Once upon a time there lived a musician. He started playing from an early age. He used to graze oxen, cut a vine, make himself a pipe, and as soon as he started playing, the oxen would stop nibbling the grass - they would prick up their ears and listen. The birds in the forest will become quiet, even the frogs in the swamps will not croak.
If he goes at night, it’s fun there: boys and girls sing and joke—it’s a well-known thing, it’s youthful. The night is warm and soaring. Beauty.
And then the musician will take it and play his pipe. All the boys and girls will instantly, as if on command, quiet down. And then it seems to everyone that some kind of sweetness poured into his heart, some unknown force picked him up and carries him higher and higher - into the clear blue sky to the clear stars.
The night shepherds sit, not moving, they have forgotten that their arms and legs, worn out during the day, hurt, that hunger is pestering them.
They sit and listen.
And I want to sit like this all my life and listen to the musician play.
The pipe will fall silent. But no one dares to move, so as not to frighten this magical voice that scattered like a tickle through the forest, through the oak grove and rises to the very sky.
The pipe will play again, but something sad. And then such melancholy and sadness will overwhelm everyone... Sometimes men and women come late from the panshchina, they will hear that music, they will stop, they will listen. This is how their whole life appears before their eyes - poverty and sorrow, an evil master and tiun with his clerks. And such melancholy will attack them that they want to wail as if over a dead man, as if they were seeing off their sons to become soldiers.
But then the musician starts playing something fun. The men and women will throw down their braids, rakes, pitchforks, put their hands on their hips and let’s dance.
People are dancing, horses are dancing, trees are dancing in the oak grove, stars are dancing, clouds are dancing - everyone is dancing and having fun.
He was such a musician-sorcerer: he would do whatever he wanted with his heart.
The musician grew up, made himself a violin and... went to walk around the world. Wherever he comes, he will play, they will feed him for it, give him something to drink, like the most welcome guest, and they will also give him something for the journey.
For a long time the musician walked around the world, entertaining good people. And he cut the hearts of the evil lords without a knife: wherever he comes, the people there stop listening to the lords. And he stood across their path, like a bone in the throat.
The lords decided to kill him. They began to persuade one and another to kill or drown the musician. But there was no such hunter: ordinary people loved the musician, but the clerks were afraid - they thought he was a wizard.
Then the lords and the devils came to an agreement. And it is known: gentlemen and devils are of the same wool.
Once a musician was walking through the forest, and the devils sent twelve hungry wolves to attack him. They blocked the musician’s path, stood there, clicking their teeth, their eyes burning like hot coals. The musician has nothing in his hands, only a violin in his knapsack. “Well,” he thinks, “the end has come for me.”
The musician took the violin out of his knapsack to play it one more time before he died, leaned against the tree and ran his bow across the strings.
As if a living violin spoke, I walked through the forest of tickles. The bushes and trees froze - the leaves did not move. And the wolves just stood there, mouths open, and froze.
They listen with all ears and forget their hunger.
The musician stopped playing, and the wolves, as if sleepy, ran into the forest.
The musician moved on. The sun has already set behind the forest, only glowing on the very tops of the heads, as if flooding them with golden streams. It’s so quiet that it’s almost impossible.
The musician sat down on the river bank, took out a violin from his knapsack and began to play. It was so good that both earth and heaven listened. And when he started playing a polka song, everyone around began to dance. The stars are rushing around like a snowstorm in winter, clouds are floating across the sky, and the fish are so wild that the river is boiling like water in a pot.
The water king couldn’t stand it either - he started dancing. It got so hot that the water flooded the banks; The devils got scared and jumped out of the river backwaters. Everyone is angry, gnashing their teeth, but they can’t do anything about the musician.
And the musician sees that the water king has caused trouble to people - he flooded the fields and vegetable gardens, and stopped playing, hid the violin in his knapsack and moved on.
He walks and walks, suddenly two panicked men run up to him.
“We’re having a game today,” they say. - Play for us, sir musician. We'll pay you generously.
The musician thought: it’s night outside, there’s nowhere to sleep, and there’s no money.
“Okay,” he says, “I’ll play.”
The panicked musician was brought to the palace. Lo and behold, there are a dime a dozen panics and ladies there. And there is some kind of large and deep bowl on the table. Panichs and ladies run up to her in turn, stick their finger in the bowl and smear their eyes.
The musician also approached the bowl. I wet my finger and anointed my eyes. And only he did this, he sees that these are not ladies and panichki at all, but witches and devils, that he is not in a palace, but in hell.
“Aha,” the musician thinks, “this is the kind of game the panicked people dragged me to! Well, okay. I’ll play for you now!”
He tuned the violin, hit the living strings with his bow - and everything in hell scattered to dust, and the devils and witches fled in all directions.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru