One man had three sons: two were smart, and the third was a fool.
The father assigned his eldest son to the pastor as a coachman. But the eldest son could not cope with this matter - a week later the pastor sent him home. The father sent his second son, but the pastor also drove him away. Finally, the father sent the fool. The fool comes and the pastor asks:
- Well, can you be a coachman?
- A coachman? I don’t know, I’ve never had the opportunity to be a coachman. Herding pigs is something I learned from my father.
- OK! You will be herding pigs. And at the end of the year you will receive the following payment: I will allow you to give me three clicks on the forehead.
The fool agreed.
Some time later, the pastor’s mother died, and nine large, well-fed bulls had to be slaughtered for the funeral.
All the pastor's servants gathered to slaughter these bulls, but the bulls scattered the people like husks. And the fool looks at all this and laughs. The pastor asks him:
- Why are you laughing, fool?
- Yes, I’m laughing at your slaughterers.
- Well, if you are good at laughing at others, go and kill yourself!
- Well, I’ll go! - answered the fool, entered the barn, grabbed one bull by the horns, flicked him on the forehead - he was ready, grabbed the other, flicked him on the forehead - he was also ready. So he clicked all the bulls.
The pastor saw what power his swineherd had, and was very frightened. “What will happen to me,” he thinks, “when at the end of the year I have to pay off the fool?”
On the very first Sunday, the pastor asked the parishioners in the church if anyone knew such a dangerous place where they could send a fool so that he would not return from there.
They began to think and guess - no one could really remember anything. Finally someone exclaimed:
- I know! In such and such a forest there are heaps of oats, and every night a huge bear comes there to eat these oats. This is where you should send the fool!
The pastor liked it. He ran home and said to the fool:
“Tell you what, three years ago my cow disappeared, and just now she was seen on the edge of the forest near the hayfields of oats.” Go ahead and bring her home!
- Well, it must be so! - the fool answered and went into the forest. He walks and thinks: “The cow that wandered through the forests for three years is no longer a cow, but a wild animal. You can’t take it with your bare hands. Let me go and forge a good club.”
He forged a club weighing thirteen berks, came to the edge of the forest and hid in a heap of oats, only sticking his head out a little to look around.
Around midnight, the fool sees: a huge bear came out of the forest and began to eat oats. The fool's hands were itching. And as soon as the bear approached his head, the fool grabbed him by the ears with one hand, and started hitting him with the club as hard as he could with the other. The bear sees: the jokes are bad, he has calmed down. But the fool doesn’t care – even if he struggles, even if he cries, he’s dragging a clubfoot, so he brought him to the barn to the pastor.
When the pastor saw that the fool had dealt with the bear, he was even more frightened than before. What will be left of him if at the end of the year such a hero slaps him on the forehead three times? The pastor decided to destroy the fool at all costs.
He began to think where else to send the fool? And so I thought, and thought about it, and finally decided:
- Listen, fool! Three years ago my servant got lost in a huge swamp. A river flows through a swamp. He went to the river to swim and never returned. Go find my servant!
- Well, it must be so! - the fool answered and went to the swamp. He sees a river flowing and a boat near the shore. The fool lay down in the boat and fell asleep.
Around midnight he woke up and heard: someone was walking and stomping so hard that the ground was shaking. The fool raised his head - there was a devil with three heads in front of him.
“What should we do?” - thought the fool, but did not hesitate: he grabbed the devil by the beard and began to beat him with an iron club. No matter how the devil tried, the fool did not let him go and dragged him to the pastor’s estate.
Everyone was still sleeping in the pastor’s house, no one opened the door for him, and then the devil kicked like mad. The fool got angry and knocked on the door with his index finger to wake people up. But here's the problem! Apparently he knocked too hard: the door flew off. The pastor jumped out of the house and yelled:
- Put your devil with the bear, and don’t bother me!
Well, the fool put the devil with the bear and went to bed.
In the morning, the pastor again began to think about where else to send the fool.
And he came up with an idea: let the fool harness the bear to the cart, take the devil with him and go to the king.
OK. The fool harnessed the bear to the cart, put the devil on the box as the coachman and drove off like a master. He comes to the king, and the king says to him:
– You see: a large lake, and on the shore there is a palace. You need to spend one night in that palace.
And devils lived in the palace, and on the shore of the lake there were visible and invisible stones. But these were not stones at all, but enchanted people. Many years ago there was a bazaar in this place, and then one day the devil came to the bazaar and turned all the people into stones, and he himself remained to live in the palace, as they say, under the very nose of the king. No matter how hard the king tried to survive the unscrupulous devil, it was all in vain. It was in that palace that the fool was supposed to spend the night.
What did he do? As soon as he arrived at the palace, he ordered his devil to unharness the bear and forge iron nuts. In the evening he put these nuts in his left pocket, and the real ones in his right. He didn’t tell his devil anything, sent him off to bed and said that it was too early for him to go to bed.
The devil and the bear went to bed, and the fool sits, waiting for what will happen next. He waits and waits. Until midnight everything is quiet, not a sound.
As soon as midnight came, there was a knocking and thundering in the palace. There was such a noise, you should at least close your ears! The fool grabbed his heavy club tighter and waited to see what would happen. Lo and behold: the door opens, and the devil himself with nine heads enters.
- Who are you waiting for? - asks.
- You! - the fool answers. “Here, I brought you some nuts to crack.”
- Well, let's try what your nuts are like!
The fool gave the devil a handful of iron nuts, and he took the real ones out of his right pocket and cracked them. The devil gnaws at iron nuts, gnaws until sparks fly out, but he can’t figure them out. The fool laughed.
- Oh, are you still going to laugh? – the devil became furious and grabbed the fool’s hair. But the fool grabbed the devil by the beard, bent him to the ground and cut off three heads in one fell swoop. Then the devil deftly turned around and hid at the bottom of the lake with the remaining six heads. It's a pity for the fool that the devil ran away, but what can you do? Don't go into the water after him.
Nothing else happened that night.
The next evening the Fool ordered his devil to forge an iron man weighing three-nine berks and put him in a corner.
Midnight came, and the palace was noisy again. The devil with twelve heads appeared and asked:
- Who are you waiting for? And why did my brother blow off three heads last night? Now you will fight with me! And the fool laughs:
- I’ll start messing with you! Here you are screaming at the top of your lungs, and my grandfather is sleeping over there in the corner, and he didn’t even wake up. How can you compete with me!
- Give your grandfather here! - the devil shouted and in his anger attacked the iron man, wanting to tear him to shreds. But will you break the iron? The devil has dulled his claws, broken his teeth, but grandfather still doesn’t wake up. Finally the devil grabbed the grandfather to throw him through the roof, and the fool took it and pushed the devil. The devil and his grandfather fell to the floor. The devil is below, grandfather is on top of him. The fool grabbed his iron club, started hitting the devil and blew off half of his heads.
The devil saw that things were bad, and began to ask the fool to let him go alive.
“So be it,” the fool answers, I’ll let you go, but you’ll get out of the palace forever and turn those stones on the shore into people again!
“I’ll do anything, just don’t hit me!”
The devil brought the fool a pot of keys - these are the keys to the palace. But the fool says:
- Not all the keys are here!
The devil brought another pot with keys, and the fool brought his again:
– And that’s not all!
Then the devil brought the third pot - they say, now all the keys are here!
The fool took the keys and ordered the devil to turn the stones into people again.
The devil carried out the order and left those places forever. And the fool took the keys to the castle, gathered all the people that he had freed from the spell, came to the king and said:
- Here are the keys to your palace and here are your people! And I drove the devils away from here forever.
The king was delighted, married his daughter to a fool and gave him his kingdom.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru