The dog Serko lived with a peasant, but he grew painfully old. The owner saw that he would be of no use, and he kicked him out of the yard. Serko wanders around the field.
A wolf approaches him and asks:
- Why are you walking here?
Serko answers:
“Well, brother, the owner drove me away, so I’m wandering here.” “Do you want,” the wolf says to him, “I will make sure that the owner takes you back again?” Serko says: “Do it, my dear, I’ll thank you somehow.”
The wolf says:
“Well, look: your master and his wife will go out into the field to work, the mistress will put the child under a haystack, and you walk around the field so that I know where it is: I’ll grab the child, and you take it away from me, and I’ll be scared and throw it away.”
The owner and his wife went out into the field to reap. The wife laid her child under the hay, and she reaped next to her husband. Lo and behold, a wolf runs through the village, grabs a child and carries him across the field.
Serko after the wolf.
Somehow I caught up, took the child away, brought it to the owner, and gave it to him. Then the owner took bread and a piece of lard from the bag and said:
- Here, Serko, eat, for not letting the wolf eat the child!
They come from the field in the evening and take Serko. We returned home, and the owner said:
- Make some buckwheat dumplings, wife, and season them well with lard!
As soon as they were cooked, he seated Serko at the table, sat down next to him and said:
- Well, Zhinka, serve some dumplings, we’ll have dinner.
My wife did. He also puts Serka in the bowl, he pleases him so much that he doesn’t get burned by the hot stuff!
And Serko thinks: “I’ll have to thank the wolf for such a service.”
And the owner waited for the meat-eater and gave his daughter in marriage. Serko went out into the field, found a wolf there and said to him:
“Come to our garden on Sunday evening, I will let you into the house and thank you for serving me.”
The wolf waited until Sunday and came to the place where Serko pointed him. And on this very day the owner celebrated a wedding. Serko went out to the wolf, led him into the hut and sat him down under the table. So Serko took a bottle of vodka and a large piece of meat from the table and took it under the table, and people wanted to beat the dog for it. And the owner says:
“Don’t beat Serko, he served me, and I will repay him with kindness all the time.”
Serko takes the best thing lying on the table, gives it to the wolf, feeds him, gives him something to drink so that the wolf cannot resist and says:
- I'll sing!
And Serko says:
- Don’t sing, otherwise you’ll be in trouble! It’s better if I give you another bottle of vodka, but just keep quiet. The wolf drank a bottle of vodka and said:
- Well, now I’ll sing! And how it howls under the table!
Some rushed out of the hut, some rushed to beat the wolf. And Serko leaned on the wolf, as if he wanted to strangle him. The owner said:
“Don’t hit the wolf, otherwise you’ll kill me and Serko!” He can handle it himself.
Then Serko took the wolf out into the field and said:
“You served me, and I repaid you kindly.” With that we said goodbye.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru