There lived an old Frost, and he had a son - young Frost. And this son was such a braggart that even if you wanted to tell him, you couldn’t tell! To listen to him, there is no one smarter and stronger than him in the whole world. That’s when this son, young Morozets, thinks:
“My father has become old! He doesn’t do his job well. I’m young and strong - I can freeze people much better! No one can escape from me, no one can cope with me: I’ll defeat everyone!”
Young Morozets set off on his journey and began to look for someone to freeze. He flew out onto the road and saw a gentleman riding in a cart on a well-fed horse. The gentleman himself is fat, the gentleman’s fur coat is warm, his feet are wrapped in a carpet.
Frost looked at Mr. Frost and laughed.
“Eh,” he thinks, “wrap yourself up, don’t wrap yourself up, you won’t be able to escape from me anyway! My old father, perhaps, wouldn’t have gotten through you, but I’ll get through it so hard that just hold on! Neither a fur coat nor a carpet will help!”
Morozets flew up to the gentleman and began to pester him: he climbed under the carpet, got into his sleeves, sneaked into his collar, and pinched his nose.
The master ordered his servant to drive the horse.
“It’s not like that,” he shouts, “I’ll freeze!”
And Morozets bothers you even more, pinches your nose even more painfully, freezes your fingers and toes, and doesn’t let you breathe.
Pan and this way, pan and that - and he cowers, and squeezes, and spins in place.
“Drive,” he shouts, “drive quickly!”
And then he stopped screaming: he lost his voice.
The master arrived at his estate, they carried him out of the cart, barely alive.
Young Frost flew to his father, to old Frost. He began to brag to him:
- Look what I am! Look what I am! Where can you, father, keep up with me? Look what kind of gentleman I froze! Look what a warm fur coat I snuck under! You will never get under such a fur coat! You will never freeze such a gentleman!
Old Frost grinned and said:
- You braggart! I would have waited for my strength and boasted of my prowess. That’s right: you froze the fat gentleman and crawled under his warm fur coat. Is this a big deal? Look, there’s a skinny man in a leaky fur coat riding on a skinny horse. Do you see him?
- I see.
- This guy is going to the forest to chop wood. Try freezing it. If you freeze it, I’ll believe you that you are really strong!
- This is incredible! - answers young Frost. - Yes, I’ll freeze him in a moment!
Frost took off and flew to catch up with the man. He caught up, attacked and let’s pester him: first he’ll swoop in from one side, then from the other, and the man just keeps going. Frost began to grab his legs. And the man jumped off the sleigh and ran next to the little horse.
“Well,” Frost thinks, “wait! I’ll freeze you in the forest!”
A man arrived in the forest, took out an ax and began to chop down fir trees and birches - the chips were flying in all directions!
But young Frost does not give him peace: he grabs him by the arms and legs, and sneaks through his collar...
And the more Morozets tries, the harder the man swings his ax, the harder he chops the wood. I got so warm that I even took off my mittens.
Frost attacked the man for a long time, and finally got tired.
“Okay,” he thinks, “I’ll defeat you anyway! I’ll chill you to the bone when you return home!”
He ran up to the sleigh, saw the mittens, and climbed into them. Sits and chuckles:
“I’ll see how this guy puts on his mittens: they are so stiff that you can’t even put your fingers in them!”
The frost is sitting in a man's mittens, and the man, you know, is chopping and chopping everything.
Until then he chopped until he put the cart on horseback.
“Now,” he says, “we can return home!”
The man took his mittens and was about to put them on, but they looked like iron.
"Well, what are you going to do?" — Young Frost chuckles to himself.
And the man, when he saw that it was impossible to put on the mittens, took an ax and began to hit them.
The man hit the mittens with his butt, and Frost in the mittens oh and oh!
And the man crushed Morozets’ sides so hard that he barely escaped alive.
A man is driving home, carrying firewood, shouting at his horse. And young Morozets hobbles to his father, groaning himself. Old Frost saw him and began to chuckle:
- Why are you, son, barely walking?
- I was exhausted while I was freezing the guy.
“And what is it, son, young Frost, that you groan so pitifully?”
- Yes, the man really hurt his sides!
“This, son, young Morozets, will be a lesson for you: it’s no wonder you can cope with lazy gentlemen, but no one can ever defeat a peasant!” Remember this!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru