In ancient times, there lived one woman. Once she was about to give her yarn to a weaver, but when she finished weaving the threads, the devil entered the house and said:
- Hello, mistress!
Hello sir!
“If you want, I will weave for you for free, but on one condition: you must guess my name.”
“Willingly,” the woman answered. - Maybe your name is Jean?
- No, my dear.
- Or maybe it’s Claude?
- No.
- So, Francois?
-No, no, good woman, you obviously won’t think of that. But remember: if you guess right, I’ll give you a weave of linen for free.
The woman tried all the names that came to her mind, but could not attack the name of the devil. Finally he said:
- I'm leaving; in two hours I will bring the woven cloth; If you haven’t guessed the name by this time, the canvas is mine.
When the devil left, the woman went into the forest to get some brushwood. She stopped near a tall oak tree and began picking up dead wood. And the devil was sitting right on that tree - he was diligently weaving and kept knocking and knocking, and the little devils, his henchmen, were spinning around him. The devil weaved and said:
Tiki-tock, tiki-tock! My name is Ropike, Ropike. If the spinner knew what to call me, She would start dancing for joy.
The woman looked up and recognized her guest. She hastily wrote down on her wooden shoe the name she had just heard, and on the way she kept repeating: “Ropike, Ropike.” She barely had time to come home when the devil appeared.
“Here is your canvas,” he said. - Well, now have you guessed what my name is?
- Isn’t your name Eugene?
- No no.
- Maybe Emil?
- Not that again.
“Could it be that your name is Ropike?”
- Ay! - the devil screeched. -If you hadn’t been under the tree yourself, you would never have known!
And he started running into the forest, growling terribly and tearing out trees in the way with his roots.
And at that time I was sitting on an oak tree, only managed to jump from it and barely made it home.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru