One day, seven Dalecarlians decided to go wandering around the world. All their lives they had not shown their noses in Dalecarlia, but now they were eager to see people, to show themselves, to seek happiness.
-Where are you going? - their fellow countrymen dissuade them. - You don’t know other people’s customs, you’ll be completely lost.
- Nothing! - they answer. “We are savvy guys, we know what’s what!” Let's not get lost!
And we set off. We walked through the forest all day, but the end of the forest was not visible.
So they decided to look for shelter for themselves. But where in the remote forest can you find human habitation? And they had to spend the night in the open air. And the night turned out to be cold and dark, you could prick your eyes out. They decided to light a fire to make it warmer and brighter. But they didn’t take any tinder or flint with them, and they began to think about how they could get fire.
Then one of them says:
“I heard that if you hit a person hard in the ear, sparks will fly out of his eyes.” Let one of you slap me in the face, and I’ll hold a dry splinter of wood near my eye. Perhaps it will ignite from a spark. Then his friend began to give him slaps, beat him and ask:
- Well, are sparks flying out of your eyes?
How! - he shouts. “But there’s still no fire.”
So they had to spend the night in a dark forest on bare ground.
The next day they set off further on their journey. They walked and walked and came across a bear's den. And they decided to lure the bear out of the den. They began to shove twigs and branches into the den, teasing the bear. And he doesn’t even listen, he’s asleep, apparently.
Then one of them says:
- I’ll climb into the den and wake up the bear.
He stuck his head into the den, and remained there lying there. He lies there for an hour, he lies there for two. The Dalekarlians got tired of waiting for him, and they dragged him out of the den by his feet. Lo and behold, he doesn’t have a head. They began to think and wonder: did he have a head before? He shouts: “It was!” This one screams: “It wasn’t!” No one could say for sure. They argued and argued, and then one of them said:
- Wait, brothers! I know for sure that he had a headache: when he ate porridge yesterday, two grains got stuck in his beard.
The six of them went further. They walked and walked and came to a flax field. The field is dotted entirely with blue flowers, they sway in the wind, like the swell of the sea. The Dalecarlians decided that it was the Åland Sea that stretched out in front of them. They started swimming across the flax field, crossed to the other side and began to see if any of them had drowned while they were swimming to the other side.
- You know what, brothers? - says one of them. - Let's count how many of us there are. There were six of us, and if there are still six left, then, therefore, none of us drowned.
They began to count. They counted and counted, and it all turned out that one thing was missing, because the one who counted did not take himself into account.
“It turns out that one of us has drowned,” the Dalecarlians thought and began to look for him.
And so they wander to this day through the flax field. They are looking for the drowned man.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru