Once upon a time there lived in a hut a savvy little man named Machatyn. He fooled his master as he pleased. One day the master, returning from a hunt, turned to Machatyn to rest. Machatyn knew that the master was a simpleton, so he cooked porridge in a cauldron, took it off the fire, brought it to the hut and put it on the floor in the middle of the room, and then he said to the master:
- Look, look! Have you ever seen a cauldron where porridge would boil in the middle of a hut without a fire? And I always do this: I’ll pour some water, add some cereal, put it on the floor, and he’ll cook for himself.
The master looked - it’s true, it’s seething with might and main. But he doesn’t realize that the porridge, removed from the fire, always continues to boil.
– You know what, Machatyn? I will give you thirty-three purviets of land near your hut, just give me the cauldron!
OK. The master, the fool, brought the cauldron home, put the hare in it, let it cook. Can it really cook without fire? The master realized how cleverly he had been tricked, and ordered to call Machatyn to the estate to scratch his back with a stick. And Machatyn knew in advance that he would not escape the flogging. However, to play a trick on the master, he filled the calf's intestines with blood and tied them on his back. As the master hit him with his club, blood sprayed out in all directions. Machatyn stretched out on the ground and moaned:
- He killed, he killed, he killed his own Machatyn! The master saw Machatyn covered in blood, ran to the yard peasants and ordered them to drown Machatyn in a bag in an ice hole. The men brought him to the lake. And the ice hole froze; you have to go get the axe. While the men were looking for the axe, Machatyn got out of the bag and filled it with stones. The men drowned the stones.
After two or three days the master goes hunting again. I hadn’t even shot the hare when Machatyn came out of the hut and started throwing pine cones at his mongrel. The master looks at Machatyn and is surprised:
-Where did you come from? What are you throwing at my dogs?
“Now I throw money at all the dogs, and when the money runs out, all I have to do is climb into the hole and I’ll scoop them up in heaps.” Just don’t tell your employees, sir, otherwise they will also sniff out the path to my money at the bottom of the lake.
The master, having heard this, hurried, as if home, and he himself went to the lake, jumped into the hole and went to the bottom with an ax, only the bubbles began to gurgle. To this day he is looking for Machatyn’s money there.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru