One camp gypsy once borrowed a lot of money from a sorcerer. The time has come to give, but there is nothing to pay with. What to do if you need to keep your word. But it’s an even worse crime if you don’t arrive on time. The gypsies do not respect this at all. Such a person has no more faith.
It’s bad for the gypsy: there is no husband, a lot of children, and nothing to pay with. The gypsy woman went to the sorcerer and said:
“You should defer my debt for another couple of months.”
They agreed. However, even after two months the gypsy did not have any money. And in this case, according to the gypsy laws, she had to appear before her court - the court of elders.
Well, there's nothing to do.
Again the gypsy went to the sorcerer and confessed.
– Do whatever you want, but I don’t have money. You can go to the gypsy court, it’s your choice.
The sorcerer looked at her, squinting, and said unkindly:
- I don’t need your gypsy court... And I forgive you your money!
The gypsy was about to leave, but he didn’t let her in - Where are you looking at night?
Stay. You'll go in the morning. The gypsy decided to stay. And the next morning I went back to my camp. The path was not close. She drove for half a day, and when she returned, she saw: the camp, like a disturbed beehive, was buzzing. Gypsies are running and making noise.
- What's happened? - asks the gypsy. Her mother rushed towards her and with tears in her eyes shouted:
- We have a great misfortune, a great misfortune.
Your children are missing! In the morning, just before dawn and just when the camp woke up, an old hunchbacked woman with a stick came from the forest. She brought a basket of apples and said to me: “Don’t touch these apples and don’t give them to your grandchildren. They are intended for your daughter." I put this basket of apples under the cart, but didn’t notice it. Your children ran up and grabbed an apple. But as soon as each of them took a bite, he immediately disappeared. We looked for them and looked for them, but we never found them. Then a man from the village came to us, brought hay, we asked him, saying if he had seen two children: a boy and a girl. And he replies: “I saw them going to the forest...” - “Why didn’t you stop them, didn’t you bring them back? After all, they fled from the camp...” But what demand is there from a peasant?
The gypsy immediately understood that this was the sorcerer’s revenge for her debt. And she also realized that it was useless to beg him for forgiveness, because if the evil spirit decides something, she stands firmly on her own.
The gypsies searched for the children for a long time; they searched the entire forest. And so the summer flew by. In the autumn, just before frost, two men and a shepherdess, who were tending the village flock, saw these children.
The shepherdess saw them first. The gypsy children were sitting on a pebble, huddled, huddled together, sleeping. Slowly the shepherdess went to the men, and they already knew about the disappearance of the children in the camp and immediately ran to the gypsies. They come running and say that they saw children, they were found, they say, sleeping on a rock. The gypsy woman rushed to that place, saw her children, but couldn’t stand how she screamed! The children jumped up, saw their mother, jumped to the side and seemed to fall through the ground...
- What have you done, unfortunate thing? - the old camp fortune teller said to the gypsy when she came to her in tears. “You should have grabbed the children by the hair.” After all, they are enchanted! Now don’t cry, don’t cry - you won’t get your children back!
The fortune teller told the truth.
From that time on, the gypsy never saw her children again.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru