This is what one person told me.
— When I was herding horses on Radgoszcz Mountain, old Vatsulka came up to me - in his younger years he tended sheep on the mountain half, he was always appointed senior shepherd - and said:
“It’s from this pit, son, that the Wallachians once pulled a man out.”
“Uncle,” I say, “I ask you, tell me how this happened?”
“Okay,” he answers, “it was like this: in Troyanovitsy there lived one man; his hut stood right next to Miash. One day a sorcerer came to spend the night with him and asked:
— Do you know a well in Radgoszcz, near the cross? Take me to him, I'll pay you for it.
The sorcerer promised a good payment, the man agreed and took him. They came to the cross just as the sun was rising and approached the well. Then the sorcerer measured out a few steps, took off his jacket, took out a book and a twig from his pocket, knelt down and began to pray; Having prayed, he hit the ground with a twig. The ground immediately parted, and a large cave opened up, all overgrown with icicles. The sorcerer climbed in there, began to break off these icicles and put them in his bag, and the man sat on top and looked at the sorcerer. He shouts:
- Come here, get some for yourself!
The man climbed up and broke off a huge icicle so that he could lean on it instead of a staff on the way back. The sorcerer collected what he needed, climbed up, lashed the ground with his twig three times, paid the man and left.
The man returned to his hut and put the icicle on the window. A neighbor comes to him and asks:
—Where did you get such a club?
He told him the whole truth, where and how he got it. The neighbor says to him:
“I think it’s silver.” Take it to Jicin to the goldsmith; if it is silver, he will pay you well for it.
The goldsmith sees that the man in front of him is a simple one, and gives him one hundred gold pieces. The man saw such a lot of money and was dumbfounded - he couldn’t utter a word. The master thinks: “It didn’t seem enough to him,” and gave two hundred gold pieces. The man took the money and went home. At home he says to his wife:
“If that man came here again, I would get myself a whole bag of these icicles.”
A year later, the sorcerer again came to spend the night with him. The man received him as a dear guest and asked:
- Take me with you!
Early in the morning the man took the bag and went with the warlock to Radgoszcz. On Radgoszcz, the sorcerer again did the same thing as the first time. The ground parted and they climbed into the cave. Now there was no need to ask the man: he breaks the icicles and stuffs them into his bag. The sorcerer collected as much as he needed, got out and shouted to the man:
- Come out!
The guy breaks icicles. I called a second time - the same thing; I called for the third time - the man didn’t come out. The warlock waited a little longer, lashed the twig to the ground, the ground closed, and the man remained locked up.
The man found himself in the dark and realized that the sorcerer had left him underground. He began to crawl back and forth, found many passages, chose the most spacious one and crawled. The bag of silver had to be left in the cave. You understand what it was like for him to climb in the dark. He followed the sorcerer underground when the sun was just rising, and when the sun began to set, the shepherds drove the sheep to the guardhouse on Malaya Volarzhka and heard someone asking Christ the God for help. They searched and searched for where the voice was coming from, and finally found it in this hole. They cut down the spruce, cut off the branches and lowered it into the hole. An unlucky man, all beaten and ragged, climbed up this island.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru