It was a long time ago. One day the gypsies gathered for a fair. The path from the village to the city is not close. Here they go. On the way, everyone dozed off, only one gypsy is awake, driving the horses. Suddenly he sees gypsies: someone jumped from a birch tree to the ground and stood near the road.
The man is not a man, he is all gray, his eyes are bulging, he looks angrily and says:
– Don’t buy gray horses. If you buy it, you won’t be happy.
The gypsy rubbed his eyes - no one was there. I was scared of the gypsies - I must have met the devil.
He woke everyone up and started telling the story. The gypsies laughed and didn’t believe him.
And then they forgot about what happened along the way.
It was a good fair that day. Horses are visible and invisible. The gypsies exchanged their horses and took a lot of profit, which they couldn’t fit into their pockets. Just as they were about to go back, they saw a man walking and leading a gray horse.
And the horse is handsome, tall, dappled.
When the gypsies saw such a horse, their eyes lit up.
- How much are you asking, man, for your horse?
- Not so much.
In short, the gypsies bought this horse and brought it home. The horse stands for a day, and for two days he doesn’t take any oats or water into his mouth. It dries before our eyes. So his belly collapsed, his ribs stuck out, he could no longer hold his legs up, all that was left was skin and bones. “What a disaster,” the gypsies thought, “it’s nothing other than evil spirits mocking us.”
Here one gypsy decided to see what was happening to the horse: he climbed into the hay and waited. Night has come, everyone has fallen asleep, suddenly the gypsy hears: the doors opened and someone comes into the stable, scattered all the oats on the ground, took off the gray blanket and sat on horseback. The horse went crazy, he was already sweating, and he kicked him. The gypsies got scared and ran away. He woke everyone up, the gypsies came running to the stable and sure enough: the oats were scattered on the ground, and the gray oats were barely alive.
The gypsies then remembered that the forester had warned them.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru