Once upon a time, there lived a young, hard-working peasant. He had his own farm with vast pastures and many, many sheep. And so he got married. Unfortunately for him, his wife was a slacker and a lazy woman. All day long she was busy, she was even too lazy to cook dinner for her husband. And her husband could not do anything about her.
One day in the fall he brings his wife a large bag of wool and orders her to spin all the wool over the winter and weave it into a homespun. The wife didn't even look at the wool. Time passes, but she doesn’t even think about getting to work. The owner, no, no, and will remind her about the wool, but she doesn’t even listen.
One day a huge, ugly old woman came to the owner and asked to help her.
“I’ll help you, but you must also do me one favor,” the hostess answers.
“That’s fair,” says the old woman. “What should I do for you?”
“Spin the wool and weave it into homespun,” answers the hostess.
- Give me your fur here! - says the old woman. The hostess brought the whole bag. The old woman threw him over her shoulder like a feather and said:
- On the first day of summer I will bring you a homespun!
- How can I pay you? - asks the hostess.
- Well, it’s nothing! - the old woman answers. “You will have to guess my name three times.” You guess, and okay, I don’t need anything else.
The mistress agreed to this condition, and the old woman left.
At the end of winter, the owner again asked his wife about wool.
“Don’t worry,” the wife answers. “The homespun will be ready on the first day of summer.”
The owner remained silent, but suspected something was wrong. Meanwhile, winter was waning, and then the owner noticed that his wife was becoming gloomier and gloomier every day. It is clear that she is afraid of something. He began to ask her what she was afraid of, and in the end she told him the whole truth - both about the huge old woman and about the wool. The owner was dumbfounded.
- What have you done, stupid! - he said. “After all, it was not a simple old woman, but a skessa who lives here in the mountains.” Now you are in her power, she will not let you go well.
One day the owner went to the mountains and came across a pile of stones. At first he didn't even notice her. And suddenly he hears something knocking in the stone pile. He crept closer, found a gap between the stones and looked inside. He looks: a huge ugly old woman is sitting at a loom, pushing a shuttle and singing to herself:
- Ha-ha-ha! Nobody knows
what's my name!
Ho-ho-ho! Nobody knows
my name is Gilittrut!
And he weaves and weaves for himself.
The owner realized that this was the same skessa that came to his wife. He ran home and wrote down her name, but didn’t say anything to his wife about it.
Meanwhile, his wife, out of melancholy and fear, stopped getting out of bed. The owner took pity on her and gave her a piece of paper on which the giantess’s name was written. The wife was delighted, but still she was worried - she was afraid that the name would be wrong.
And then the first day of summer arrived. The hostess asked her husband not to leave the house, but he told her:
- Well, no. You dealt with the skess without me, and pay for it without me.” And he left.
The owner of the house was left alone. Suddenly the ground shook from someone's heavy steps. It was Skessa who appeared. To the hostess she seemed even larger and uglier than before. The skess threw the homespun on the floor and shouted in a thunderous voice:
- Well, mistress, tell me my name!
“Signi,” the hostess answers, and her voice is trembling.
- Maybe Signy, maybe not, try to guess again!
“Wasp,” says the owner.
- Maybe Osa, maybe not, try to guess for the third time!
- Then none other than Gilittrut! - said the hostess.
The skessa heard her name and collapsed on the floor in surprise, so that the whole house shook. True, she immediately jumped up and went home. And since then no one has seen her in those parts.
And the peasant’s wife was very happy that she got rid of the skessa. And from that day on, it was as if she had been replaced, she became so kind and hard-working. And she always wove homespun wool herself from the wool that her husband brought in the fall.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru