Once upon a time there lived an old man and an old woman in the same village. They lived poorly, barely making ends meet, although the old woman’s parents were rich people.
One day, shortly before the holiday of remembrance of the dead, popularly called Semik, the old woman says to her old man: “Vasley, the neighbors have already started brewing beer for Semik, we should have some better, but there’s nothing to use.” Go to my parents, maybe they’ll give me a pound of malt for beer?
Vasley took a wooden bucket and went to his father-in-law and mother-in-law.
- Would you give us a pood of malt? - he asked them. “Otherwise the holiday is coming, everyone will be drinking beer—we want it too.”
“Why not give it,” answered the father-in-law. “Old woman, pour a pound of malt for your son-in-law.”
The mother-in-law was a kind person, and along with the malt she also gave her son-in-law a large cut of meat.
Vasley goes home, carrying malt in one hand and meat in the other. The road ran through a mill dam. While passing the very crest of the dam, Vasley tripped and spilled all the malt into the water. What to do? A stick caught my eye. Vasley picked it up and began stirring the water, just as one would stir a cup with a spoon. He looks - the water has become the color of beer. “That’s so great! — Vasley thought to himself. “Maybe it tastes like beer?!” He immediately lay down on his stomach and began to drink from the pond. He drank and drank, and it began to seem to him that he was already getting drunk. “Well, if that’s the case,” Vasley said to himself again, “then we need to start singing the song.” He rose to his feet and began to sing. However, before Vasley had time to properly disperse and sing, he heard what seemed like some other singer behind him, who echoed him. I looked around and saw a man in a torn chapan walking, slightly staggering. Vasley waited for him and said:
- Let's go together, buddy. It’s easier to walk together and more fun to sing.
“Let’s go together,” he agreed.
They put their hands on each other's shoulders and walked on singing.
They walk, sing, everything is fine. But it occurred to Vasley to ask his fellow traveler:
-Who will you be? I don't know you.
“How come you don’t know me,” he replies. - I’m your Need.
“Well then, let’s go to my place,” Vasley suggested.
They hugged again and, singing, set off towards Vasley’s house.
When they approached the house, Vasley’s wife was just carrying water from the well for brewing beer. Seeing her staggering husband, she asked:
- Have you been drinking, Vasley? Where is your malt or your father gave nothing?
“I gave it,” answered Vasley, “but I’m unlucky.” When he passed the mill dam, he tripped, and all the malt from the pood spilled into the water. I stirred it with a stick and it became beer.
Well, of course, I drank - the good stuff shouldn’t go to waste. And when he drank, he got drunk and started singing songs. My friend Need, who happened to be nearby, helped me. So we go with him. Now we won’t be able to brew beer anyway, so bring the water home as soon as possible and start preparing the treat. There is no beer - let's treat my friend to at least meat.
We came to the house. Vasley seated Need at the table and went out to chop wood. Soon his wife also came out of the hut to get firewood.
“You free our largest chest,” Vasley told her, “we’ll lock Need there, let him sit.”
The wife quickly emptied the chest that stood in the entryway. Vasley brought firewood into the hut, and his wife came after him.
Need sat at the table and sang songs. Vasley sat down next to him and seemed to start singing along. Then he contrived, grabbed the guest by the throat and shouted to his wife:
- Wife, grab him by the legs!
The wife grabbed Need by the legs, and together they dragged the uninvited guest into the hallway and pushed him into the chest. And to be sure, they locked the chest with a large padlock.
In the evening, Vasley harnessed the horse, put the chest on the cart and rode into the forest.
In the forest, he dug a large hole under a tree and lowered a chest into it. Then he filled the hole with earth again, leveled the place and even covered it with fallen leaves.
Vasley returned home, and life between him and the old woman took a different turn. Every day the wealth in the house grew, any business went well, a penny turned into a ten-kopeck piece, and a ten-kopeck piece turned into a ruble. In one year, Vasley equaled his father-in-law in wealth. The father-in-law was still surprised: “Where did he come from that he got rich so quickly?” And then he became worried: “If this continues, he will become richer than me and will not want to know me.”
In the seventh semester, Vasley named a whole house of guests. The father-in-law and mother-in-law also came. We drank, ate, and sang our fill. The father-in-law chose a moment and asked his drunken son-in-law:
- Tell me, Vasley, how did you manage to get rich so quickly, did you find a treasure?
Drunk Vasley, without concealment - and who had to hide before, after all, a close relative asked him - told everything as it was to his father-in-law: how he put Need in the chest, and where he buried this chest, and how immediately after that he had wealth in the house.
The father-in-law listened to Vasley and pretended that that was the end of it all. The next day, early in the morning, he harnessed the horse, put an iron shovel on the cart and rode into the forest. It was not so easy to find in the forest the tree under which the son-in-law buried his Need. I searched and searched and couldn’t find it. Then he began to shout:
- Hey, my son-in-law's need, where are you? Where is my son-in-law's need? He hears a thin, almost dying voice coming from under one tree:
- I'm here!
The father-in-law went to the tree, dug up a chest with Need and took it home. At home, he knocked down the lock and pulled out the barely alive Need from the chest.
- Go now, Need, to your old, old friend, and let him live with you as before.
“No, good man,” answers Need, “I will never go to that villain.” He buried me alive, it’s good that you saved me from certain death. So now I won't leave you anywhere.
Need said these words and disappeared, as if he had never existed.
That same night, my father-in-law's horse died. On Peter's Day, the father-in-law burned down: all that was left of the house and yard were firebrands. And the further he went, the worse and worse his life went.
But Vasley continued to grow rich and lived in contentment until his death. But the memory of him remains - this is because Vasley shared his wealth with the poor, with those who could not overcome their Need.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru