There lived an old man and an old woman. They had no children. The old woman was grumpy and stubborn, she didn’t care about the old man, she wouldn’t let him say a word. For the time being, the old man patiently endured the old woman’s tyranny, did everything that needed to be done around the house, carried water, fed the cattle, and managed the field work alone.
One day they ran out of wood. The old man harnessed his horse, took an ax and rode into the forest.
He walks through the forest, collecting dry brushwood, and in one place he sees a large hole overgrown with grass. The grass is so thick that you can hardly see the hole behind it. Well, maybe her old man wouldn’t have noticed, it’s not the hole. The main thing is that around the pit it was red, red with strawberries! “Let me please my old woman,” thought the old man, took off his hat and began to pick berries. I picked up a full hat, sat down on the brushwood and went home.
Before he even got home, the old woman saw that he was without a hat - and started scolding him.
“Don’t make noise, old woman, you better look at what delicious berries I brought you,” said the old man. “There was nothing to pick, so I picked it in my hat.”
The old woman stopped cursing, grabbed the hat from the old man’s hands and, without going into the hut, sat down on the steps of the porch and began to eat the berries. Apparently, she liked wild strawberries, the old woman puts whole handfuls of them in her mouth, and looks into her hat to see how many are left.
Meanwhile, the old man dumped brushwood from the cart and unharnessed the horse.
— Did you pick all the berries or are there any left? - asked the old woman, cleaning her hat.
“There are a lot of berries there,” answered the old man.
“Then take me to the forest tomorrow,” the old woman ordered. “I liked the wild strawberries.”
“Okay, let's go,” answered the old man.
The next day they went into the forest and came to the place where the old man had picked berries yesterday. The old woman greedily pounced on the strawberries, grabbed them with both hands, and did not notice anything around. The older one glances from the cart and thinks: “It wouldn’t hurt to teach the wayward woman a lesson.” I thought so, and then...
walked towards his wife and gently pushed her into the hole. And he got on the cart and went home without looking back.
In the pit where the old woman fell, it turns out that the devil lived. Once I was walking through the forest, in the dark I stepped into a hole, and the hole was deep - I stayed in it.
“Aha,” the devil rejoiced, “the old woman came to see me!” You are welcome.
- Who are you? - the old woman attacked the devil. “I wasn’t afraid of my husband, and I certainly won’t be afraid of you!”
Before the devil had time to come to his senses, the old woman had already sat astride him and, well, raced. He circled and circled around the pit, exhausted, and the old woman kept pushing him on. The devil howled, the sky from the pit seemed like a sheepskin to him, but where could he go: you couldn’t get the old woman out of the pit, nor could you jump out of it yourself.
They live like this with the old woman for a day, then another, and then a third. And the old man got a little bored at home alone. And I kind of felt sorry for the old woman. He decided to visit her, to see how she was doing there in the forest. I took the rope and went into the forest. He walked up to the hole and lowered the rope. Someone immediately grabs the rope - tsap! “The woman has been waiting for a long time,” the old man thinks, “how quickly she grabbed the rope!” However, he pulls out the rope and sees that it is not the old woman who is holding on to the other end, but the devil.
“Well, old man, thank you for helping me out, I won’t forget this forever,” says the devil. “Your old woman has completely tormented me.” Now I will live with you.
Hearing such speeches, the old man thought: “Well, if the devil barely escaped from her alive, why should I feel sorry for her? Wouldn’t it be better to feel sorry for yourself?”
The old man picked up a cartload of brushwood and went home. The devil is not far behind him. We arrived home, threw the brush off the cart and put it in a pile. The devil does his best to help the old man. And when the work was finished and they came to the hut, the old man ate himself and fed his worker.
So they lived together. And they healed well. The devil helped the old man in all the household chores: he chops wood, removes manure, and arranges everything in his hands.
They live like this and live, and one evening the devil says
to the old man:
“We seem to be living together, but we’re too poor.” Well, what’s the matter: there’s not a penny in the house! We need to get some money.
“That’s what I’ll say, that it would be necessary,” the old man replies. “But where and how will you get some money?”
“Well, I have a head on my shoulders, I can come up with something,” the devil continues. “I’ll go to the master tomorrow and do this.”
so that his beloved horse falls ill. And a little later you come too. Come as a healer. And all the treatment required of you is: pet the horse and say at the same time: hush-hush! I remember: hush, hush! That's it. I’ll leave the horse behind, he’ll recover, and the master will pay you five hundred rubles for it.
- That would be good! - the old man lit up. - Quietly and - get five hundred rubles.
The devil went to the master the next day, pestered his favorite horse, and the horse fell ill. And then the old man was right there. The master saw the old man and said:
“Something happened to my bay horse, would you undertake to cure it?”
“Why not,” the old man answers. “It’s a familiar matter.”
He went up to the horse, stroked it, said the memorized “tih-tyah”, the devil went away, and the horse recovered, becoming as strong and playful as it was.
The master invited the old man into the house, treated him to joy and gave him five hundred rubles.
The old man returned home with the money, and the devil was already lying there on the bed.
- Well, old man, now you know how to get money? - says the devil.
“Yes, you really can do whatever you want,” answered the old man.
“No, old man, not everything,” the devil complained. After all, I can only want and do evil deeds, but am not at all capable of good ones. Otherwise I would have to be an angel, not a devil. And now I have another evil plan in mind. I will harass another master's daughter. But don't come there. And I won't return to you either. Thank you for the shelter, for the bread and salt, and goodbye.
The devil left the old man as if he had never existed. And two days later a rumor spread: the master’s daughter fell ill, they called a doctor, but the girl did not feel better. The master comes for the old man and asks:
“They say you are a good doctor, won’t you undertake to cure my daughter?”
“No, I won’t, I can’t,” answered the old man, remembering the devil’s order.
But the old man also feels sorry for the master’s daughter. He thought and thought and decided to free the girl from his recent tenant. Just how to do it. There was a quiet agreement with the horse, but no word will help. Here it’s the other way around: the devil ordered the old man not to come to the girl at all. Finally, the old man remembered his evil old woman, that the devil is afraid
her like fire. And he dressed in her dress, let his hair down and in this form went to drive the devil away from the master’s sick daughter. - Ahh! He lived and lived with me in a hole, and now he’s come here!” the old man shouted right from the threshold and, stretching out his hands to the devil, added in the same old woman’s voice: “I’ll show you how to get away from me!”
The devil, seeing the old woman, got so scared that he flew out of the house through the chimney. The girl recovered immediately. The master gave him something to drink and feed, and gave him a thousand rubles.
The devil, thinking that the evil old woman would not leave him alone anyway, went into the forest and jumped into his hole. He thought that he would now be completely safe. And imagine his surprise when he saw that the old woman was here in the pit.
So, they say, they lived in that pit, torturing and tormenting each other until their death.
And the old man who became rich, they say, lives happily to this day.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru