At the end of a village on the verge of the steppe dwelt two brothers,
one rich and the other poor. One day the poor brother came to the rich
brother's house and sat down at his table; but the rich brother drove
him away and said, "How durst thou sit at my table? Be off! Thy proper
place is in the fields to scare away the crows!" So the poor brother
went into the fields to scare away the crows. The crows all flew away
when they saw him, but among them was a raven that flew back again and
said to him, "O man! in this village thou wilt never be able to live,
for here there is neither luck nor happiness for thee, but go into
another village and thou shalt do well!" Then the man went home,
called together his wife and children, put up the few old clothes that
still remained in his wardrobe, and went on to the next village,
carrying his water-skin on his shoulders. On and on they tramped along
the road, but the Unlucky Days clung on to the man behind, and said,
"Why dost thou not take us with thee? We will never leave thee, for
thou art ours!" So they went on with him till they came to a river,
and the man, who was thirsty, went down to the water's edge for a
drink. He undid his water-skin, persuaded the Unlucky Days to get into
it, tied it fast again and buried it on the bank close by the river.
Then he and his family went on farther. They went on and on till they
came to another village, and at the very end of it was an empty
hut--the people who had lived there had died of hunger. There the
whole family settled down. One day they were all sitting down there
when they heard something in the mountain crying, "Catch hold! catch
hold! catch hold!" The man went at once into his stable, took down the
bit and reins that remained to him, and climbed up into the mountain.
He looked all about him as he went, and at last he saw, sitting down,
an old goat with two large horns--it was the Devil himself, but of
course he didn't know that. So he made a lasso of the reins, threw
them round the old goat, and began to drag it gently down the
mountain-side. He dragged it all the way up the ladder of his barn,
when the goat disappeared, but showers and showers of money came
tumbling through the ceiling. He collected them all together, and they
filled two large coffers. Then the poor man made the most of his
money, and in no very long time he was well-to-do. Then he sent some
of his people to his rich brother, and invited him to come and live
with him. The rich brother pondered the matter over. "Maybe he has
nothing to eat," thought he, "and that is why he sends for me." So he
bade them bake him a good store of fat pancakes, and set out
accordingly. On the way he heard that his brother had grown rich, and
the farther he went the more he heard of his brother's wealth. Then he
regretted that he had brought all the pancakes with him, so he threw
them away into the ditch. At last he came to his brother's house, and
his brother showed him first one of the coffers full of money and then
the other. Then envy seized upon the rich brother, and he grew quite
green in the face. But his brother said to him, "Look now! I have
buried a lot more money in a water-skin, hard by the river; you may
dig it up and keep it if you like, for I have lots of my own here!"
The rich brother did not wait to be told twice. Off he went to the
river, and began digging up the water-skin straightway. He unfastened
it with greedy, trembling hands; but he had no sooner opened it than
the Unlucky Days all popped out and clung on to him. "Thou art ours!"
said they. He went home, and when he got there he found that all his
wealth was consumed, and a heap of ashes stood where his house had
been. So he went and lived in the place where his brother had lived,
and the Unlucky Days lived with him ever afterward.
THE WONDROUS STORY OF IVAN
GOLIK AND THE SERPENTS
Somewhere, nowhere, in another kingdom, in the Empire of Thrice-ten,
lived--whether 'twas a Tsar and a Tsaritsa, or only a Prince and a
Princess, I know not, but anyhow they had two sons. One day this
prince said to his sons, "Let us go down to the seashore and listen to
the songs of the sea-folk!" So they went. Now the prince wanted to
test the wits of his two sons; he wanted to see which of the twain was
fit for ruling his empire, and which should stand aside and make way
for better men. So they went on together till they came to where three
oaks stood all in a row. The prince looked at the trees, and said to
his eldest son, "My dear son, what wouldst thou make of those trees?"
"What would I make of them, dear father? I would make me good barns
and store-houses out of them. I would cut them down and plane the
timber well, and goodly should be the planks I should make of them."
"Good, my son!" replied the prince, "thou wilt make a careful
householder."
Then he asked his younger son, "And what wouldst thou make out of
these oaks, my son?"
"Well, dear father," said he, "had I only as much power as will, I
would cut down the middle oak, lay it across the other two, and hang
up every prince and every noble in the wide world."
Then the prince shook his head and was silent.
Presently they came to the sea, and all three stood still and looked
at it, and watched the fishes play. Then, suddenly, the prince caught
hold of his younger son, and pitched him right into the sea. "Perish!"
cried he, "for 'tis but just that such a wretch as thou shouldst
perish!"
Now, just as the father pitched his younger son into the sea, a great
whale-fish was coming along and swallowed him, and into its maw he
went. There he found wagons with horses and oxen harnessed to them,
all of which the fish had also gobbled. So he went rummaging about
these wagons to see what was in them, and he found that one of the
wagons was full of tobacco-pipes and tobacco, and flints and steels.
So he took up a pipe, filled it with tobacco, lit it, and began to
smoke. He smoked out one pipe, filled another, and smoked that too;
then he filled a third, and began smoking that. At last the smoke
inside the whale made it feel so uncomfortable that it opened its
mouth, swam ashore, and went asleep on the beach. Now some huntsmen
happened to be going along the beach at that time, and one of them saw
the whale, and said, "Look, my brethren! we have been hunting jays and
crows and shot nothing, and lo! what a monstrous fish lies all about
the shore! Let us shoot it!"
So they shot at it and shot at it, and then they fell upon it with
their axes and began to cut it to pieces. They cut and hacked at it
till suddenly they heard something calling to them from the middle of
the fish, "Ho! my brothers! hack fish if you like, but hack not that
flesh which is full of Christian blood!"
They fell down to the ground for fright, and were like dead men, but
the prince's younger son crept out of the hole in the fish that the
huntsmen had made, went out upon the shore, and sat down. He sat down
there quite naked, for all his clothes had rotted and dropped off
inside the fish. Maybe he had been a whole year in the whale without
knowing it, and he thought to himself, "How shall I now manage to live
in the wide, wide world?"
Meanwhile the elder brother had become a great nobleman. His father
had died, and he was lord over his whole inheritance. Then, as is the
wont of princes, he called together his senators and his servants, and
they counselled their young prince to marry; so out he went to seek a
bride, and a great retinue followed after him. They went on and on
till they came to where a naked man was sitting. Then the prince said
to one of his servants, "Go and see what manner of man that is!"