Once upon a time in one village there lived a woodcutter. One day he came to the forest. He chops his own wood and sings songs. Suddenly, a shurale (goblin) came out of the dark thicket to meet him. He is all covered with black fur, his long tail wriggles, his long fingers move, and his long shaggy ears also move. I saw a woodcutter's shurale and laughed:
“That’s who I’ll play with now, that’s who I’ll laugh with now!” What's your name, man?
The woodcutter realized that things were bad. We need to come up with something. And says:
- My name is Last Year.
“Come on, Last Year, let’s play with you, tickle you,” says the shurale, “who will tickle whom.”
And all shurale oh masters of tickling! How to get away from this?
“I have no time to play, I have a lot of work,” says the woodcutter.
- Oh so! - Shurale gets angry. - Don't you want to play with me? Well then, I’ll spin you around in the forest so much that you’ll never get out of it!
“Okay,” says the woodcutter, “I’ll play, but first you help me split this deck.” “He swung and slammed the ax into the deck. It cracked. “Now help,” the woodcutter shouts, “quickly stick your fingers into the crack so that it doesn’t close, and I’ll hit you again!”
The stupid shurale stuck his fingers into the crack, and the woodcutter quickly pulled the ax. Here the goblin’s fingers were pinched tightly. He twitched, but that was not the case. And the woodcutter grabbed an ax and was gone.
Shurale shouted throughout the forest. Other shurales came running to his voice.
- What's wrong with you, why are you screaming?
— I got my fingers pinched last year!
- When did it get pinched? - they ask the shurale.
- Now it’s pinched, last year it’s pinched!
“I won’t understand you,” says one shurale. - You have both now and last year at once.
- Yes, yes! - Shurale shouts, and he himself twitches his fingers. - Last Year, Last Year! Catch up with him! Punish him!
— How can you catch up with last year? - says another shurale. - How can he be punished?
“Last year I pinched it, but now I suddenly screamed.” Why were you silent last year? - the third shurale asks him.
- Will you now find the one who pinched you? It was so long ago! - says the fourth shurale.
The stupid shurale could not explain anything to them, and all the shurales ran away into the forest. And he put the deck on his back and still walks through the forest and shouts:
— I got my fingers pinched last year! Fingers pinched last year!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru