They say there was a guy who lived somewhere. They married him. The young people began to live in peace and harmony, only the wife turned out to be very lazy. As soon as the work becomes more difficult, she immediately becomes ill and cannot get out of bed. She groaned most of all during the hot summer season. She will wait until everyone has left for work, then she will immediately get up, scrape out all the rice that is in the pot, and let’s eat it, and if there is no boiled rice left, she will cook it for herself.
This is when the father-in-law says:
“I’ll bring the healers, let them feel her hands.” Our daughter-in-law has an incomprehensible illness. Let them give her medicine, but if she doesn’t get better, we’ll send her back to her father’s house and leave her there.
He really went after the healers. He brought them and asked:
– Feel our daughter-in-law’s hands and tell me what ailment torments her. We ourselves can’t imagine what’s wrong with her. Otherwise people will say, and the matchmaker too: “Look, they don’t even want to help her.”
One healer took her hand, held it and smiled. Then the other one took it and also smiled lightly. They sat down and didn’t say anything.
The owner asks them:
- What’s wrong with her, sir? What did you find? Tell me, do me a favor. How are we going to treat it?
“Her illness is serious and long-standing,” the healers say. – Try to find healing roots, crush them and give her a drink.
“I don’t understand the healing roots,” the owner answers. “I ask you: bring me some medicine to get her back on her feet.” And if you need to buy medicine and give it to her yourself, explain how to do it. Tell me everything that can help, otherwise we won’t be able to cure her.
But the conversation is taking place next to the patient, and she hears everything. So the healers say:
- That's right, sir. Since you called us, we will find a solution. But we want to say this: in order for the treatment to help her, we first need to cast a spell, otherwise our remedy will not bring any benefit.
“Okay,” the owner answers. “Do whatever you need to do to cure her.” Once we start, we have to finish.
“Okay,” the healers say, “we agreed.” We will go for our remedy, and when we get it, we will talk to her, and then we will begin to give the medicine.
“Hurry up, do me a favor,” the owner asks. – Bring the medicine today or – deadline – tomorrow. It’s time for work, but it’s also not right to leave a sick woman alone. We need to assign someone to her, but we don’t have enough hands anyway. Do yourself a favor, get the medicine as soon as possible, don’t delay.
“Okay,” they say, “we will find it and deliver it today.” And tomorrow we'll give it to her.
The healers said so and left the house. They paused on the threshold and explained to the owner that his daughter-in-law was suffering from lazy fever.
- How can we cure her then? – he was alarmed.
“Wait,” they say. - Not a word to anyone. We have a remedy for this case too. And you be calm.
And so, to tell the truth, both healers went into the forest, dug up two tirrha tubers, large as pumpkins, and brought them with them. In the evening they came to the sick woman’s house and said:
- We got the medicine. Today we will not treat her with it, but tomorrow, as soon as it becomes light, we will give it to her.
Just know, first of all, we will talk to you all, and the patient too, over there, at the far end of the street at the intersection, and only then we will use our remedy. We are telling you this now so that none of you will go anywhere in the morning.
“Okay,” they say. - This will do.
“So we agreed,” said the healers. - Wait, we will come early tomorrow.
Here the healers were given dinner. They ate and left.
The next day they rose with the roosters. The first thing they did was take the thyrrha tubers, take them to the end of the street and leave them there. Then they went to the sick woman’s house and got everyone there on their feet. They asked for a copper cup with water, a pinch of antimony and an old sieve. They collected what they needed and led everyone to the end of the street to the intersection. There they sat the sick woman on a sieve and anointed her with pig droppings. Then they took both thyrrha tubers, hung them around her neck and said:
- You, daughter-in-law, walk three times up and three times down the street, and we will wait for you here. You will walk three times and thereby remove the interference that the dark forces create for us, then we too will be able to leave this place. Don’t hesitate and go quickly three times in both directions.
To tell the truth, this daughter-in-law walked down the street like that, and all the people looked at her and laughed loudly, and the kids ran after her in a crowd, clapping their hands, slapping their buttocks, jumping up and squealing with joy. Even the relatives who remained standing at the end of the street were bursting with laughter. She passed once, the healers told her:
“Remember, carry this medicine on you until you get better.” Well, when you are completely healthy, untie it and throw it away.
The daughter-in-law walked down the street for the second time, and the people laughed at her so much that she could not stand the shame, tore the “medicine” away from her, and went home as fast as she could. More laughter followed.
As she ran away, the whole family also returned home, and the healers asked her:
“Tell me, daughter-in-law, didn’t you stop taking our medicine and throw it away because you immediately got better?”
Then she laughed at herself, and the healers said to her:
- Look, don’t ever have pain like that again, otherwise we’ll bring this medicine again. We can recognize any illness.
From that day on, the daughter-in-law recovered, never pretended to be sick again, and worked diligently. This is how the lazy daughter-in-law corrected herself - they taught her not to be lazy.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru