There lived one poor man. There was no one poorer than him in the whole village.
He once went into the forest for the whole day to chop wood. His wife gave him a small piece of bread - she couldn’t give him anything else.
“It’s not big,” he says, “this little thing, but that’s okay: you won’t eat your fill, but you won’t die of hunger either!”
A woodcutter came to the forest and chose a suitable place. He placed the edge of the bread on the stump and began chopping wood. He chops - only the ax glistens and chips fly in all directions.
The little devil looked out of the hole. He looks - a man is chopping wood, and there is a piece of bread lying on the stump. He - grab it! - and stole this edge. He came running and began to brag to the other devils: what a job I did!
All the devils got angry with him, began to shout, and began to drive him away:
- You are shameless! Look, what did you come up with: he took away the last bread from a poor man, and he’s bragging about it too! Get away and don't come back to us until you give the woodcutter a run for his money! Let's go!
The little imp has nothing to do - he dragged himself to the woodcutter and began to ask:
- Accept me, good man, as a worker! I'll help you work. Whatever you order, I’ll do everything!
The woodcutter thought and thought and said:
- What kind of job will I give you, such a fool? I don't need you! I can manage my work myself.
Then the little devil said to him:
- Wait, good man! Don't drive me away. I want to make amends to you for my guilt. Entrust me with the most difficult work and I will do it all!
The woodcutter thought and thought and said:
“The rich gentleman here has swampy, unnecessary swamps in the forest.” Can you drain these swamps?
- I can!
“Well, then I’ll ask the master to allow me to plow up these swamps and sow rye.” Maybe he'll allow it...
- Will rye grow in these swamps? Think about it! - says the little devil.
“If we drain them thoroughly, clean them and plow them, good rye will grow.”
- OK! - says the little devil. - Go to the master, ask for those swampy swamps! If sir, we'll drain them quickly!
The woodcutter went to the master and began to ask:
- Let me, sir, drain the swamps in your forest and plow them for arable land. I want to sow rye there.
The sir was surprised, how can this man turn a swamp into arable land? He won't succeed, he'll just lose his strength in vain.
“Okay,” he says, “work, I don’t forbid it.”
The woodcutter thanked the sir and went home. And the little devil sits, can’t wait for him.
“Well,” he asks, “what news did you bring?”
Lumberjack says:
- Allowed, sir. Can we do anything there? Somehow I can't believe it...
“Don’t worry,” the little devil answers, “we’ll do it!” Everything will be fine!
They went into that forest and found a swamp. Here the little devil got to work: he uprooted entire trees and threw them to the side. He uprooted everything, cleaned it, and drained the water. He plowed the arable land himself. They sowed a lot of rye there, and the rye grew wonderfully - thick, spiky; such a thing has never been seen in these places.
The gentleman found out about this. He arrived in the forest, examined the rye and said:
“This land is mine, which means the rye is mine!”
And he did not allow the woodcutter to reap the rye. He sent his workers to the arable land. The workers harvested the woodcutter's rye, took it to the master's yard and stored it in a large barn.
The sir is pleased that he collected so much rye without any hassle.
And the woodcutter and the little devil began to burn and were sad: they were very upset that they had worked in vain, that they had worked for the greedy master.
“Wait,” says the little devil to the woodcutter, “I came up with one thing!” I’ll go to the master now and ask him to allow me to take at least one sheaf of our rye.
“Okay,” the woodcutter answers, “go, maybe you’ll beg.”
The little devil ran to the master and began to ask:
- Oh, sir! We suffered so much, worked so hard until we cleared the swamp and sowed it with rye! And now you have taken it away from us. Let us take at least one sheaf!
The gentleman looked at the small, skinny imp, laughed and said:
“Well, I’m not greedy: take as much as you can carry at one time!”
The little devil ran to the woodcutter and said:
— Buy more hemp quickly, and more of it; I’ll make a rope out of that hemp and go to the master for rye. He allowed me to take as much as I could carry!
A woodcutter bought hemp, and they made a long, long rope. The little devil took that rope and ran to the master.
He ran, stretched a rope near the barn, put all the rye on it, as much as there was in the barn, and took it to the woodcutter.
Pan saw this - he was completely dumbfounded, he didn’t know what to say, what to do. He came to his senses and shouted:
- Hey, servants! Open the barn quickly, let out our butting bulls: let them gore this scoundrel!
The servants opened the stable and released the bulls. And these bulls were so angry, so strong that no one dared to come close to them. The bulls mooed, roared, lowered their sharp horns and ran after the imp.
The gentleman looks and rejoices.
“Well,” he thinks, “now they’ll gore him on the spot!”
But that was not the case: as soon as the bulls ran up to the little devil, he turned, grabbed them, put them on his armful of rye and carried them to the woodcutter. When Pan saw this, he fell dead from anger.
And the little devil came to the woodcutter and said:
- Take it, master! Both the rye and the bulls are all ours!
The woodcutter began to thank the imp, and the imp said:
- Don't thank me, please! There's nothing to thank me for. You better tell me: did I earn that crumb of bread that I stole from you when you were chopping wood in the forest?
- What a weirdo you are! - says the woodcutter. - Is it worth remembering such a small edge! You gave me so many good things for this little piece that I don’t even dare accept it!
“Don’t worry,” the little devil answers, “I didn’t bring you that much!” If you are satisfied, then I don’t need anything else - I can return to my people again.
“Come back,” says the woodcutter. - I'm very pleased!
“Well, I’m happy: now our people won’t kick me out, they won’t say that I offended the poor man!”
The little devil said so and ran away.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru