A gypsy camp roamed around the world. The camp was big, but people lived in it differently. Among all, the richest and most successful was a gypsy nicknamed Husk. The gypsies will go to sell horses at the fair - Husk comes with the profit, and the rest can barely make ends meet. They will begin to change horses, you see, Husk will exchange such a handsome horse for a nag, which could not be described in a fairy tale, and will even take money on top of that. And the other gypsies next to him, on the contrary, are replacing good horses with bad ones. The gypsies began to fear Shelukha and began to say that he was dealing with evil spirits. One way or another, Hulk accumulated a huge fortune during his life. And he had a herd of selected horses, among which a horse named Buyan stood out for its beauty and stature. Black, long-maned, he understood his master perfectly. And not only Buyan, all the other horses also loved Husk, as if he spoke to them in their horse language. For this, the gypsies gave the nickname Shelukha - Horse Father.
So Hulk would have lived for himself, not knowing need and grief, but one day he fell ill. He calls his wife and tells her:
- Go dig up the treasure that I buried there and there. Take the money and the silver bridle. Sell the bridle, buy me good food and call a healer to help me heal. Maybe I'll get better!
Husk's wife found the place where he buried the treasure. I dug and dug as long as I had the strength, but I couldn’t get to the bottom of the treasure. You know, the treasure was buried deep. And the gypsies looked at where Shelukhin’s wife was digging, and wound it on their mustache.
The next morning, Husk again calls his wife:
“Listen, wife, I’ll tell you, I had a bad dream: I dreamed of our Brawler as if he was standing on a hill and beating the ground with his hoof.
- Oh, Husk, all this is not good. So I had a dream: a huge snake was crawling. And in the morning the bridge of my nose itched. Oh, not good.
No wonder they say: sleep in hand. Before evening had come, Husk died. A scream and noise spread through the camp.
Well, of course, Shelukha was a prominent person - he needs to be buried!
The gypsies come into the tent to look at the dead man, taking wine with them. After all, the gypsy custom is such that you have to sit with the deceased all night before performing the funeral service. The gypsies sat down near the coffin and poured wine into glasses. They drank and the drunkenness went to their heads. Here one gypsy says:
“We didn’t love you too much, Husk, but what can I say now, you died, and that’s okay!” Maybe you'd like to have a drink with us?
He poured the gypsy wine, unclenched the deceased’s fingers and inserted the glass into them. The gypsies burst out laughing and began to come up and clink glasses with the dead Husk:
- The kingdom of heaven to you, Husk, just don’t bring us harm, otherwise we know you; you're friends with the devils!
Husk's wife cries:
“And why are you mocking the dead man like that?” What harm has he done to you?
“And then he did, and he and I didn’t have any happiness or luck.”
The gypsies sat near the deceased all night, and the next morning they gathered at church to perform the funeral service for Shelukha. The whole camp went. They drive, sing songs, laugh, as if they were not going to a funeral, but to a wedding. We've arrived. The priest began to perform the funeral service for the deceased, and the gypsies shouted:
“Stop waving the censer, father, you’re better than giving us communion and absolving us of our sins,” and they laugh again.
“Oh, you blasphemers,” the priest got angry, “you’d better ask the dead man for forgiveness, otherwise you’ll never be able to forgive this sin.”
But the gypsies do not let up:
- Father, how should you pray: this way or like this?
- Father, why don’t your singers know how to sing? Let us sing ourselves and teach them...
The gypsies brought the priest to great anger. Somehow he buried the dead man, and then began asking for money for his service.
“Don’t give him money for singers, they sang badly,” the gypsies shout, “we’d rather sing for free.”
- Don’t give money for candles either, we don’t need any candles!
“What are you saying, gypsies,” the priest was surprised, “it’s not you who need this, but the dead man.” But for me it doesn’t matter if you want, pay, or if you want, don’t.
It is unknown how all this would have ended if one old gypsy had not stood up:
“Are you, brothers, crazy? Why dishonor a dead man?” Or are you so poor that you have absolutely nothing to pay with?
I finally persuaded the gypsies - they paid the priest. The gypsies went to the cemetery. We didn't get there. On the way, they saw a tavern and decided this: some of the gypsies would go to the cemetery to dig a grave, and the rest would stop by the tavern for a while.
- Where should I put Husk?
- What will happen to him? Now he doesn’t care, he can wait outside.
They left the coffin with Husk on the cart, and they went into the tavern for a walk and to have fun. The gypsies were drinking and drinking, when suddenly a little gypsy ran into the tavern and shouted:
- Gypsies, but there is no Husk!
- How come not? Where could he have gone? Did he evaporate, or what?
The gypsies ran out into the street, and lo and behold: there was no cart, no Buyan, no coffin with Shelukha. What the hell is this? The gypsies rushed to the cemetery, and there they were already digging a grave.
– Husk didn’t come here?
- How's Husk? Which Husk? Have you gone crazy? Can a dead person drive horses?
- Yes, it turns out that he can! Husk is gone! The gypsies sat around the grave and did not know what to do. There is a grave, but there is no one to bury.
- But he died! Therefore, a wake must be celebrated! - shouted the most quick-witted gypsy. Everyone liked it so much that they immediately went to celebrate the wake. Someone along the way remembered the treasure buried by Shelukha. We went to that place, began to dig deeper and dug up a bag of money and a silver bridle. The noise was unimaginable. Shelukha's wife is crying, begging the gypsies to give her the money, but they are of no use.
- We have to divide it among the whole camp! We all suffered through it, we all had no luck.
“I was chopping wood for him, but the men caught me and beat me.”
“And they almost killed me for the hay, for the grass, but the hay was for the Husk horses.”
- And he interrupted me at the fair, ruined a good exchange.
“And because of him I had to give away my horse for half the price.”
- And he owed me!
In short, such a dump began that the gypsies took up axes. It turned out that everyone in the camp Shelhukha either had to do something or ruined something.
“Chavale,” the old gypsy intervened, “you will kill each other, and there will be no one to share the money.”
The gypsies stopped and decided: the money should be given equally to everyone, and the silver bridle (God be with her! - it still can’t be divided) should be given to Shelukhina’s wife, for the children’s amusement.
The gypsies divided the money, and greed took it.
They remembered about the Shelukhin herd. How can he leave his wife? Why does she need him, they say, she won’t be able to deal with him alone. And such horses will be useful to us on the farm. They also took the horses and divided them among themselves.
- Damn you! - Husk's wife screams. – You ruined me, sent my family and children around the world. May God punish you for this!
The gypsies waved their hand at Shelukhina’s wife’s curse and scattered to their tents. They calmed down by morning. As soon as they lay down, they heard: the earth was shaking from the horse’s trampling. The horses neigh and beat the ground with their hooves. The gypsies jump out of the tents and see: Shelukhip's favorite Buyan, who disappeared along with his owner, is galloping around the tents, and behind him is the entire Shelukhin herd, and the rest of the gypsy horses too. They galloped around and disappeared out of sight. Buyan took all the horses from the camp with him. The gypsies rushed back to the tents to the money taken from Shelukhina’s wife, lo and behold, there was no money! And instead of money there is only horse manure. The gypsies ran to the cemetery where the dug grave was, and were dumbfounded: in the place of the dug grave, a hill had been built, everything was as it should be.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru