rich peasant and ask for the three pecks of malt. He will give it you at once. No, he cannot refuse it. And to-morrow you shall have beer so good at the feast—better than any you shall find throughout the village.”

What could the poor man say? He got up, took his sack under his arm, and went up to the rich peasant.

He went into the rich man’s _izbá_,[52] bowed down, besought him by his name and his father’s name, and asked him for the loan of three pecks of malt, as he wanted to brew beer for the festival.

“Why did you not think of it sooner?” the rich man replied. “How can you do it now, for this is the eve of the festival?”

“Never mind, Gossip,” the poor man replied; “if you will be so good, I and my wife will still brew something together, and can drink together and celebrate the festival.”

The rich man gave him three pecks of malt and poured them into his sack. The poor man lifted the sack on to his shoulders and went home and recounted how things had gone.

“Now, master,” his old guest said, “you shall have a feast. Is there a well at your door?”

“There is,” said the peasant.

“Well, we will go to your well and brew the beer. Bring your sack and follow me.”

So they went out to the courtyard up to the well.

“Pour it all in there,” the old man said.

“Why should we hurl all this good stuff into the well?” the master replied, “for there are only three pecks, and it will all be thrown away for nothing.”

“It is the best thing you can do.”

“We shall not do any good—we shall only sully the water.”

“Listen to me, and do what I say: there is nothing to fear.”

So what could he do? He simply had to pour all his malt into the well.

“Now,” the old man said, “formerly there was water in the well, and to-morrow it will be beer. Now, master, we will go into the _izbá_[53] and lie down to sleep, for the morning is wiser than the evening, and to-morrow you will have such good beer for dinner that one glass will make you drunk.”

So they waited until the morning, and then when dinner-time came round the old man said: “Well, master, get as many tubs as you can, and stand them round the well and fill them all full of beer, and then call every one in to drink, and you shall have a really riotous feast.”

And the peasant went and called all his neighbours and asked for tubs.

“What do you want all these tubs and pails for?” they asked him.

“Oh, I really want them at once, as I have not vessels enough to hold my beer.”

And the neighbours whispered: “What on earth does he mean? Is the good fellow gone mad? There is not a crust of bread in his house, and he is still chattering about beer.”

Well, somehow or other, he got twenty pails and tubs together, put them all round the well, and began to haul them up. And the beer turned out so fine, finer than ever anybody could think or guess, or any tale could tell. And he filled all the tubs to the very brim, and the well was as full as ever. And he began to cry out aloud and to call guests to his door.

“Come to me, good Christians, and drink strong beer here, such beer as you never saw in your life!”

And the people looked round. “What on earth was he up to? Surely you take water out of a well, and he calls it beer? Anyhow, let’s go and see, whatever knavery it may be.” So they all rushed up to the tubs, and they began to ladle it out and to look at it. Evidently, after all, it must be beer. And they said: “Such beer we have never drunk before!” His courtyard was full of the village folk. And the master was not at a loss to ladle beer out of the well for himself, and treated all of his guests right royally.

When the rich peasant heard of this, he came to the poor man’s courtyard, tasted the beer, and began to ask the poor man: “Please to tell me how ever you managed to make such magnificent beer?”

“Oh, there was not any cleverness about it,” the poor man answered. “It is the simplest thing in the world. When I took your three pecks from you I simply went and threw them into the well. Formerly it was water, and in a single night it all became beer.”

“Well,” the rich man thought, “I will go home and I will do the same.”

So he went home, and he ordered all of his servants to take all of the best malt out of his granaries, and throw it into the well. And his husbandmen threw ten sacks of malt into the well.

“Now,” the rich man said, and rubbed his hands, “I shall have finer beer than the poor man.”

So the next time he went out to his courtyard and up to the well, sampled it, and looked. It was water before, and it was still water; only it was rather dirtier. “I don’t quite understand this: I put too little malt into it, so I will add some more,” the rich man thought, and he ordered his workmen to put five more sacks into the well. They were all thrown in, and it was all no good: he had simply wasted all of his malt.

And when the feast had passed by the water in the poor peasant’s well was as pure as ever, just as if nothing had happened.

Once again the old man came to the poor peasant and said: “Listen, master, have you sown your corn this year?”

“No, grandfather, I have not sown a single grain.”

“Well, now go to the rich man and ask him for three pecks of every kind of corn. We will eat with you in the fields, and we will then sow the corn.”

“How shall we sow it now?” the poor man answered. “It is now the very midst of winter and the frost is crackling.”

“Never mind about that. Go and do as I say. I brewed you beer, and I will sow you corn.”

So the poor man went once more to the rich peasant and asked him as a debt for three pecks of every kind of corn. When he came back he told his aged guest:

“Here it all is, grandfather.”

So they went outside to the fields, scattered it according to its nature on the peasant’s lots; and lo and behold! they went and threw all the grains on the white snow—every single grain.

The old man said to the peasant: “Go home and wait until the summer; you will have bread enough.”

So the poor man went to his hut and became the laughing-stock of the village for sowing his corn in the winter. “Look at him! What a fool he is! He has forgotten when he ought to sow: he didn’t think of sowing in the autumn.” He never minded, but waited for the spring, and the warm days came, and the snow melted, and the grain sprouts appeared.

“Come now,” the poor man said, “I will go and see what my stretch of land looks like.” So he went to his stretch of land and saw such splendid blades of corn, at which any soul might rejoice. And on all the acres of the others it was not half as fine. “Glory be to God!” the peasant cried; “I am now looking up!”

Soon the time of harvest came by, and all good folk began to gather their corn, and the old man also went and busied himself, and called his wife to help him. And he could not get through, but had to summon for the harvesting all the husbandmen, and to give half of his corn away; and all the peasants were astonished at the poor man, for he had not sown his land, but had scattered the seeds in the winter and his corn had been splendid. The poor peasant had put his affairs straight and had managed to live without any trouble; and whatever he required for his household, he went into the town, sold quarters and quarters of corn, and bought whatever he required, and repaid the rich peasant his debt in full.

Then the rich peasant began to think: “Heigh-ho! I shall also begin sowing in the winter; possibly I shall have corn as fine.” So he waited to the very day on which the poor peasant in the previous year had sown his corn, went and took from his bins quarters of different sorts of corn, went out into the fields and scattered it all on the snow. He covered the fields entirely, but a storm arose at night, and mighty winds blew, and wafted all the corn from his land away on to the other fields.

Then there came a fine spring, and the rich man went to his fields and saw them bare, and saw that his own land was naked and waste; there was not a single blade that appeared, and on all the other strips where there had been no ploughing and no sowing, you never saw such a fine green crop! Then the rich man began to think: “Lord, I have spent much on corn, and it has all been in vain, and my debtors have all neither ploughed nor sown, and their corn grows of itself. Needs I must be a great sinner!”

SORROW

Once upon a time, in a wretched village, there lived two peasants, who were own brothers. One was poor, however, and the other rich. The rich man settled in the town, built himself a fine house, and became a merchant. Sometimes the poor brother had not a crumb of bread and the children (each of whom was smaller than the others) cried and begged for something to eat. From morning to evening the peasant trudged away like a fish on ice, but it was all of no good.

One day he said to his wife: “I am going into the town, in order to beg my brother to help me.”

So he came to the rich man and asked him: “Brother, help me in my sorrow, for my wife and children sit at home without any bread and are starving.”

“If you will work for me this week I will help you.”

What was the poor fellow to do? He set to work, cleaned out the courtyard, groomed the horses, carried the water, hewed the wood. When the week had gone by the rich man gave him a loaf of bread. “There, you have a reward for your pains.”

“I thank you for it,” said the poor man, and bowed down, and was going home.

“Stay,” the rich brother said to him: “Come with your wife to-morrow and be my guests. To-morrow is my name-day.”

“Oh, brother, how can I? As you know, merchants who wear boots and furs come to see you, whilst I have only bast shoes, and I only have my grey coat.”

“Never mind! Come to-morrow; I shall still have room for you.”

“Good brother! I will come.”

So the poor man went home, gave his wife the loaf of bread, and said: “Listen, wife. To-morrow you and I are to be guests.”

“Who has asked us?”

“My brother. To-morrow is his name-day.”

“All right, let’s go.”

Next day they got up and went into the town. They came to the rich man’s door, greeted him, and sat down on a bench. And at table there were many guests, and the master of the house entertained them all magnificently. Only he forgot the poor brother and his wife, and he gave them nothing. They sat there, and could only look at the others eating and drinking. When the meal was over the guests rose from table and bowed their thanks to the master and mistress, and the poor man also stood up from his bench and bowed down deep before his brother; and the guests went home drunken and merry, noisily singing songs.

But the poor man went home with an empty stomach. “We too must sing a song!” he said to his wife.

“Oh, you fool, the others sing, for they have had a good dinner and have drunk well. Why should we sing?”

“Well, after all, I was a guest at my brother’s name-day, and I am ashamed of going back so silently. If I sing they will all think, anyhow, that I have been served as well.”

“Sing if you will! I shall not!”

So the peasant sang and sang, and he heard two voices. So he stopped and asked his wife: “Are you helping me; to sing with a thin voice?”

“What are you thinking of? I was doing nothing of the sort.”

“What was it, then?”

“I don’t know,” said the wife. “Sing. I will listen.” So he went on singing by himself, and again the two voices were heard. So he stayed still, and said, “Sorrow, are you aiding me to sing?”

And Sorrow answered: “Yes, I am aiding you.”

“Now, Sorrow, we will go on together.”

“Yes, I will ever remain with you.”

So the peasant went home. But Sorrow called him into the inn.

He said: “I have no money.”

“Never mind, Hodge; what do you want money for? Why, you still have half of a fur; what is the use of it? It will soon be summer, and you will be no longer requiring it. We will go into the inn and drink it up.”

So the peasant and Sorrow went into the inn, and they drank up the half-fur. Next day Sorrow groaned and said he had a headache, a fearful headache, owing to last night’s treat. And he enticed the peasant once more to bib wine.

“But I have no money!”

“There is no need of money. Take your sleigh and your carriage; that will be sufficient for us!”

It was not any good. The peasant could not escape Sorrow. So he took his sleigh and his carriage, drove them to the inn, and drank them with Sorrow. And in the morning Sorrow groaned yet further, and reduced the master to further drinking; and the peasant drank away his ploughshare and his plough.

One month had gone by, and he had drunk all his property away, pledged his _izbá_[54] to a neighbour, and spent all the money in the inn. Then Sorrow came to him once more. “Let us go to the inn!”

“No, Sorrow, I have no more.”

“Why, your wife has two sarafáns, one will be sufficient for her.”

So the peasant took the sarafán, drank it up; and he thought: “Now I have not anything left, neither house, nor clothes, nor anything else for myself or my wife!”

Next morning Sorrow woke up and saw that there was nothing more he could take. So he said: “Master, what is your wish? Go to your neighbour and borrow a pair of oxen and a carriage.”

So the peasant went to his neighbour and said, “Can you lend me a car and a pair of oxen for a short time, and I will do a week’s work for them?”

“What do you want with them?”

“To fetch wood out of the forest.”

“Well, then, take them, but don’t overload them.”

“Oh, of course not, uncle!”

So the peasant took the oxen, went with Sorrow into the carriage, and drove into the field.

“Do you know the big stone in this field?” Sorrow asked.

“Oh, yes!”

“Well, then, drive up to it.”

So they arrived at the stone and dismounted. Sorrow bade the peasant lift up the stone, and he aided him in the work. Under the stone there was a hollow filled with gold.

“Now, what do you see?” said Sorrow. “Load it all up quickly on to the coach.”

So the peasant set to work sharply, loaded all the gold up, to the very last ducats. And when he noticed there was not anything left, he said, “Sorrow, is there no more gold there?”

“I don’t see any.”

“Down there in the corner I see something glittering.”

“No; I cannot see anything.”

“Get down into the pit, and you will see it.”

So Sorrow went into the pit, and as soon as he was in the peasant cast the stone in. “Things will now go better,” said the peasant, “for if I were to take you back with me, Sorrow, you would drink up all of this money!”

So the peasant went home, and he poured out the gold in the cellar. He took the oxen back to his neighbour, and he began to set up house again, bought a wood, built a big house, and became twice as rich as his brother. Soon he rode to the town, in order to invite his brother and his sister-in-law to his own name-day.

“Whatever do you mean?” said the rich brother, “why, you have nothing to eat, and you are giving festivals!”

