In ancient times, there was a brownie in Montier who got into the habit of going every night to Uncle Chaluan’s stable; he cleaned the horses with a comb, combed their tails and manes, filled them with food and gave them water. The horses became fat and shiny, but the oats in the bins were disappearing very quickly, and it was impossible to find out who was stealing them. One day Uncle Shaluan said to himself: “I must finally find out who is brushing my horses and stealing my oats!”
As soon as it got dark, he hid in the stable. Soon he saw a brownie in a red cap enter there. Uncle Shaluan immediately grabbed a pitchfork and shouted:
“Get out of here, you scoundrel, or I’ll kill you!” - And tore off the brownie’s cap
“Give me back my cap,” cried the brownie, or I’ll turn you into a donkey!
But the owner did not let go of the cap and continued to scream:
- Get out of here, you scoundrel, I'll kill you!
The brownie finally left, and Uncle Shaluan told his family about what had happened, and how the brownie threatened to turn him into a donkey for taking the red cap from him.
The next morning, the workers, worried that Uncle Shaluan had not shown up for a long time, went to the stable and were very surprised to see that some kind of donkey was standing next to the horses. They immediately remembered the brownie's threat. The red cap was returned to him, and the donkey again became Uncle Shaluan.
Three thousand years ago, or even more, our neighbor had a lot of grain on the threshing floor. And so every morning, when he came to the threshing floor, it turned out that part of the grain had already been threshed, and sheaves were prepared on the threshing floor for threshing for the next day. He couldn't understand what was going on here.
One evening, hiding in a corner, he saw a tiny man enter the threshing floor and let's thresh!
The neighbor said to himself: “I must give this kid a smart caftan for his efforts.” And the little man was completely naked. So the neighbor said to his wife:
“Some little man is threshing our bread; we need to sew him a smart caftan.”
The next morning, the neighbor's wife collected various scraps and sewed them into a caftan, which her husband then placed on a pile of grain.
The next night the brownie came again; taking up the threshing, he found a caftan. Out of joy, he began to jump around the threshing floor, saying:
- A good owner never loses service!
He immediately put on the caftan and found it to be wonderfully good!
- Since I received payment for my work, let whoever wants to thresh now!
No sooner said than done. With these words the little man left and never returned.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru