It was a long time ago, a very long time ago. In those days, peasants celebrated the beginning of the harvest. They dressed in their best and went out into the field with sickles, but on the first day people had more fun than work.
In one village lived three brothers, very poor. Even on the harvest holiday, they had nothing to take with them to eat or drink, except for a piece of stale bread and a jug of water.
So the peasants went out into the field, worked a little and sat down to celebrate. They sing songs, joke, and have fun, only the brothers sit dejected. Suddenly an unknown old man appeared in the field. He walks past the peasants and says hello. Everyone answers, but no one offers food or drink. The old man approached the brothers and said hello.
“Sit down, father, eat with us,” the younger brother tells him.
“What are you going to treat me with?” the older brothers are surprised.
“What we eat ourselves, we’ll give it to him!”
The old man sat down to them and asked:
- Everyone is singing, everyone is having fun, but why aren’t you happy?
- What fun - eating empty bread and washing it down with water!
“It’s okay, pour some water, let’s at least drink some water,” the old man says cheerfully.
The younger brother took a jug, and in it was thick red wine! They drank and began to eat stale bread.
- Look at that hill over there, isn’t there a sheep there? - asks the old man.
“No, it’s a big stone,” answers the older brother.
- Come and look, maybe it’s not a stone.
The younger brother climbed the hill, looked, and there was the carcass of a fattened sheep and white bread next to it, as if it had been laid out for him.
The brothers roasted the sheep, and the feast began. The brothers began to sing a cheerful song. The reapers are surprised and laugh: why are the hungry people singing and what are they serving the guest with - after all, they themselves have nothing to eat!
They finished feasting, and the old man asked his elder brother:
- What do you want, what to give you?
“I wish I had some land, then I could feed my family!”
“You will have land and food as long as you are hospitable.”
Then the old man asks his middle brother:
- What do you dream about?
- I wish I could get some cattle!
- Well, you will have fat herds as long as you are hospitable.
And the old man turns to his younger brother:
- Tell me, son, what do you want?
- A good mistress of the house, so that she would welcome guests and love everything she does.
- You gave me a difficult task! There are only two suitable ones in the world - one is married, the other has a wedding this evening. So be it, I’ll try, maybe I’ll be able to give it away for you.
The old man endowed the elder brother with land and bread, the middle one with a large herd, and brought the younger brother to the royal palace, where the wedding was taking place.
This old man was a wizard. He summoned the rain and the wind so that he would have a reason to ask for shelter, and knocked on the doors. The servants opened the door and the old man asked to let them in and wait out the bad weather. But the king did not allow travelers to enter: strangers, they say, could bring trouble to the wedding.
Then the old man kicked the door and smashed it.
Uninvited guests entered the hall. And there are a lot of people there, the bride and groom are sitting at the wedding table.
“Go chase the groom away and sit next to the bride,” the old man says to the guy.
He did just that. The king became angry and angry.
“You shouldn’t be angry!” the old man tells him. “This poor man is her fiancé, not the prince.” If you don’t believe me, let’s check it out! We'll give both of them a vine cutting. Whoever's vine blooms and produces grapes will get the bride.
The king thought that the old man was crazy, but still agreed.
They brought cuttings and gave them to the prince and the poor man. The stalk in the poor man's hand filled with juice, turned green with leaves, and then became covered with bunches of grapes. But the stalk in the hands of the prince remained as it was.
The king frowned, and the old man laughed.
“I still won’t give you my bride!” shouts the king.
- You will give it back! How can you not give it back? The poor man is her fiancé, not the prince! If you don’t believe it, you’ll see it now! Whichever of us is right, the fried pheasant in his hands will come to life and take off.
The king took the pheasant from the dish - it did not come to life. The old man took the fried pheasant - the bird fledged, flapped its wings and flew up to the ceiling.
“I still won’t give up the bride!” shouts the king.
“The girl herself will marry the one who dances on the tip of a dagger!” answers the old man.
The prince doesn't want to lose his bride. He went out to dance. He stepped on the tip of a dagger and injured his leg.
A poor man came out to dance and spun around on the tip of a dagger.
The bride got up and approached the poor man - no one dared to stop her.
The bride left the palace along with the old man and the young man. They came to where the brothers lived. And the old man built a new house for the young on the edge of the village. Then he gathered them all and said goodbye:
- You will be happy as long as you are hospitable.
The brothers lived happily, no longer knowing either grief or need.
Time has passed, maybe a little, maybe a lot. And then one day the old man went to visit his brothers, to find out how they lived, how they carried out his orders. He summoned rain and wind and knocked on the house of his elder brother:
- Do me a favor and shelter me for the night.
- Go away, you, the people who come by, won’t get enough bread!
“If that’s the case, live as before!” said the old man and knocked on the door of the middle brother.
The middle brother also did not let the unexpected guest in.
“And live as before!” said the old man and went to the youngest of the brothers.
I knocked. The hostess opened the door. She didn't recognize the old man.
- Let me, good woman, spend the night.
“Come in, you will be a guest,” she invited, although the guest was not in time - her husband was dying.
The woman sat the old man down, and she killed a chicken, prepared dinner and began to set the table.
“Where is the owner?” the old man asks her.
“At my relatives,” she lied, “I didn’t want to spoil the guest’s mood,” and went to the cellar to get wine.
The old man knew that the owner was lying sick in the next room, and he cured him.
The woman brought the wine and saw her husband at the table, healthy! She was surprised, but did not show it, but said:
- It’s good that you came back, a guest is bored without a host.
“Thank you,” says the old man. “You turned out to be good people, and your fate will be good.”
From that day on, the youngest of the brothers began to live even better, while the elders lived in poverty as before.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru