Once upon a time there lived a poor forester. His wife died, leaving two children, Evichka and Janik. The forester married for the second time. Oh, what the poor children have suffered from their hated stepmother! They didn’t hear a kind word, didn’t see a kind look, every single day she scolded and punished them.
In those days, people lived poorly, and even the foresters had a hard time.
Sometimes there was not a piece of bread in the house for three days.
One morning the forester asks:
- Wife! What are we going to feed the children today?
- How should I know? - she answers. - Go into the forest, maybe you’ll bring something. The forester went into the forest. It was already getting dark, but he only caught one bird.
“Get the bird,” he says to his wife, “and cook it for dinner.”
She cooked the bird, everyone got a piece, they licked their lips, but did not eat their fill. The next day the forester asks again:
- What are we going to eat? And the wife snapped:
- Why do you keep whining and moaning? Better go hunting in the forest! The forester went hunting. This time he was lucky to have a hare
catch. He was delighted, brought the spoils to his wife, ordered them to fry them for dinner, and then returned to the forest, maybe he would be lucky again.
The stepmother skinned the hare, was about to put it on a baking sheet, and decided to run off into the water. While I was walking, a cat came out of nowhere! She grabbed the hare and was gone. The stepmother returned, saw what had happened, and almost dropped dead.
I started thinking about what to feed my husband? And even his disgusting children? I’ll kill them and tell my husband that they ran into the forest and never returned.
She went out into the yard and shouted:
“Children, gather some firewood and we’ll fry the meat!” The children collect brushwood, the sister says to the brother:
- Who knows why the stepmother needed brushwood!
“Fry the meat,” the brother answers.
“No, I heard her muttering: “Today it’s the boy’s turn!” Apparently she's up to something evil!
- Oh, sister, I'm afraid!
- Don't be afraid, brother! When we get home, I will ask my stepmother to comb my hair. And you grab my ribbon and quickly run out of the house with it! I’m following you, so we’ll run away.
The children brought brushwood, their stepmother praised them: well done, they say, they did it quickly. Evichka asks her to braid her hair, and she replies:
- First, put water in a large cauldron!
Evichka applied water and ran to the attic, where she had two wild apples hidden. She took the apples and returned to her stepmother.
The stepmother unbraided Evichka's braid, put the ribbon aside, and began combing her hair. Then Yannick jumped into the room, grabbed the ribbon and rushed out of the house! Evichka runs after him and shouts: “Give me back my ribbon! Give me back my ribbon!”
The stepmother waited a little and ran out into the yard after them, looked, and they had already run far away. She realized that the children had deceived her, she became furious, screaming at the top of her lungs:
- May you turn into the beast from whose trail you drink water!
Brother and sister are running through the mountains, through the valleys, wherever their eyes look. The sun is high and hot. Yannick began to be tormented by thirst. He sees a bear's track, rain water has settled in it.
- Evichka-sister, I’m thirsty!
- Oh, don’t drink, brother, don’t drink! After all, this is a bear trail. If you get drunk, you'll turn into a bear cub! Better eat a wild apple and quench your thirst.
Yannick ate an apple and quenched his thirst.
They walked and walked and looked at wolf tracks. Yannick is even more thirsty.
- Evichka-sister, I’m thirsty. Let me drink from the puddle!
- Oh, don't drink, brother, don't drink! If you drink from the wolf's trail, you will become a wolf cub! Better eat an apple! - asks the sister.
Yannick ate an apple and quenched his thirst.
They move on. And the sun is getting hotter and hotter, Yanik is completely exhausted.
- Evichka-sister, give me another apple?
- Oh, brother, my brother, I don’t have an apple anymore, be patient a little, there’s a well nearby!
They see a deer hoof, and there is water in it.
- Evichka-sister, I can’t stand it anymore, I’ll drink from a deer’s hoof!
- Oh, brother, don’t drink, you’ll become a deer!
Before she had time to look back, Janik had already clung to the hoof, drank, and immediately turned into a fawn.
Evichka saw it, wrung her white hands, and burst into bitter tears: “Oh, my unfortunate brother, what should I do with you?” The dogs will attack and tear you to pieces! The hunters will come and kill you!
Evichka sheds tears, and the fawn wanders sadly nearby. They haven’t walked even a dozen steps, they see a spring, clear as glass. The girl drank some spring water, and immediately a golden star shone on her forehead and her hair turned golden. They walk further, in front of them is a clearing, in the clearing there is a haystack.
“Here we, brother deer, will stay to live,” says the sister, “here the stepmother will not find us!”
They huddled in the hay from the rain and wind and whiled away the night. And when the sun rose, Evichka sat down on the hay, combing her golden hair, and she burst into tears and said:
If my dear mother knew that I was sitting in the hay, scratching my golden hair, she would feel sorry for me!
They began to live in the forest, the fawn was nibbling the grass. Evichka collects berries and roots. Much time has passed since then.
A young king went to this forest to hunt.
One day Evichka is sitting in the hay, combing her golden hair, when suddenly a fawn runs as fast as she can, followed by a dog. The fawn huddled in the hay, and the dog saw Evichka, wagged its tail and ran back to its owner.
The king threw a piece of meat to the dog, the dog grabbed the meat, took it to the girl and returned to its owner! He gives her meat again, the dog again drags the meat somewhere. For the third time, the king throws meat to the dog, and he himself goes after it. He sees a girl sitting on the hay.
- What are you doing here? - the king was surprised.
Evichka told him everything, the king listened and asked:
-Will you come with me?
- No, I can’t, because you’re ordering to kill a deer! - Evichka answers.
“Don’t be afraid,” the king reassures her. - Nobody will touch your fawn. It will be good for both of you!
Evichka liked the kind words of the young king, she did not resist, got into the carriage with her little deer brother and went to the palace.
In the palace they treated Evichka kindly and did not spare anything for her. And the brother deer was not offended.
Every day Evichka has new outfits, one richer than the other, teachers come to her, teach her royal sciences.
Evichka blossomed like a poppy, and when she began to age, he took her
king to wife. Before the wedding, he swore to his young wife that he would never harm the fawn.
Whether things will be good or bad - who knows!
There lived an old hag in that castle; she harbored a fierce grudge against the king because he married Evichka, and not her daughter.
The king was getting ready to go to war. He ordered the old woman to serve the queen faithfully; she was expecting a child soon.
A beautiful boy was born with a golden star in his forehead. The queen fell ill, lay in bed asking for a drink, and the old woman said to her:
- There is a river flowing under the window, bend down and drink!
- How can I bend over, because I have no strength!
“What do I care,” the old woman hisses, “if you don’t want it, don’t, I’m not your servant!”
The queen was completely tormented by thirst, she grabbed the window sill, bent over, the old woman jumped up and pushed her into the water, and put her daughter in bed. But she didn’t touch the little boy with the golden star on his forehead.
The queen did not drown, but turned into a golden duck and began to swim along the river with other ducks.
A boy without a mother is screaming and struggling, and there is no way for the old woman to rock him to sleep or calm him down. Suddenly a fawn runs into the chambers, puts out its horns, “put it down, child,” he shows, “I’ll rock it to sleep.”
The old woman put the baby deer on the horns and shouted:
- Get out of here! May you both break your neck!
A fawn wanders along the shore and sees ducks swimming along the river. He stopped and asked:
- Gray ducks! Where is my son's mother? Where is the orphan's birthplace? And the ducks answer:
- Don’t go far, look on the river!
And then a golden duck flies up to the shore, shakes its wings, turns into a queen, takes its child in its arms and says:
- My son, dear, dear son, I will feed you and bathe you. She fed, bathed, swaddled, and put the fawn back on her horns. And then she turned into a golden duck and flew away to the river.
This went on for a long time: every day the fawn carried her son to his mother, he grew by leaps and bounds and became more and more beautiful.
And soon the king sent a message from the war to expect him to come home. The old woman tells her daughter to lie down in bed and pretend to be sick. And when the king returns from the war, he orders him to ask for reindeer meat for dinner.
The king arrived from the war, saw his son and was delighted. And when I looked at the one lying in bed, I was stunned! Where did her beauty go, where is her hair?
gold and a star in the forehead? But the old woman persuades the king: illness, they say, does not make anyone look good, but the golden star and golden hair passed from the queen to the child. The old woman’s daughter lies in bed and screams in a bad voice:
- Give me some deer meat, tell me to slaughter the fawn!
“How can this be,” the king marvels, “after all, you yourself took an oath from me not to give offense to the fawn!” And now you order him to be stabbed?
And she screams more and more:
- Oh, I want deer meat! Order the fawn to be slaughtered!
The king had to agree. The knives are already being sharpened, the water is already being heated in the cauldrons, the end of the fawn is about to come.
But then the boy woke up and began to cry. The fawn heard it, came running, wagging its horns.
The old woman calms the child this way and that, but he still doesn’t calm down. And the fawn keeps shaking its horns. The king is surprised, and the old woman explains: the fawn, they say, wants to rock the child. The king allowed. The fawn accepted the child by its horns and rushed headlong away. The king was afraid that something might happen to his son and followed him. The fawn ran to the Danube. He saw ducks and shouted:
- Blue-winged ducks, where is the son’s mother, where is the orphan’s mother? And the ducks answer:
- Don’t go far, look at the dam!
Then the golden duck flew in, turned into a beautiful woman, took the child in her arms and said:
“My dear son, my dear son, I will feed you, bathe you, and change you!”
She hugs him, kisses him, says:
- Is your dear father doing something? If only he knew, if only he knew how the evil woman pushed me into the Danube!
The king heard it, jumped out of the bushes, pressed his wife to his chest, and she turned into a golden duck, she wants to fly away, but the king holds her tightly:
“I won’t let you in, I won’t let you in,” he shouts, “until the evil spell falls off you!”
Before he could finish speaking, the duck turned into a golden-haired woman, the deer into a stately young man, and in his arms was a child.
Happy and joyful they went to the palace. The king hid his brother-in-law and the queen and her son, and the evil old woman decided that the fawn and the child were missing, and she was happy.
The next day the king orders guests to be convened for the holiday. Old woman from
She doesn’t feel the joy of her feet: her daughter has become a queen and sits next to the king at the head of the table!
The guests feast, they eat expensive dishes, and they drink good wine. But then the king rises and makes this speech:
— I would like to ask you, my guests, one question. Tell me, what kind of punishment did the villain deserve, since he wanted to destroy two innocent people and deprive two more of their happiness?
The old hag hastens to answer:
- Push him into a barrel of nails and lower him from a high mountain! What else?
Suddenly the side doors swing open and a queen with a child and a handsome handsome fellow enter the hall!
Here the king told the guests how it happened. And he proved her guilt to the old hag.
They pushed the evil old woman and her daughter into a barrel and lowered them down the mountain.
The king seated the queen on his right hand, her brother on his left, and they continued to feast and have fun together. And now, I suppose, they are having fun, and rejoicing, since they have not yet died.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru