Russian Folk-TalesAfanas'ev, A. N. (Aleksandr Nikolaevich)
General
Russian Folk-Tales
Afanas'ev, A. N. (Aleksandr Nikolaevich)
Folklore -- Russia
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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