Once upon a time there was a man in the world, and he had an only son. As the boy grew up, he began to help his father with housework. One day the father loaded a cart full of wheat and sent his son to the mill to grind flour.
- Which mill should I go to?
- To the water one.
“You know that there are a lot of water mills there.”
- Choose any one, just beware of the red-eyed miller. The guy took the lygach and - tsob, tsob! - I slowly reached the mill. Then a miller comes out to meet him, covered from head to toe in flour, and gently calls out:
- Drive up, wrap it up, dump the bags. - Aren’t there a lot of people at the mill?
- There’s no one, let’s get some bags and start grinding flour. As the guy came closer to the miller, lo and behold, his eyes were red, as if scalded.
“No, I don’t want to grind with the red-eyed miller,” said the guy and turned to another mill.
The miller overtook him and, near the second mill, comes out to meet the guy again.
- Hello, miller. - Great, boy.
— Is there a big influx at the mill? - Yes, it’s a terrible thing.
“Ugh, trouble!” thought the boy. “And there’s a big influx,” and this miller is red-eyed.”
- Well, if that’s the case, I’ll go to another mill.
The miller, however, again overtook him and, near the third mill, comes out to meet him again.
- How are you getting there, miller, a big influx?
- What did you think? The mill is chock full of sacks. “By the time you grind the wheat, your eyes will pop out of your head,” the guy says to himself. “But this miller is red-eyed. I’d better go back to the first one, at least there’s no influx there, I’ll get the flour faster.”
He turned the cart back, and soon arrived at the threshold of the first mill.
- I returned, miller, back to you. There, at the other mills, there are tons of people, and the millers are all red-eyed.
- Okay, guy, pour the grain into the box while no one is there. How much or how much time has passed, and now the sacks stand side by side, filled to the top with flour.
“Well, now,” says the miller, “let’s bake a loaf and eat.”
- Let's.
- Bring a cart of firewood, and in the meantime I’ll knead the dough.
The guy went to get firewood, and the red-eyed miller brought a kneading bowl, so huge that a whole sack of flour disappeared in it, poured water and began to knead the dough. The guy brought firewood, they lit a fire, baked a loaf, and when they pulled it out of the oven, the miller said:
- Now, boy, let's tell stories. And whoever says something that the other person doesn’t believe him will take the loaf for himself.
The guy agreed, and so the miller began to tell a fairy tale:
“I remember when I was still little, my father was engaged in gardening. He once planted a watermelon seed, and a huge top grew, stretching across the whole country, in one direction to the Dniester, in the other to the Prut, north to Mogilev, and south to the Danube. No matter who passed by, they all ate their fill of watermelon and still had some left over. One day a passer-by lost his knife among the tops; I began to search - I searched for a day, two, three, until I met my father.
- May, what are you still looking for?
- I lost my knife.
- When?
- Three days ago.
- And you’ve been looking for a knife for three whole days?
- Yes.
“Eh, I somehow lost my herd of horses, and I didn’t bother looking for it for three days, and you’re killing yourself because of a pathetic knife!”
- Is this the whole fairy tale?
- All.
- Well, what's wrong with it? Maybe that's how it really was.
- Well, then let's listen to what you have to say.
“I remember when I was little, my father acquired a lot of hives. And he knew all his bees inside out, calling each one by name. One day my father noticed that a bee named Fornoaya had disappeared; One day she’s gone, another day she’s gone, a third, and so on for several days in a row. He waited and waited to see if the bee would return, without hearing or hearing anything. And the poor thing was caught by the boyars' servants and harnessed to a plow. She returned to my father all exhausted, with a sore neck - she had been walking in the yoke for so long. The father became sad and began asking first one healer, then another, how to cure the bee.
So the old woman alone taught him to feed the bee with the core of a nut, infused with sweet milk. The father took out both the nut and the sweet milk, gave it to her to eat, and the bee took it and choked. The nut got stuck in her throat and she couldn’t get it out. In the warmth and dampness the nut took root and began to grow. It sprouted, came out of the bee’s head, and blossomed high and wide, and turned into a large, thick walnut tree; and there were so many nuts on it that the branches bent under their weight. The nuts have ripened and come out of their green skins
to get out, but black crows flew at them and began to peck and destroy them. My father and I began to chase the crows, throwing clods of earth at them, but the clods got stuck between the branches. We threw so many clods that a whole field spread out at the top of the tree. The father climbed there, plowed the land and sowed it with wheat. When the harvest time came, the two of us quickly climbed to gather grain, so that the rain would not wet it and the hail would not break it. We reaped all the wheat, collected it, I got down to the ground, and my father was left alone to finish tying the sheaf. He tied a sheaf, put it on a stack and also gathered behind me. He wove a long and thick rope out of straw, began to descend, but the rope was not enough for him, several fathoms did not reach the ground." So he remained hanging between heaven and earth, unable to move either here or there. Our bees flew here, saw his father and began to circle above him. They circled, circled, and began to lay down honeycombs with honey, more and more. Father became heavier from honey, the straw rope broke, and he fell to the ground, turning into a large puddle of honey. People began to come here with all sorts of dishes and get some honey for themselves. Among them, your father came with a huge pot. But by the time he arrived, all the honey had already run out. mine, that is, you, to feast on.
- Liars, it couldn’t be like that. -You didn’t believe my fairy tale.
- Oh, I would say that this is a fairy tale, then...
“Then that means I won the loaf.”
The red-eyed miller realized that he was in trouble, but he had nowhere to go. And the guy loaded the flour and loaf onto the cart and went home.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru