One owner had a donkey, and for many years in a row he tirelessly carried sacks to the mill, but in his old age he became weak and was not as fit for work as before.
The owner thought that it was probably not worth feeding him now; and the donkey, noticing that things were not going well, ran away from his owner and moved along the road to Bremen - he thought that there he would be able to become a street musician. So he walked a little, and he happened to meet a hunting dog on the way: she was lying there, breathing heavily, with her tongue hanging out, apparently tired of running.
- What is it, Grab, that you’re breathing so hard? - the donkey asks her.
“Oh,” the dog answers, “I’ve gotten old, every day I’m getting weaker and weaker, I’m no longer able to go hunting; So the owner decided to kill me, but I ran away from him. How can I earn bread now?
“You know what,” says the donkey, “I’m going to Bremen, I want to become a street musician there; come with me, you too become a musician. I will play the lute, and you will play the timpani.
The dog readily agreed to this, and they moved on. Soon they met a cat on the way; he sat by the road, gloomy and cheerless, like a rain cloud.
- Well, old Kot Kotofeich, what kind of trouble happened to you? - the donkey asks him.
“How can I be cheerful when the matter of life is going on,” the cat answers, “I’ve become old, my teeth have dulled, - now I should sit on the stove and purr, and not catch mice; So the hostess decided to drown me, and I ran away as quickly as possible. Well, what good advice can you give me? Where should I go now, how can I feed myself?
“Come with us to Bremen, you’re a master at organizing night concerts, so you’ll be a street musician there.”
The cat liked this thing, and they went together. Our three fugitives had to pass by one yard, they saw a rooster sitting on the gate and crowing at the top of his lungs.
- Why are you squeezing your throat? - says the donkey. -What happened to you?
“Yes, I’m foretelling good weather,” answered the rooster. “But anyway, my mistress has no pity: tomorrow is Sunday, guests will arrive in the morning, and so she told the cook to boil me in soup, and they will cut off my head this evening.” That’s why I scream as loud as I can, at the top of my lungs.
“That’s it, red-crested cockerel,” said the donkey, “hey, you better come with us, we’re going to Bremen - you won’t find anything worse than death anyway; You have a good voice, and if we start making music together, then things will go well.
The Rooster liked this proposal, and the four of them moved on. But they failed to reach Bremen in one day; they ended up in the forest in the evening and decided to spend the night there.
The donkey and the dog lay down under a large tree, and the cat and the rooster climbed onto the branch; the rooster flew to the very top of the tree, where it was most reliable. But before falling asleep, he looked around, and it seemed to him that a light was flickering in the distance, and he shouted to his comrades that there was probably a house not far away, because the light was visible. And the donkey said:
“If that’s the case, then we need to get up and move on, because the overnight stay here is unimportant.”
And the dog thought that some bones and meat would be just right. And so they set off on their way, towards the light, and soon noticed that it was shining brighter and brighter, and had become quite large; and they came to a brightly lit robber den. The donkey, like the largest of them, came up to the window and began to look into it.
- Well, donkey, what can you see? - asked the rooster.
“Well,” answered the donkey, “I see a table set, all sorts of delicious food and drinks are placed on it, and robbers are sitting at the table, eating for their pleasure.”
“Perhaps there would be something for us there too,” said the rooster.
- Yes, yes, if only we could get there! - said the donkey.
And the animals began to judge among themselves and decide how to proceed with this matter in order to drive the robbers out of there; and finally they found a way. They decided that the donkey should put his front legs on the window, and the dog should jump on the donkey’s back; the cat will climb on the dog, and let the rooster fly up and sit on the cat’s head. This is what they did and, according to a conventional sign, they all began to play music together: the donkey shouted, the dog barked, the cat meowed, and the rooster crowed and crowed. Then they burst through the window into the room, so that even the glass rattled.
Hearing a terrible scream, the robbers jumped up from the table and, deciding that some kind of ghost had come to them, rushed into the forest in great fear. Then four of our comrades sat down at the table, and each began to eat what he liked from the dishes on the table, and began to eat and fill up, as if for a month in advance.
After dinner, the four musicians turned off the light and began to look for where they could sleep more comfortably - each according to their own custom and habit. The donkey lay down on a dung heap, the dog lay down outside the door, the cat on a pole near the hot ash, and the rooster sat on a perch; and since they were tired from the long journey, they all soon fell asleep.
When midnight had already passed and the robbers noticed from a distance that there was no light in the house, everything seemed calm, Then the chieftain said:
“We don’t need to give in to fear.” - And he ordered one of his people to go to the house to investigate.
The messenger found that everything was quiet and calm there; he went into the kitchen to turn on the light, and the cat’s sparkling eyes appeared to him like burning coals; he poked the brimstone to get fire. But the cat didn’t like jokes, he rushed right into his face and began to hiss and scratch. Then the robber got scared and started to run through the back door, and the dog was lying just outside the door, she jumped up and bit him on the leg. He started to run across the yard and past the dung heap, then the donkey kicked him with all his might with his hind hoof; The rooster woke up with a noise, perked up, and began to crow from his perch:
“Crow!”
The robber ran as fast as he could back to his chieftain and said: “Oh, there’s a terrible witch in the house, how she’ll breathe on my face, how she’ll grab me with her long fingers; and at the door there is a man with a knife, and he slashes my leg; and there’s a black monster lying in the yard, when it hits me with its club; and on the roof, at the very top, the judge sits and shouts: “Drag the thief here!” Here I barely carried my feet away.
With that one; At times the robbers were afraid to return to the house, but the four Bremen musicians liked it there so much that they didn’t want to leave.
And whoever last told this fairy tale saw it all with his own eyes.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru