One day, a man’s horse ran away, and he went to look for it.
He wandered, wandered through the forest, and suddenly there was a mountain on the way, and in the mountain there was a crevice. He began to climb over the crevice, looked down and saw: a large snake was lying, unable to move, its tail was crushed with a stone. The snake called out to the man and said to him: |
- Help me free myself, you will get what you deserve for it.
The man took a long stick, moved the stone and freed the snake.
“That’s good,” said the snake, “now you will get what you deserve.”
And the person asks what this is - a calculation based on merit?
“So this is death,” the snake answers.
“Well, we still need to check this, ask others,” said the man.
They walked further together and then they met a bear. The man asked the bear what a calculation based on merit was, and he answered that it was death.
Then the snake says:
“You see, the calculation according to deserts is death.” Now I'll eat you!
A person asked:
- Let's walk a little more and ask someone else.
They went further and met a wolf. And a man asked him what a calculation based on merit was.
The wolf replied:
- Death.
“Well, now I’ll eat you,” says the snake. A person asked:
- Let's walk a little more and ask someone else.
They went further and met a fox. A man asks her what a calculation based on merit is. And the fox answered, like the others:
- Death.
“Well, now I’ll eat you,” says the snake. The fox heard this and said:
- No, wait. First we need to figure this matter out. Tell me everything from the very beginning.
“You see, the snake was lying in a crevice, and its tail was crushed by a stone,” the man began. And the fox tells him this:
“Let’s go to the place where all this happened and let’s see.”
They all went back together.
The fox asked the man to take a stick and lift the stone, and told the snake to put his tail under the stone and lie down as he had been lying before.
He made the snake as he was told, and the fox told the man to lower the stick a little.
And then he asks the snake:
- Well, was it worse last time?
“Worse,” the snake answers.
“Put the stick down a little more,” the fox said to the man, and then asked the snake: “Well, was it worse last time?”
“Worse,” the snake answers again.
“Pull out the stick completely,” the fox says to the man, and then asks the snake: “Well, was it worse last time?”
“No,” the snake answers. - Last time it was better.
Then the fox says:
- Well, just lie there. Now you're even. And the snake remained in the crevice, and the man was glad that the snake did not pay him what he deserved.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru