Russian folk tales in brief
Wise Answers
The soldier comes home from service, after serving twenty-five years. Everyone asked him about the tsar, but he did not even see him in person. The soldier goes to the palace to see the king, who is testing the soldier and making various riddles. The soldier so reasonably answers that the king remains satisfied. The king sends him to the dungeon and says that he will send thirty geese to him, so that the soldier does not harm and will manage to pull out of them. After that, the king summons thirty rich merchants and asks them the same riddles as the soldier, but they can not guess them. The king imprisons them for this. The soldier teaches the merchants the correct answers to the riddles and takes for each one a thousand rubles. The king again asks the merchants the same questions, and when the merchants answer, releases them, and gives the soldier a thousand rubles more for his ingenuity. The soldier returns home and lives richly and happily.
The wise virgin
There
The king listens to both brothers, and he likes only the answers of the poor. When the king finds out that his poor brother’s daughter has solved his riddles, he tests it, giving different assignments, and more and more is surprised by her wisdom. At last he invites her to his palace, but sets a condition that she should appear to him neither on foot, nor on a horse, neither naked, nor dressed, nor with a gift, nor a gift. Seven-year-old takes
Popov the worker
Pop hires a farm laborer, sends him to plow on a little bit and gives a bread rug. In this case, he punishes him, so that he and the little bitch are full, and the carpet remains intact. The farmer works all day, and when the hunger becomes unbearable, he devises what to do to fulfill the priest’s orders. He removes the top crust from the carpets, pulls out all the crumb, gorges on his fill and feeds the little bitch, and the crust clings into place. Pop happy that the young man was quick-witted, adds him to the agreed price for smartness, and the farmer lives near the priest pripevayuchi.
The daughter of a shepherd
The king takes a wife of a shepherd’s daughter, a beauty, but demands from her that she does not contradict anything, or he will execute her. They have a son, the king tells his wife that it is not good for a peasant son to take over the whole kingdom after his death, and therefore her son must be killed. The wife obeys submissively, and the king secretly sends the child to his sister. When they have a daughter, the king does the same for the girl. The prince and the princess grow far from their mother and become very good-looking.
Many years pass, and the king announces to his wife that he no longer wants to live with her, and sends her back to his father. She does not reproach her husband with a single word and graze cattle as before. The king summons the former wife to the palace, tells her that she is going to marry a young beauty, and orders him to clean the rooms in the rooms for the arrival of the bride. She comes, and the king asks the old wife if his bride is good, and the wife humbly responds that if he feels good, then she is even more. Then the king returns her royal dresses and confesses that the young beauty is her daughter, and the handsome man who came with her is her son. After this, the king ceases to test his wife and lives with her without any cunning.
Slandered merchant daughter
A merchant with a merchant woman has a beautiful daughter and daughter. Parents die, and the brother says goodbye to his beloved sister and goes to military service. They change their portraits and promise to never forget each other. The merchant’s son serves the tsar faithfully and truthfully, becomes a colonel and is friends with the prince himself. He sees a colonel on the wall portrait of his sister, falls in love with her and dreams of marrying her. All the colonels and generals envy the friendship of the merchant’s son with the prince and think how to disentangle them.
One envious general goes to the city where the colonel’s sister lives, inquires about her and finds out that she is a virgin of exemplary behavior and rarely leaves home, except in church. On the eve of a big holiday, the general waits for the girl to leave for the all-night service, and comes to her house. Taking advantage of the fact that the servants take him for the brother of his mistress, he goes to her bedroom, steals from her table a glove and a ring and hurries away. The merchant’s daughter comes back from the church, and the servants tell her that her brother came, did not find her and also went to church. She waits for her brother, notices that the golden ring is missing, and guesses that a thief has been in the house. And the general comes to the capital, slanders the tsarevich over the colonel’s sister, says that he himself could not resist and sinned with her, and shows her ring and glove,
The prince tells all about the merchant’s son. He takes leave and goes to his sister. From her, he finds out that a ring and a glove were missing from her bedroom. The merchant’s son realizes that all this is the machinations of the general, and asks the sister to come to the capital, when there will be a big divorce in the square. The girl comes and asks the Tsarevich for trial of the general, who defamed her name. The prince summons the general, but he swears he sees this girl for the first time. The merchant’s daughter shows the general a glove, a pair to the one she allegedly gave to the general along with the gold ring, and convicts the general of lying. He confesses everything, is judged and sentenced to hanging. And the prince goes to his father, and he allows him to marry a merchant’s daughter.
Soldier and Tsar in the Forest
A man has two sons. The elder is taken to the recruits, and he attains to the rank of general. Then he is taken to the younger soldiers, and he gets to the very regiment where his brother-general commands him. But the general does not want to recognize his younger brother: he is ashamed that he is a simple soldier, and directly tells him that he does not want to know him. When the soldier tells the friends about this to the general, he orders him to give him three hundred sticks. The soldier escapes from the regiment and lives alone in the wild forest, feeding on roots and berries.
Once in this forest the king and his entourage are hunting. The king chases the deer and falls behind the rest of the hunters. He wanders in the woods and meets a runaway soldier. The king tells the soldier that he is a servant of the king. They are looking for a night’s lodging and go to the forest hut in which the old woman lives. Ta does not want to feed uninvited guests, but the soldier finds plenty of food and wine for her and censures for greed. Having eaten and drunk, they go to sleep in the attic, but the soldier, just in case, is persuaded with the king to take turns standing on the watch. The king twice falls asleep at the post, and the soldier wakes him up, and the third time he thrashes and sends to sleep, and he watches himself.
Robbers come to the hut. They one by one go up to the attic to slaughter uninvited guests, but the soldier straightens with them. The next morning the soldiers with the tsar descend from the attic and the soldier demands from the old woman all the money robbers robbed.
The soldier takes the king out of the woods and bids farewell to him, and he invites the serviceman to the royal palace and promises to seek for him from the sovereign. The king orders all the outposts: if they see such a soldier, let them honor him, as it is supposed to greet the general. The soldier is surprised, comes to the palace and finds out in his recent comrade a king. He awards him with the rank of general, and his elder brother is roused in the soldiers, so that he will not renounce the clan and tribe.
Moroca
A sailor leaves the ship ashore, walks every day to a tavern, smokes and only pays gold. The innkeeper suspects something amiss and informs the officer, and he reports to the general. The general summons the sailor and demands that he explain where he got so much gold from. He replies that there is a lot of such good in every garbage pit, and asks the innkeeper to show the gold that he received from him. In the box instead of gold are the knuckles. Suddenly, the streams of water run into the windows and doors, and the general is not up to questioning. The sailor proposes to climb through the pipe to the roof. They are saved and see that the whole city is flooded. A skiff is sailing past, a sailor and a general are boarding him and on the third day they sail into the thirties.
To make money on bread, they go to the village and are hired for the whole summer in shepherds: the sailor becomes the elder, and the general is a pack. In the fall, they are paid money, and the sailor divides them equally, but the general is unhappy that a simple sailor equates him with himself. They quarrel, but then the sailor shoves the general out so that he wakes up. The general comes to his senses and sees that he is in the same room, as if he did not leave it. He does not want to judge the sailor any more and lets him go. So the innkeeper is left with nothing.
Witch Doctor
Poor and purgatory peasant by nickname Beetle steals from the woman canvas, hides it, and he boasts that he knows how to turn around. Baba comes to him to find out where her canvas is. A man asks for work a pood of flour and a pound of oil and tells where the canvas is hidden. After that, after stole from the master of the stallion, he gets a hundred rubles from the master for the fortune, and the glory of the peasant as a great sorcerer goes.
The king has lost the wedding ring, and he sends for the witch doctor: if the peasant finds out where the ring will get the reward, if not, it will lose its head. The witch is given a special room so that by morning he will know where the ring is. The footman, the coachman and the cook who stole the ring, are afraid that the witch doctor will learn about them, and agree to take turns listening at the door. The peasant decided to wait for the third cocks and run away. The lackey comes to listen, and at this time the cock begins to sing for the first time. A man says: one already exists, there are two more to wait! The waifter thinks that the witch doctor recognized him. With the coachman and the cook, the same thing happens: cocks are singing, and the peasant believes and condemns: there are two! and now all three! Thieves beg the witch doctor not to give them out and give him a ring. A man throws a ring under the floorboard, and next morning he tells the king where to look for the loss.
The king generously rewards the healer and walks to the garden. Seeing the bug, he hides it in the palm of his hand, returns to the palace and asks the peasant to guess what is in his hand. A man says to himself: “Well, I got a bug to the king in my hands!” The king rewards the healer and lets him go home.
Slepts
In Moscow, at the Kaluga Gate, a peasant is handed to a blind beggar from the last half-ruble hectare and asks for forty-eight kopecks of change, but the blind man does not seem to hear. A peasant is sorry for his money, and he, angry with a blind man, slowly takes one of his crutches from him, and he follows him when he leaves. A blind man comes to his hut, opens the door, and the man jumps into the room and hides there. The blind man locked himself from the inside, took out a barrel of money, poured out everything he had collected for the day, and grinned, remembering the young man who gave him his last fifty dollars. And in a barrel of a beggar – five hundred rubles. Blind with nothing to do rolls a barrel on the floor, it strikes against the wall and rolls back to it. The man slowly takes the barrel from him. The blind man will not understand where the barrel has gone, he unlocks the door and calls
Pantelei, his neighbor, who lives in a neighboring hut. He comes.
The peasant sees that Pantelei is also blind. Pantelei scolds his friend for being stupid and says that he should not play with money, but act like him, Pantelei: exchange money for banknotes and sew them in an old cap, which is always with him. And in it at Pantelei – about five hundred rubles. A man quietly takes off his hat, goes out the door and runs away, taking a barrel with him. Pantelei thinks that his neighbor took off his hat, and begins to fight with him. And while the blind men are fighting, the peasant returns to his home and lives in clover.
Thief
A peasant has three sons. He takes the elder in the woods, the guy sees the birch and says that if he burned it to coal, he would have started a smithy for himself and would have earned money. Father is happy that his son is intelligent. He takes me to the forest of an average son. He sees an oak and says that if you cut down this oak, he would become carpenters and earn money. The father and his middle son are satisfied. And the younger Vanka as he drove through the woods, he keeps silent. They leave the forest, the small man sees a cow and tells his father that it would be good to steal this cow! The father sees that he will not be of any use, and drives him away. And Vanka becomes such a clever thief that the townspeople complain about him to the king. He calls Vanka to him and wants to test him: is he so cute, as they say about him. The king orders him to take him from the stallion’s stables: if Vanka can steal him, then his king will have mercy,
That same evening, Vanka pretends to be drunk in the insole and wanders with a keg of vodka through the royal court. The grooms bring him to the stable, take away his barrel and get drunk, and Vanya pretends to be asleep. When the grooms fall asleep, the thief takes away the royal stallion. The King forgives Vanka for this trick, but demands that the thief leave his kingdom, or else he will not chew!
Dead body
The widow’s old woman has two smart sons, and a third fool. Dying, the mother asks her sons so that when they divide the estate they do not deprive the fool, but the brothers do not give him anything. A fool grabs the deceased from the table, drags him to the attic and yells from there that his mother was killed. The brothers do not want a scandal and give him a hundred rubles. The fool puts the deceased in the woods and carries them to the high road. The master jumps up to meet him, but the fool deliberately does not turn off the road. The master runs into the driveway, the deceased falls from them, and the fool yells that my mother was killed. The master is frightened and gives him a hundred rubles to keep silent, but the fool takes three hundred from him. Then the fool slowly takes the deceased to the priest in the yard, drags him into the cellar, puts it on the straw, removes the lids from the kronek with milk and gives a pitcher and a spoon, dead in hand. He himself hides behind a tub.
Descends into the cellar priest and sees: sits an old woman and collects crumbs of sour cream in a jug. The priest grabs a stick, beats the old woman on the head, she falls, and the fool jumps out from behind the tub and yells that her mother was killed. The priest comes running, gives a fool a hundred rubles and promises to bury the deceased on his own money, if only the fool was silent. The fool returns home with money. The brothers ask him where he is doing the deceased, and he answers what he sold. That becomes enviable, they kill their wives and are taken to the market to sell, and they are seized and sent to Siberia. The fool becomes the master in the house and lives – he does not grieve.
Ivan the Fool
At the old man with the old woman – three sons: two clever, and the third fool. He sends his mother to take the brothers in the field a pot of dumplings. He sees his shadow and thinks that a man is following him and wants to eat dumplings. A fool throws himself at him with dumplings, but he does not lag behind. So the fool comes; to the brothers with empty hands. They beat the fool, go to the village to eat lunch, and they leave the sheep to graze. The fool sees that the sheep have dispersed along the field, collects them in a heap and knocks out all the sheep eyes. Brothers come, they see that they have made a fool, and they beat him more than before.
Send old men Ivanushka to the city for shopping for the holiday. He buys everything that was asked, but he forgets everything from the cart. The brothers again beat him and go for their own shopping, and Ivanushka is left in the hut. Tom does not like that the beer in the cask wanders. He does not tell him to wander, but the beer does not obey. The fool gets angry, pours beer on the floor, sits down in the trough and swims down the hut. The brothers return, sew a fool into the culm, bring to the river and search for an ice-hole to drown. A gentleman is riding by three horses, and a fool cries that he does not want to be a voivode, Ivanushka, but he is forced to. The master agrees to become a voivode instead of a fool and pulls him out of the kul, and Ivanushka puts a master there, sews up a crook, sits down in a wagon and leaves. Brothers come, they throw the crop in the hole and go home, and Ivanushka rides to meet them.
The fool tells them that when they threw him into the hole, he caught the horses under the water, but there was still a nice horse. The brothers ask Ivanushka to sew them in a cullet and toss them into an ice hole. He does so, and then goes home – to drink beer and brothers to remember.
Lutonyushka
Luton’s son lives with the old man and the old woman. One day an old woman drops a log and begins to wail, and her husband says that if they married his Lutonin, and his son would have a son, and would sit next to her, she would drop him a log and kill him to death. Old people are sitting and crying bitterly. Lutonya will find out what’s wrong, and leaves the yard to look for someone in the world who is stupider than his parents. In the village, the peasants want to drag a cow to the roof of the cottage. When asked by Lutony, they answer that there is a lot of grass. Lutony climbs on the roof, tears several beams and throws the cow.
The peasants are amazed at Lutoni’s ingenuity and beg him to live with them, but he refuses. In another village, he sees that the males adhere a collar at the gate and drive a horse into it with sticks. Lutonya puts the collar on his horse and goes on. At the inn, the hostess puts a salamata on the table, and she herself goes without end with a spoon to the cellar for sour cream. Lutonya explains to her that it is easier to bring a jug of sour cream from the cellar and put it on the table. The landlady thanks Luton and treats him.
Mena
A peasant finds oatmeal in dung, asks his wife to smash him, ground herself, cooked jelly and poured it into a dish, and he will carry it to the tsar: maybe the tsar will do something! A peasant comes to the tsar with a dish of jelly, and he gives him a gold tester. A man goes home, meets a shepherd on the way, changes his aunt to his horse and goes on. Then he changes his horse to a cow, a cow to a sheep, a sheep to a pig, a pig to a goose, a goose to a duck, a duck to a stick. He comes home and tells his wife what reward he received from the tsar and what she exchanged for. The wife grabs a stick and pummel her husband.
Ivan the Fool
At the old man with the old woman – two sons married and hard-working, and the third, Ivan the fool, – is idle and idle. Send Ivan the fool in the field, he lashes the horse on his side, kills in one stroke forty flies, and it seems to him that he killed forty heroes. He comes home and demands from his relatives a canopy, a saddle, a horse and a saber. Those laugh at him and give what is not suitable, and the fool sits down on a thin mare and leaves. He writes on the column a message to Ilya Muromets and Fyodor Lyzhnikov, so that they can come to him, a strong and mighty hero who killed forty heroes in one fell swoop.
Ilya Muromets and Fedor Lyzhnikov see the message of Ivan, the mighty warrior, and join him. The three of them come to a certain state and stop at the royal meadows. Ivan the fool demands that the king give him his daughter as wife. An angry king orders to capture three heroes, but Ilya Muromets and Fedor Lyzhnikov disperse the royal army. The king sends for the hero Dobrynia, who lives in his possessions. Ilya Muromets and Fedor Lyzhnikov see that Dobrynya himself is going to them, they are frightened and run away, but Ivan the fool does not have time to get on a horse. Dobrynya is so large that he has to bend into three ruins to properly consider Ivan. He does not hesitate to grab his sword and cut down the hero’s head. The Tsar is frightened and gives his daughter for Ivan.
The Tale of the Evil Wife
The wife does not listen to her husband and will contradict him in everything. Not life, but flour! A husband goes to the forest for berries and sees a bottomless pit in a bush of currant. He comes home and tells his wife that she does not go to the forest for berries, and that the luck goes to him. Her husband leads her to the bush of the currant and says that she does not tear berries, and she vomits him off, climbs into the middle of the bush and falls into the pit. The husband rejoices and after a few days goes to the forest to visit his wife. He lowers a long string into the pit, pulls it out, and on it – an imp! The man is frightened and wants to throw him back into the pit, but he asks to release him, promises to repay good and tells that an evil wife came to them and all the devils from her life was gone.
A peasant with a devil agrees that one will be seared, and another will be treated, and come to Vologda. The little devil smears merchant wives and daughters, and they get sick, and the peasant as he comes to the house where the little devil has settled, so the unclean from there goes. A peasant is mistaken for a doctor and gives a lot of money. Finally, the little imps told him that now the peasant is getting rich and they are with him in the calculation. He warns the peasant that he does not go to treat the boyar’s daughter, into which he, unclean, will soon enter. But the boyar, when his daughter falls ill, persuades the peasant to cure her.
The peasant comes to the boyar and orders that all the townspeople stand in front of the house and shout that the evil wife has come. The devil sees the peasant, gets angry with him and threatens to eat, but he says that he came in friendship – to warn the little devil that an evil wife has come here. The little devil gets frightened, hears how everyone screams in the street, and does not know where to go. A man advises him to return to the pit, the devil jumps there and there with an evil wife and remains. And the boyar gives his muzhik his daughter and gives her half of his estate.
Wife-debater
A man lives and suffers, because his wife is a stubborn, quarrelsome and inveterate debater. When someone’s beast wanders into the yard, God forbid to say that the beast is someone else’s, we must say that it’s her! The peasant does not know how to get rid of such a wife. Once the geese go to the yard. The wife asks her husband, whose they are. He replies: the master’s. Wife, angry with anger, falls to the floor and screams: I’m dying! say, whose geese? Husband again in return: lordly! Wife and really bad, she moans and gasps, calls the priest, but does not stop asking about geese. The priest comes, confesses and communicates it, the wife asks to prepare her a coffin, but again asks her husband, whose geese. He again tells her that they are gentlemen. The coffin is taken to the church, a funeral is served, the husband approaches the grave to say goodbye, and the wife whispers to him: whose geese? The husband says that they are lordly, and orders that the coffin be carried to the cemetery. They put the coffin in the grave, the husband leans over to his wife, and she whispers again: whose geese? He responds to her: masterful! They fill the grave with earth. That’s how the geese departed the woman!
Wife-Customer
An old man is living with an old woman, and she is so talkative that the old man gets all the time because of her language. An old man walks into the woods for firewood and finds a cauldron full of gold. He is pleased with the wealth, but he does not know how to bring home: the wife will immediately tell everyone! He comes up with a trick: he bury the cauldron in the ground, goes to the city, buys a pike and a living rabbit. Pike hanging on a tree, and he carries the hare to the river and puts it on the net. At home, he tells about the treasure of the old woman and goes with her into the forest. On the way the old woman sees a pike on the tree, and the old man takes it off. Then he goes with the old woman to the river and at her takes out a hare from the fishing net. They come to the forest, dig up the treasure and go home. Along the way, the old woman tells the old man that she hears cow crooks, and he answers that this is their master’s devil.
They now live richly, but the old woman completely got out of her hands: every day it rolls out feasts, even though you run from home! The old man suffers, but then he beats her hard. She runs to the master, tells him about the treasure and asks him to take the old man to Siberia. The master is angry, he comes to the old man and demands that he confess everything. But the old man swears to him that he did not find any treasure on the land of the land. The old woman shows where the old man hides money, but in the chest is empty. Then she tells the master how they went after the treasure into the forest, they removed the pike from the tree on the way, then they pulled out the hare from the fishing net, and when they returned they heard how the devil fights him, the master. The master sees that the old woman is out of her mind, and drives her away. Soon she dies, and the old man marries a young man and lives himself clover.
Prophetic oak
A good old man has a young wife, a roguish woman. A little that is not for her, she does not feed him, and does nothing at home. He wants to teach her a lesson. Comes from the forest and says that there is an old oak tree that knows everything and predicts the future. The wife hurries to the oak, and the old man comes before her and hides in a hollow. The wife asks the oak council how to let her old and unloved husband blind. And the old man from the hollow answers to her that it is necessary to feed him better, he will go blind. The wife is trying to feed the old man, and after a while he pretends to be blind. The wife rejoices, calls the guests, they go with a feast of a mountain. The wine is not enough, and the wife leaves the hut to bring more wine. The old man sees that the guests are drunk, and one by one he kills them, and his mouth is plugged with pancakes, as if they choked. The wife comes, sees that all the friends of the dead are lying, and henceforth renounces guests to convene. A fool walks past, his wife gives him a gold one, and he pulls out the deceased: whom he throws into the hole, who covers up with dirt.
Expensive leather
Two brothers live. Danilo is rich, but envious, and poor Gavrila has only possessions, that one cow comes Danilo to his brother and says that now in town cows are cheap, six rubles each, and for a skin of twenty-five they give. Tavrilo, believing him, stabs the cow, meat sticks, and the skin carries to the market. But no one gives him more than two and a half. Finally Tavrilo gives the skin to a merchant and asks him to treat him with vodka. The merchant gives him his handkerchief and tells him to go to his house, give the handkerchief to the mistress and tell her to bring a glass of wine.
Tavrilo comes to the merchant, and her lover sits. The merchant treats Gavril with wine, but he does not quit and asks for more. The merchant returns, his wife hurries to hide her lover, and Tavrilo hides in a trap with him. The host brings guests with them, they start drinking and singing songs. Gavril also wants to sing, but the merchant’s lover discourages him and gives him a hundred rubles for this, then another two hundred. Kupchikha hears how they in the West are whispering, and brings Gavrila another five hundred rubles, just to be silent. Tavrilo finds a pillow and a barrel of resin, tells the merchant’s lover to undress, rolls it with tar, dumps it in feathers, sits on top of him and falls out of the trap with a cry. Guests think that it’s devils, and run away. The merchant tells her husband that she has noticed for a long time that an unclean power is in their house, he believes her and sells the house for a pittance. And Tavrilo comes home and sends his eldest son to Uncle Danil to help him count the money. He is surprised at how much money the poor brother has, and Tavrilo says that he saved twenty-five rubles for cow’s skin, bought more cows for that money, tore off their skins, and sold them again, and again put money into circulation.
Greedy and envious Danilo stamps all his cattle and carries the leather to the market, but no one gives him more than two with a half. Danilo remains at a loss and lives now is poorer than his brother, and Tavrilo makes a great wealth.
How did my husband break his wife from fairy tales?
The janitor’s wife likes fairy tales so much that she does not let those who do not know how to tell them stay. A husband of this loss, he thinks: how to wean her from fairy tales! He asks for a night on a cold night and promises to tell stories all night long, if only they let him into the heat, and he himself does not know any. The husband tells his wife that the muzhik will tell with one condition: that she does not interrupt him. The muzhik begins: the owl flew past the garden, sat down on the deck, drank water… Yes, that’s all it says. The wife is bored to listen to the same thing, she is angry and interrupts the peasant, and her husband only needs it. He jumps up from the bench and starts pounding his wife for interrupting the narrator and not letting the tale listen. And so she gets from him, that since then she has refused to listen to fairy tales.
Miser
Rich, but stingy merchant Marco sees how a poor man pities a beggar and gives him a penny. Ashamed of becoming a merchant, he asks the peasant for a penny loan and tells him that he has no small money, and he also wants to give the beggar. That gives Marco a penny and comes for duty, but the merchant sends him every time: say, there is no small money! When he comes again for a penny, Marco asks his wife to tell the peasant that her husband has died, and he undresses himself naked, covered with a sheet and lies under the image. A man offers a merchant to wash the deceased, takes cast iron with hot water and let the merchant water. He tolerates it.
After washing Marco, the poor man puts him in a coffin and goes with the deceased to church, and read the hymnal over him. At night, the robbers come to the church, and the peasant hides behind the altar. The robbers begin to share the booty, but they can not share the golden sword: everyone wants to take it. The poor man runs out from behind the altar and screams that the sword will get to him, who will cut the dead man’s head. Marco jumps up, and the thieves throw the prey and run away in fear.
Marco and the muzhik divide all the money equally, and when the muzhik asks about his penny, Marco tells him that again he does not have any small ones. And does not give a pretty penny.
* * *
The peasant has a big family, and from the good – one goose. When there is nothing to eat, the goose fries a roast, but there is nothing to eat: there is no bread or salt. A man consults with his wife and takes the goose to the master to bow to ask him for bread. He asks the peasant to divide the goose, so much so that everyone in the family has enough. And the master has a wife, two sons and two daughters. A man divides a goose so much that most of it goes to him. Barin likes the peasant wit, and he treats the peasant with wine and gives bread. He learns about this rich and envious man and also goes to the master, roasting five geese. The master wants him to be divided equally, but he can not. The master sends a poor peasant to divide the geese. He gives one goose to the gentleman with the lady, one to their sons, one to their daughters and two geese to themselves. Barin praises the peasant for resourcefulness, rewards with money,
* * *
A soldier comes to the apartment to the hostess and asks for something to eat, but the landlady is stingy and says that she has nothing. Then the soldier tells her that he will cook porridge from one ax. He takes an ax from the woman, cooks it, then asks to add cereals, oil – the porridge is ready.
They eat porridge, and the woman asks the soldier when they will eat the ax, and the soldier says that the ax has not yet been cooked and he will cook it somewhere along the way and have breakfast. The soldier hides the ax and leaves satisfied and satisfied.
* * *
The old man and the old woman are sitting on the stove, she says that if they had children, then the son would plow the field and sow bread, and the daughter would have him, and she, the old woman, would make beer and call all her relatives, but the old man’s relatives would not have called. The older one demands that she call his relatives, and her own did not call. They quarrel, and the old man drags the old woman by the scythe and pushes it off the stove. When he goes into the woods for firewood, the old woman is going to run away from home. She bakes pies, puts them in a big bag and goes to the neighbor to say goodbye.
The old man learns that the old woman has fled from him, has taken out pies from the sack and climbed into it himself. The old woman takes the bag and goes. After walking a little, she wants to stop and says that it would be nice to sit down on a stump and eat a patty, and the old man from the bag yells that he sees and hears everything. The old woman is afraid that he will catch up with her, and then starts off again. So the old man does not let the old woman rest. When she can not go any more and unties the sack to refresh herself, she sees that the old man is sitting in the sack. She asks to forgive her and promises not to run away from him anymore. The old man forgives her, and they return home together.
* * *
Ivan sends his wife Arina in the field of rye to reap. And she reaps exactly so much that it was, where to lie down, and falls asleep. At home she tells her husband that she squeezed out one place, and he thinks that with the whole strip is over. And so it repeats itself every time. Finally, Ivan goes to the field for the sheaves, sees that the rye is all uncompressed, only a few places are squeezed out.
In one such place lies Arina and sleeps. Ivan thinks to teach his wife a lesson: he takes scissors, cuts her head, smears her head with molasses and sprinkles down, and then goes home. Arina wakes up, touches her head and does not understand: she is not Arina, or her head is not her. She comes to her hut and asks under the window, whether Arina is at home. A husband and says that his wife is at home. The dog does not recognize the landlady and rushes to it, she escapes and wanders around the field for a whole day without eating. Finally Ivan forgives her and returns home. Since that time, Arina is no longer lazy, not cunning and works conscientiously.
* * *
A man plows in the field, finds a semi-precious stone and carries it to the tsar. A peasant comes to the palace and asks the general to bring him to the king. That for the service requires the peasant half of what the king will reward him. A man agrees, and the general leads him to the king. The king is pleased with the stone and gives the peasant two thousand rubles, but he does not want money and asks for fifty blows with a whip. The king feels sorry for the peasant and orders that he be unfastened, but very lightly. Morki considers the blows and after counting twenty-five, he tells the king that the other half is the one who brought him here. The king summons the general, and he receives in full what he is entitled to. A king gives the peasant three thousand rubles.
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