“I had nothing to eat before, but I am now as well off as you are.”

“All right; I will come.”

So next day the rich man, with his wife, went to the name-day; and they saw that the poor starveling had a big new house, much finer than many merchants’ houses. And the peasant gave them a rich dinner, with all kinds of meat and drink.

So the rich man asked his brother: “Tell me, how did you become so rich?”

Then the peasant told him the bare truth—how Sorrow had followed on his heels and how he and his Sorrow had gone into the inn, and he had drunk away all his goods and chattels to the last shred, until he had only his soul left in his body; and then how Sorrow had showed him the treasure-trove in the field, and he had thus freed himself from the thraldom of Sorrow.

And the rich man became envious and thought: “I will go into the field and will lift the stone up. Sorrow will rend my brother’s body asunder, so that he cannot then brag of his riches in front of me.”

So he left his wife behind and drove into the field, to the big stone. He whirled it off to the side and bowed down to see what was under the stone. And he had hardly bowed down, when Sorrow sprang up and sat on his shoulders.

“O!” Sorrow cried. “You wanted to leave me here under the earth. Now I shall never depart from you.”

“Listen, Sorrow: I was not the person who locked you up here!”

“Who was it, then, if it was not you?”

“My brother. I came in order to set you free.”

“No, you are lying and deceiving me again. This time it shall not come off.”

So Sorrow sat fast on the wretched merchant’s shoulders. He brought Sorrow with him home, and his household went from bad to worse. Sorrow began early in the morning enticing the merchant into the beerhouse day after day, and much property was drunk away.

“This life is absolutely unbearable!” thought the merchant. “I have done Sorrow too good a service. I must now set myself free from him. How shall I?” So he thought and he thought it out. He went into his courtyard, cut two oak wedges, took a new wheel, and knocked one wedge from one end into the axle. He went up to Sorrow. “Now, Sorrow, must you lie about like that?”

“What should I be doing? What else is there to do?”

“Come into the courtyard; let us play hide-and-seek.”

This suited Sorrow down to the ground, and at first the merchant hid and Sorrow found him at once.

Then Sorrow had to hide. “You will not find me so easily: I can hide myself in any crack.”

“What!” said the merchant. “Why, you could never get into this wheel, much less into a crack!”

“What! I could not get into the wheel? Just look how I manage to hide myself in it!”

So Sorrow crept into the wheel, and the merchant took the other oak wedge and drove it into the hub from the other side, and threw the wheel, with Sorrow inside, into the river. Sorrow was drowned, and the merchant lived as before.

IVÁSHKO AND THE WISE WOMAN

Once there lived an old man and an old dame, and they only had one little son, and you can’t imagine how they loved him.

One day Iváshechko asked his mother and father, “Please may I go and catch fish?”

“What nonsense! you’re much too little yet: you might get drowned, and that would be a fine story.”

“Oh, no, I won’t get drowned. I’ll go and catch you a fish: let me go!”

So grandfather gave him a little white shirt to wear, with a big red sash, and off he went. Soon he was sitting in a boat and singing:

Little boat, little boat, sail far away, O’er the blue water away and away.

The little skiff sailed far and far away and Iváshechko started fishing. Soon, how long I don’t know, up came the mother to the shore and said:

Iváshechko, Iváshechko, my little son, Up to the shore let your little boat run: Here is some drink and here is a bun!

And Iváshechko said:

Little boat, little boat, sail to the shore: My mother’s calling me.

The little skiff sailed up to the shore; the woman took the fish and fed her little boy, changed his shirt and sash and sent him out again to catch fish. And there he sat on the boat and sang:

Little boat, little boat, sail far away, O’er the blue water away and away.

The little boat sailed out so far away, and Iváshechko started fishing. Soon the grandfather came to the shore and called his son:

Iváshechko, Iváshechko, my little son, Up to the shore let your little boat run: Here is some drink and here is a bun!

And Iváshechko said:

Little boat, little boat, sail to the shore: For father’s calling me!

The little skiff sailed up to the shore; the grandfather took the fish and fed his little boy, changed his shirt and sash and sent him out again to catch fish. And there he sat on the boat and sang:

Little boat, little boat, sail far away, O’er the blue water away and away.