There is a village called Tohari in North Hwanghae Province, Suan County.
Behind this village stands either a mountain or a rock, it looks like a screen. There is a cave in the rock. Residents of the surrounding villages call it Masipkul Cave. When you enter it, even a tall person doesn’t have to bend down. If you go further, you will not only bend, you will crawl. No one has ever managed to get through this cave to the end. It stretched, they say, for as much as fifty li. That is why it is also called the Cave of Osimni - fifty li.
This is what people say about this cave. A long time ago, a husband and wife lived in the village of Tokhari. Poor, the poorest. The husband was kind and simple-minded.
To offend someone - he couldn’t even dream of such a thing. And that’s why he was nicknamed Masip the Fool.
Masip was not offended. When the time came for him to get married, the old men began to judge and dress him up.
Some say:
-Who will marry him?
Others object:
- Why not go, he has a kind soul.
Still others ask:
– Whom, I wonder, will he take as his wife?
And Masip was tall and broad-shouldered. And he has plenty of strength. He can defeat whoever he wants. And he has no equal in his work. Masip is known not only in his native village, but also in the surrounding ones. Not everyone may have seen Masip the Fool, but everyone has heard about him. And there’s no need to talk about girls. They really wanted to look at him!
Masip used to walk through the village, and the boys would shout after him:
- Hey, Masip! Who will you take as your wife?
“The most beautiful girl in the world,” Masip answers good-naturedly. The boys laugh:
- Just listen to what this simpleton says! What beauty will marry you, you fool?
And suddenly a rumor spread that Masip had taken his wife from a neighboring village.
Everyone started talking and making noise:
-What kind of girl married him?
- Who is she?
- Pockmarked, I suppose, or lame.
And I must tell you that Masip took a girl of rare beauty as his wife. The face is white snow, whiter than the flowers of a gourd. That's how it glows!
She's stately! And even though she’s poorly dressed, she’s pretty – you can’t take your eyes off her. They live young, live from grass to water, and love each other like lovebirds. At first, the villagers thought they were uneven, but when they saw how friendly they lived, they themselves began to envy. The rumors and gossip began again.
- How did this happen - such a beauty chose a fool out of all the guys?
- some said.
“Yes, there are a lot of strange things going on in the world,” others echoed.
Masip's wife behaved modestly and was not at all proud of her beauty.
And then one day, it was winter, trouble came to the house. The mountains were covered in snow, only on the sunny side - where the snow had melted in places - were dark spots visible. The sun was warm, but the wind was raging like winter. Masip went to the mountains for brushwood. Suddenly he looks and sees a young man lying in the snow.
Strange, how did he get here? - Masip thinks. He called out to the young man:
- Who are you?
The young man is silent.
Masip came closer, touched the young man with his hand, and called out again:
- Listen!
The young man lies there and does not move. Masip put his hand to his chest: still warm. Masip put the young man on his back and carried him home.
-Who did you bring? - asks the wife.
- Don't know. He was lying in the snow in the mountains. Hunter, probably. Prepare some rice water for him as soon as possible.
The wife went to the kitchen to prepare the broth, and Masip took the young man to a warm room and began to rub his hands and feet. The young man drank the broth and opened his eyes. Both from his face and from his clothes it is clear that he is not a poor man.
Finally the young man spoke:
“I don’t know who you are, but thank you for saving me.” I will not remain in debt, I will repay you handsomely.
“Is it worth talking about this,” Masip answers. - Thank God you are alive, but something bad could have happened. Where is your home? How did you get to our region?
“I am the son of the local ruler.” He went out to hunt and fell behind his people.
He wandered for a long time, became weak from hunger and fell to the ground.
- Son of a ruler? – Masip and his wife whispered and looked at each other in fear.
Needless to say, meeting the son of the ruler himself is a considerable honor.
However, their hearts were uneasy. Masip remembered here what people were saying about the new ruler. No wonder the proverb says: If you ran from a wolf, you ran into a tiger. The new ruler turned out to be worse than the previous one. So there is no reason to be displeased with good. They say he is a great hunter of widows. Moreover, he is cunning and greedy. As soon as I arrived, I started robbing people. To make fun of widows. And very soon the bad reputation about him spread throughout the country.
Masip remembered everything they told him about the ruler. But I didn’t notice anything about my son.
Masip and the wife of the ruler's son were received as their most dear guest. They bake for it, and the best piece is served, even though they are poor. The young man lives with Masip for a day, then lives for another, he lived for ten whole days, recovered, but has no intention of leaving.
Masip and his wife are surprised and don’t understand what’s going on. But you can’t kick a person out of the house. And the thing was this: the young man liked his wife Masipa.
Never before had anyone cared about him so much, cared for him. The young man sees that the woman does not respond to his love, and he loses his temper and becomes angry. At first he was embarrassed, because Masip saved his life, but then he forgot to even think about it. The very thought of gratitude was thrown away like old shoes. No wonder he is the son of a ruler! Whatever he wants, he will achieve.
The young man sees that Masip’s wife is faithful and has nothing to do with her, and he decides to seduce her with wealth, and to thoroughly intimidate Masip the fool.
Once Masip left home, and the ruler’s son said to his wife:
- You are more beautiful than a flower. Why do you need to live in need and poverty? I fell in love with you. Let's come to me!
The woman was confused at first. She is offended that she left such an ungrateful person; it makes her sick to look at him. She just didn’t show it and answered as if nothing had happened:
“It has long been the custom that a virtuous woman does not have two husbands at once.” How can I marry you if I have a husband?
The ruler’s son was embarrassed, but immediately thought that this was a trick; Masip’s wife had read a lot of books, so she was being cunning.
The ruler's son grabbed the woman by the hand and again by his:
“Your soul is as beautiful as your face.” For this I love you even more!
“And you’re not ashamed to pester someone else’s wife,” the woman answers. - Bring them out of the nobles!
The ruler’s son thought for a moment, and then said again:
- You shouldn’t refuse! I will shower you with gold, you will live in luxury.
The woman could not stand it and shouted:
“I don’t want to listen to such speeches!” Get out!
The son of the ruler could not endure such a shame, he ran out, enraged, from home, and decided to take revenge on Masip’s wife.
A few days later he brought the guards. Before Masip had time to come to his senses, he was tied up, and a blanket was thrown over his wife and taken away. He sees how the guards are acting outrageously, but cannot intercede. Here Masip noticed the ruler’s son in the crowd of guards and shouted:
“Where has it been seen that a man’s wife is taken away from him?” Why did you offend me? What is my crime?
“The fact is, you despicable slave and fool, that your wife is a beauty!”
- Yes, this is robbery! I saved you from death! Is this how you thank me?
– She’s not a match for you!
Masip tried to break the rope, but he couldn’t and screamed again.
- So be it, I’ll let your wife go! – the ruler’s son laughed. -Only on one condition: cut a cave fifty li long in that rock!
- This is true? – asked Masip. “If I cut a fifty-foot-long cave, will you give me back my wife?”
– The yangban’s words do not differ from their deeds! - the ruler’s son answers, grinning to himself: - What a fool, he’s such a fool: he’s going to cut a cave of fifty lint!
The ruler's son left with his guards. The people of Masip untied them and began to say:
- Eh, boy, boy! You're too kind. I saved such a scoundrel from death. He repaid you for good with evil. O heartless Heaven, let the lightning strike these villains!
And so Masip took a chisel and a hammer. He went to the rock and began to cut a cave. If he doesn’t cut through it, he won’t see his wife again!
Masip works day, works night. His fellow villagers began to dissuade him:
“You didn’t get down to business, Masip.” After all, even in a thousand years it would not be possible to cut a cave fifty miles away!
Masip does not listen to his fellow villagers. He chops and chops even harder. He believes that the day will come and his work will bear fruit.
People saw his persistence and began to encourage him:
“Maybe Heaven will have mercy on you and help you cut through the cave in a hundred days.”
Masip heard this, perked up and asked:
- In a hundred days, you say? Is it really true?
“It’s true, it’s true,” people muttered in response.
Now Masip began to mark every day on the rock with a special mark. Day after day goes by, sometimes it rains, sometimes the wind blows. And every day the cave gets deeper and deeper. But still there is no end in sight. It’s not just that you can’t cut a cave in a hundred days, or in a hundred years. Life is not enough. And Masip still works and works. The ninety-ninth day has arrived. Then the hundredth. Suddenly, as if alive, Masip saw his wife in front of him, and next to him - a fierce enemy, the ruler’s son. As Masip shouts:
“It was you, scoundrel, who took my wife away from me,” and, not understanding what he was doing, he hit the ruler in the chest with all his might with a chisel. The chisel went into the stone easily. And it seemed to Masip that he had really struck down the ruler... Masip looked: there was a huge hole in the rock, he woke up, took a step, then another, and in front of him was a cave, so long that he couldn’t see the end. It will definitely be fifty!
Masip was happy. What a miracle, he thinks. “No other way than Heaven itself helped me!” I ran forward. He runs and runs, and suddenly there’s a stone wall.
He strained himself, pushed the wall, it collapsed, and at the same moment bright sunlight hit his eyes. The cave led Masipa straight into the ruler’s garden. Just at that time his wife went out for a walk. She walks, and Heaven herself prays to help her meet her husband. Masip saw his wife, ran up and hugged her.
She rushed to her husband, crying with joy. Masip began to console her.
“Don’t cry,” he says, “let’s go home quickly.”
He took his wife into the cave and shouted:
“Hey, you scoundrel, I fulfilled your condition and now I’m taking my wife.”
The ruler's servants heard this and rushed into the cave after Masip. Then the stones rained down on them and crushed them. The ruler's son came running, ordered the servants to catch up with Masip and his wife, jumped on his horse and also rushed in pursuit. He stopped at the opposite end of the cave, waiting for the fugitives to appear. I waited for many days, but nothing happened. Masip and his wife did not leave the cave.
The ruler's son became angry and ordered smoke to be released into the cave. They chopped up the servants' brush, stacked it in front of the cave entrance and set it on fire. As soon as smoke began to creep into the cave, water gushed out and carried the brushwood into the ravine. And the ruler’s son, along with his servants, drowned in the stream.
They say that not far from the village of Tokhari a small river flows because of the very bed that was once laid by a mighty stream. And in the cave itself, black spots from the fire are still visible. And also traces of Masip’s chisel.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru