Once upon a time, a young man went to distant lands in search of work. The road led him to one village, where an amazing picture appeared before his eyes: people were cutting down a forest with their bare hands.
“Brothers,” he said, “why are you cutting down the forest with your hands?” Don't you have an axe?
- An axe? What is this, an “axe”? - asked the villagers.
The young man took his ax from his belt and quickly chopped a whole pile of firewood, which he then put into a neat woodpile.
Seeing this, the villagers rushed to their houses, shouting:
- Hey, everyone here! Come and see what Topor-jan has done!
The villagers surrounded the young man, the owner of the ax. They begged him, and threatened him, and promised him all sorts of good things in exchange for the axe. Finally, they took the ax away from the young man. We decided to handle it ourselves.
The headman was the first to take up the ax. He swung the ax once and cut off his toes. He rushed to run through the village, shouting in pain:
- People, everyone here! Topor-jan is furious! He cut off my legs!
The villagers came running and let’s hit the ax with their sticks. They beat and beat, but what about the axe? As he lay on the ground, he still lies. They saw such a thing and then decided to burn the ax. They piled a pile of wood on top and set it on fire. When the fire went out, the villagers rushed to see what had happened to the axe: having stirred up the ashes, they found an ax there, red-hot.
- Yeah! - they shouted - Don’t poison yourself, Topor-jan! Look how he's blushing! It's a shame, I suppose! Serves him right! How much misfortune he brought us. How much more can he bring? That's it: let's put him in prison!
We decided - we did it. They threw a red-hot ax into the barn for the headman. And the barn was full of hay. The ax fell on the hay and it burst into flames! Huge tongues of flame shot up all the way to the sky. The villagers got scared and rushed to catch up with the young man. They caught up with him and prayed:
“Young man, help me out, we can’t deal with him ourselves, you better come to your senses, Topor-dzhan, for God’s sake.”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru