One man had a daughter of marriageable age. The wedding day has arrived. The bride with her family and friends went to church, and the slaves remained in the kitchen to prepare a festive dinner. And suddenly there was not enough water to add to the pots that were already on the fire. Then one of the maids took the jug and ran to the spring. He comes and sees: a hummingbird sitting on a branch. Sits and sings:
Flowers, leaves,
Where can I get food?
I'll wave my tail
Let me go and dance...
Tuit-tuit-tuit...
The black woman put the jug on the ground and let’s dance the samba. I forgot about everything in the world: about water, and about lunch, and about the wedding. They are waiting for her at home, they can’t wait, but she is still at the spring. The hummingbird keeps singing, and the black woman keeps dancing. A lot of time passed, and another slave went to the spring to see what her friend was doing there, why she wasn’t bringing water. And she saw her friend and sang:
Ah, my soul friend,
The bird's song is good!
Dance,
Dance!
A friend ran up and started dancing too. They now began to wait for two people in the house. They called and shouted - no answer, no greeting. Here the third slave went to the spring, followed by the fourth, and so on, every last one. They’ll come and dance the samba like crazy.
When there was no longer a single slave left in the house, one of the bride’s sisters went after them. As soon as the black women saw her, they began to sing:
Ah, hostess-soul...
A girl entered the circle and danced so hard that you just had to hold on. Another sister went. But as soon as she was the first to notice her, she sang at the top of her lungs:
Oh, sister, oh, soul...
She didn’t hesitate for a minute. She started dancing without looking back. And the girls’ mother sits on pins and needles, doesn’t know what to do: dinner is burning, guests aren’t coming, and nothing is ready at all. For some reason, everyone who stayed in the house is hanging around the spring and is not carrying water.
She then said to herself:
- No, something happened to all of them there, at the spring. I'll go and have a look myself.
She threw the shawl over her head and walked away. From afar, she heard the earth boiling under the feet of the dancers, and when she saw that everyone had gathered in a circle and danced the samba, and heard the hummingbird singing, then from afar she began to draw such patterns with her feet that you just had to hold on. And then the daughters, as soon as they saw her, sang in chorus:
Oh you, mother soul...
The old woman could not stand it and started dancing as hard as she could. This is where the fun begins! The bird was singing so loudly, it was simply torn into pieces. And the more she sang, the more desperately the women danced.
Only the old man remained at home, annoyed that the newlyweds were not coming, the guests were not coming, and all the women who had gone to the spring had disappeared somewhere: wife, daughters, slaves - in a word, everything. He was ready to burst with anger. Finally, cursing everything in the world, he grabbed the whip and said:
- Wait for me, I’ll find you already!
And he rushed along the road to the spring, beside himself with anger. The old woman, as soon as she noticed him, immediately put her hands on her hips and began to sing:
Ah, my old man, ah, soul!..
The old man entered the circle and began to whip everyone left and right, saying:
Oh you, soul wife,
Look how good the whip is,
Dance,
Dance.
The wife got it, the daughters got it, the slaves got it, and there was such a fuss that it was like taking the saints out. The samba ended instantly. The hummingbird bird looked at this whole dump, flapped its wings and flew away.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru