Grandfather went to plow the field. And he took a flatbread with him for lunch. He put the cake on the cart, and he plowed.
He plowed and plowed, got tired, and went to the cart to eat some flatbread.
He comes, and then the devil grabbed a flatbread from under his nose and ran into the swamp.
The grandfather became angry with the devil - and with a whip behind him. I ran up to the swamp, and lo and behold, the devil had fallen into the hole. Grandfather rashly went there too - heck!
I got to the bottom of the hole, and lo and behold, there was a big palace and it was full of devils.
The grandfather began to look closely to see which of the devils stole the cake from him. But would you really know: after all, all devils have the same wool.
-Who is your elder here? - the grandfather asks the devils.
“Yes,” they say, “he’s sitting at the table.” Grandfather approached him.
“So and so,” he talks about his offense, “your devil stole my flatbread.” But I don’t have another one. They told me to return it.
The elder says:
- Look for it from the young: the old ones won’t do it.
The grandfather approached the pile of young imps:
- Come on, open your mouths! The little devils' mouths opened. The grandfather looked and saw one of them had a half-eaten flatbread in his mouth.
- Here it is, my cake! - the grandfather says to the elder.
The elder stomped on the little devil:
- Why did you steal grandpa’s flatbread? Grandfather is a poor man, and you are stealing from him. If so, then take him, grandfather, to yourself, let him serve you for your loss.
Grandfather scratched the back of his head:
-Where should I take it? I myself have nothing to eat. And there is no work for him.
“It’s okay,” says the elder, “he’ll find a job for himself.”
The grandfather agreed and took the young devil. “Maybe,” he thinks, “at least someday he’ll go to the forest for firewood.”
I brought him home. The woman and she got out a grain of grain.
The devil says:
- Let me grind.
“Yes, it’s not difficult for us to grind such a small amount ourselves.”
“No,” the devil became stubborn, “let me grind...
They gave him the livestock. The devil began to grind. The woman has already kneaded the bread, and the millstones are full of flour. Grandfather and woman began to pour flour into the bin. They poured a full bin...
Grandfather praises the devil:
- This is a worker!
Grandfather and the devil went to plow the field. The devil says to grandfather:
- Harness me to a plow instead of a horse. Grandfather harnessed the devil to the plow. He turned back and forth and plowed the entire field.
- What do we do now? - the devil asks his grandfather.
“I no longer have land,” says the grandfather.
“So let’s take some of the master’s land: we’ll cut it down and sow the wheat.”
Well, that's what they did. The devil cut down all the land in a day, uprooted it, plowed it and sowed the wheat.
The wheat grew well. The devil harvested the wheat, tied it into sheaves, piled it into heaps, and began to divide it: the lord half for the land and the grandfather half for the grain and for the work.
The devil says to grandfather:
- Make an agreement with the gentleman like this: he has a load, and we have an armful.
Grandfather said so to the sir. The greedy gentleman thinks:
"It's good: the cart is not an armful. I'll deceive my grandfather!"
Grandfather brought a cartload of wheat to the sir.
“Now take your armful,” says the gentleman to grandfather.
“Yes, let my assistant take it - I’m already old, I can’t tell.”
- Well, let the assistant take it.
The devil spun around the field, collected all the sheaves in a heap, raked them up and dragged them home. Pan just blinks his eyes...
At home, the devil breathed on the wheat - it was all threshed. The grandfather filled the bins full with grain.
“Now,” the devil says to grandfather, “give me a horse, I’ll go get firewood.”
Grandfather harnessed the horse. The devil sat down and drove off. In the forest, without an ax or a saw, he uprooted the thickest trees, piled the cart almost to the sky, sat down on top and kissed the horse. The horse snorted and rushed off, not making out the path - through the virgin soil, through the bushes, through the brown forest.
A gentleman is driving a four-wheeler along the road. It was amazing to see such a poor horse, but it was dragging a cart of firewood, loaded almost to the sky! And his quadruple is barely dragging an empty stroller.
“Hey,” the gentleman shouts to the driver, “let’s change: take my four-wheeler, and give me yours.”
- Let's.
The devil gave his nag to the master, took the four from him - that’s all they saw. Arrives home:
- Take the horses, grandfather!
The grandfather was surprised and the pipe fell out of his mouth.
-Where did you get them?
- Exchanged it for your skate!
- Yes, I don’t even have hay for them...
- It’s okay, there will be hay.
The devil jumped off the cart, turned into a farm laborer and went to the master.
- Don’t you have any work to do, sir? - asks the devil farmhand.
“Yes,” says the master: “there is a barn full of unmilked life.”
Go to hell. He laid out all the sheaves on the threshing floor, and then as soon as he breathed, everything was threshed at once: the straw lay separately, the grain separately, the chaff separately.
The sir looked - it was cleanly ground!
- What should you pay for such work? ‘—Nothing. Give me an armful of hay, if you don't mind. The gentleman was glad that he had found such a cheap worker.
“There,” he says, “there’s a stack by the river.” Get yourself an armful of hay there.
The devil went and wrapped ropes around the stack and dragged it away. The clerk saw him. He ran to the master:
- Oh, sir, you told the thresher to take an armful of hay, but he carried a whole stack.
- What a scammer! - the gentleman got angry. - Release the goring bulls on him, let them gore him!
They released the bulls, and the devil threw them by the horns and onto a haystack.
- Ahah! - the sir shouts. - Set the wild boars on him, let them bite him!
The wild boars were released. And damn them by the ears - yes to a haystack.
And he brought everything to my grandfather.
The devil served for a year and said to his grandfather:
- Well, grandfather, maybe I’ve already paid you back for the cake?
- Yes, how! - grandfather laughs.
- So send me home.
- Go away, am I holding you back?
The devil waved his tail and rushed off into his swamp.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru