Dying, the father left three behests to his son: “Don’t go to visit often, otherwise they will stop respecting you; don’t change horses at the market, otherwise you will stay with your own two people; don’t take a wife from afar, otherwise you’ll get a bad one!”
The son nodded his head and remembered his father’s words. When the father died, the son decided to test his father's covenants.
OK. He began to visit. The first time they greeted him with flatbreads, the second time there was also plenty of everything, the third time he noticed a chill, the fourth time it was still back and forth, the fifth time he was left neither full nor drunk, and when he came for the sixth time, they served him chaff bread with putra. He ate one slice somehow, and brought the second one home and hid it in his bag. When he went to bed, the son thought to himself: “The first covenant of the fathers was true, I’ll try to test the second.”
OK. So he began to go to the market and change horses; the matter ended with the son exchanging such a nag, which fell along the road, and he remained on foot. The son skinned the nag and hid it in the pack. When he went to bed, he thought to himself: “Two of my father’s testaments turned out to be true, I’ll try and check the third.”
OK. The next Sunday I got ready and went to measure miles to the ends of the world for my wife. He searches and searches, and lo and behold, he has found such a beauty that your doll floats without touching the ground. What better thing to look for, let him come next Sunday with his matchmakers and see how the groom lives. However, in the evening, getting ready to go home, the son thought: “Two of his father’s behests were true; until the third one came true, we need to take a closer look. Sunday is Sunday, unless you really notice anything on such a day, but on weekdays it’s a completely different matter. I’ll go back, secretly climb into the threshing floor, sleep through the night, and then in the morning I’ll see what my betrothed is like at work.”
In the morning, just before light, the old men are already in the field, but the girls are nowhere to be seen. What a miracle! And noon came, and she was nowhere to be seen - we had to go into the hut to look. She enters the hut: the apron she was wearing yesterday is lying on the floor, and she herself is snoring behind the stove, the walls are already shaking. My son grabbed his apron and went home. He hid the apron in the cage and is waiting for Sunday. Sunday came - the matchmakers and the bride arrived. We looked into one corner, into another - everything was amazingly good; They go into the cage, they see a box with their father’s testaments - they ask what’s in it?
- I can’t show you this - here are my jewelry! The matchmakers beg him: let him take a look.
- Well, okay, so be it! They open the styling - what's in it?
- How did my apron end up here?
“Yes, girl, I keep my father’s behests in this packing: while others are sleeping, the packing is storing up my father’s behests for me.” There are three covenants in it - this piece of bread, the skin and your apron. The first of them teaches: do not visit often, otherwise they will stop respecting you; the second teaches: do not change horses at the market, otherwise you will remain with your own two; the third, your apron, teaches: do not take a wife from afar, otherwise you will come across a bad one.
So the girl left, ashamed.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru