In one big city there lived a poor shoemaker. What he earns in a day is what he eats in the evening. So he lived on from day to day. He never went to the dukhan. He brought all his earnings home and every evening indulged in fun with his wife and children.
One day the king wanted to find out who lived in his city and how. He changed his clothes, put on the signs of the market ustabash and went to wander around the city at night.
The king looks - everyone is sleeping, only voices are heard from one house. The king knocked and entered. He sees a shoemaker sitting and having fun at dinner with his family.
The owner invited the guest to the table, thinking: “He is one of the owners of the market, he will come in handy someday!” - Forgive me for the question, brother, but tell me, what are you doing, how can you drink and have fun on such a simple day, as if on a holiday? - asked the king. - I, my brother, am a shoemaker, what I earn in a day, I eat in the evening with my family. - What will you do if the shops are closed? - Oh, I won’t wish it on my enemy, what will happen to me then - I’ll remain hungry,” says the shoemaker.
The king left. The next morning the king ordered that no one should work or trade on this day - today was a holiday, they say. They closed the shop and our shoemaker. In the evening the king changed his clothes again and went to visit the shoemaker.
He looks, and he is having the same fun as yesterday. “Ah, hello, friend, perhaps, my dear, to the table!” - the shoemaker greeted him. “How are you having fun today,” asks the king, “when our king closed all the shops today?” “Curse him, our king,” says the shoemaker, “they closed my stall, I can’t work.” What to do? I went out into the street - I brought water to someone, chopped wood to someone, ran to run errands for someone - I still earned a little, brought it and now I’m eating it.
The king left. The next morning he ordered the shoemaker to be brought to the palace, hung him with weapons and placed him on guard at the door. The poor shoemaker stood guard all day, came home in the evening, sat down and was sad that he had earned nothing during the day. “Why are you so sad, my dear,” asks his wife, “others have not had food for weeks.” I heard that they go hungry for twenty and forty days, but we can’t stand it for one day?
To amuse himself, the shoemaker took a stick and began to whittle it. He planed and planed and saw that one side of the stick had become sharpened, like a sword. He saw this, jumped up, brought a large branch, trimmed it, sharpened it like a sword, pulled his sword out of the scabbard, put a wooden one there, took this steel sword, took it to the market, sold it, bought food and drink, brought it home and, as always, happily sat down to dinner.
And the king changed his clothes again and went to visit his shoemaker. Again he invited the king to the table. “Today our foolish king put me on guard, what could I earn?” I came home, sat hungry and sad that there was nothing to eat, and suddenly I thought - after all, the king won’t really force me to kill someone? I took out my sword, sold it, and put a piece of wood in the scabbard; Well, where can the king find out what’s in my sheath? Wife, get my piece of wood,” says the shoemaker, “let’s show our friend what kind of sword I have.”
The next morning, the shoemaker hung up this wooden sword and went to guard at the royal doors. The king laughs in his heart. “Well, now I’ll show him,” he says to himself. The king called one servant and began to get angry with him, beat him, shouting, as if the poor man had really done something wrong. “Call my guard right now, let him cut off the head of this slacker, this traitor, this liar!” - the tsar shouts. “Great, gracious sir, forgive him, he is an ignoramus, he was mistaken, forgive me,” the shoemaker-guard begs the tsar. “You cannot forgive him, he is so guilty before me that he should be hanged, cut off his head right now, otherwise I’ll take off your head yourself right now.” What should the shoemaker do? He stood up, raised his eyes to the sky and said: “Lord, if only this unfortunate man is right and he is not guilty of anything before the king, let this sword become wood!” He said and grabbed the wooden sword from its scabbard.
The king liked his resourcefulness. He rewarded him with gold and silver and released him. “Go and live as you lived,” he told him.
Pestilence is there, feast is here, Ash is there, torment is here.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru