Do you know why the owl screams so angrily at night: (Uh, uh!)? If not, we will tell you. In the old days, it was not my time, and not your time, and in no one’s time, there were a lot of all sorts of evil spirits in England. All sorts of elves, packs, giants, talking toads and so on. And, of course, fairies, who were omnipotent and omnipotent. They often took on the image of people and learned all people's secrets. But most of all, fairies loved to punish people for bad deeds and reward them for good ones. One evening, one such powerful fairy came to a village in the county of Herfordshire, disguised as a simple beggar, and knocked on the baker’s house. The door was unlocked, and the fairy entered the shop. It was quite dark there, there was a smell of freshly baked bread, and in the depths a huge oven was blazing with heat. A pretty, neat girl, the baker's daughter, was busy in front of the oven. Next to her, on a large low table, fresh, crispy bread lay in a pile. The fairy fell in love with the girl, watching how she deftly took the finished batch of crispy bread out of the blazing oven and sent a new one into the fire. The girl tapped the finished breads with her knuckles to check if they were baked well, and then she laid them out on the low table.
Give a piece of bread to the poor woman! asked the fairy, disguised as an old beggar woman, in a trembling voice. The baker's daughter continued to work on her breads, barely deigning to glance at the old woman. A little later, without saying a kind word to the old woman, the girl tore off a piece of raw dough and threw it to her.
But I don’t have a fire in my hut to bake it, the old woman said, picking up this piece of dough from the floor. Let me put it in the oven along with your bread. The baker's daughter was too proud to answer to some poor old woman. However, when it was time to send a new batch of bread into the oven, she allowed the old woman to put a piece of dough on the wooden shovel. When the bread was browned and the girl pulled it out of the oven, it turned out that the smallest piece made the largest and most ruddy bread. The beggar woman extended her hand to him, but the girl pushed her away. Go away, you dirty beggar! she shouted. This is not your bread!
And no matter how much the old woman asked, the girl never wanted to give the bread, but instead threw the fairy a piece of raw dough, even smaller than the first one. But when the old woman put it in the oven, it also turned into large and ruddy bread, even larger and more ruddy than the first. But the girl again did not allow the old woman to take this bread and again wanted to drive her away, but the old woman asked to give her the last, third piece of dough to try her luck. And the girl threw her a very tiny lump, without even looking at the old woman. But in vain... As we have already said, the baker’s daughter was too proud to look at some old woman. And if she had looked, when for the third time she took out of the oven the huge, ruddy bread that came out of the tiny lump of dough that she had thrown to the beggar old woman for the third time, she would not have pushed her away and shouted, stuttering with anger: (Uh... uh... go away!), but would have noticed an extraordinary change that suddenly occurred in the old beggar woman. From a hunched old woman, she turned into a tall young woman, instead of torn rags, a shiny robe hung from her shoulders, and a crooked stick turned into a sparkling magic wand. But the girl did not look at her in time, and taking a large, rosy bread out of the oven, roughly pushed the fairy away and shouted, stuttering with anger:
Uuh... uh...
But before she had time to finish, she suddenly turned into a gray owl and flew out the window with a loud (whoosh, whoosh!) sound. Now you know why owls scream so angrily: (Uh! Uh!)
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru