The old Devil was annoyed that the three brothers had not quarrelled
over the matter and had parted in peace. He summoned three little
Devilkins.
“There are three brothers,” he said, “Simon the Warrior, Taras the
Pot-bellied, and Ivan the Fool. I want them all to quarrel and they live
in peace and goodwill. It is the Fool’s fault. Go to these three
brothers, the three of you, and confound them so that they will scratch
out each others’ eyes. Do you think you can do it?”
“We can,” they said.
“How will you do it?”
“We will ruin them first,” they said, “so that they have nothing to eat,
then we will put them all together and they will begin to fight.”
“I see you know your work,” the old Devil said. “Go then, and do not
return to me until you have confounded the whole three, or else I will
skin you alive.”
And the Devilkins set out to a bog to confer on the matter, and they
argued and argued, for each wanted the easiest work, and they decided to
cast lots and each to take the brother that fell to him, and whichever
finished his work first was to help the others. And the Devilkins cast
lots and fixed a day when they should meet again in the bog, in order to
find out who had finished his work and who was in need of help.
The day arrived and the Devilkins gathered together in the bog. They
began to discuss their work. The first to give his account was the one
who had undertaken Simon the Warrior. “My work is progressing well,” he
said. “To-morrow Simon will return to his father.”
“How did you manage it?” the others asked him.
“First of all,” he said, “I gave Simon so much courage that he promised
the King to conquer the whole world. And the King made him the head of
his army and sent him to make war on the King of India. That same night
I damped the powder of Simon’s troops and I went to the King of India
and made him numberless soldiers out of straw. And when Simon saw
himself surrounded by the straw soldiers, a fear came upon him and he
ordered the guns to fire, but the guns and cannon would not go off. And
Simon’s troops were terrified and ran away like sheep, and the King of
India defeated them. Simon was disgraced. He was deprived of his rank
and estate and to-morrow he is to be executed. I have only one day left
in which to get him out of the dungeon and help him to escape home.
To-morrow I shall have finished with him, so I want you to tell me which
of you two is in need of help.”
Then the second Devilkin began to tell of his work with Taras. “I do not
want help,” he said; “my work is also going well. Taras will not live in
the town another week. The first thing I did was to make his belly grow
bigger and fill him with greed. He is now so greedy for other people’s
goods that whatever he sees he must buy. He has bought up everything he
could lay his eyes on, and spent all his money, and is still buying with
borrowed money. He has taken so much upon himself, and become so
entangled that he will never pull himself out. In a week he will have to
repay the borrowed money, and I will turn his wares into manure so that
he cannot repay, then he will go to his father.”
“And how is your work getting on?” they asked the third Devilkin about
Ivan.
“My work is going badly,” he said. “The first thing I did was to spit
into Ivan’s jug of kvas to give him a stomach-ache and then I went into
his fields and made the soil as hard as stones so that he could not move
it. I thought he would not plough it, but the fool came with his plough
and began to pull. His stomach-ache made him groan, yet still he went on
ploughing. I broke one plough for him and he went home and repaired
another, and again persisted in his work. I crawled beneath the ground
and clutched hold of his ploughshares, but I could not hold them--he
pressed upon the plough so hard, and the shares were sharp and cut my
hands. He has finished it all but one strip. You must come and help me,
mates, for singly we shall never get the better of him, and all our
labour will be wasted. If the fool keeps on tilling his land, the other
two brothers will never know what need means, for he will feed them.”
The first Devilkin offered to come and help to-morrow when he had
disposed of Simon the Warrior, and with that the three Devilkins parted.