Once upon a time there lived a man whom people called Johi. One fine day he arranged a festive dinner for his fellow villagers. He thought, “Maybe after this big meal they’ll stop calling me Johi.”
All the locals came for lunch. They sat comfortably at the table, ate heartily and drank deliciously. But, getting up to leave, everyone said out of habit:
- May God bless the hospitable home of Joha!
And this man thought with resentment: “You probably ate my lunch, but for you I’m still Johi.”
He had the skins of two oxen, which he slaughtered for a festive dinner. Johi put them on his donkey and went to Mosul.
The sunset took him by surprise, and he was forced to spend the night in the desert. Some time later, a trade caravan arrived here. The merchants settled down near Jokha. He took his pipe and began to play.
Hearing the sounds of music, one of the merchants said to the donkey drivers:
- Go find out what kind of person this is.
When they approached, they saw Johi. He sat with his elbows on a travel bag, under which lay two cowhide. A donkey stood next to him.
The drivers returned to their master and reported that there was a man sitting there who had a traveling bag, a donkey and two cowhide.
“Go call him,” the merchant ordered. “Let him play something for us on his pipe, and also entertain us a little with his conversation.”
The servants went and conveyed their master's words to Johi. Johi replied:
- I won’t go. I'm afraid that you will steal my travel bag. It's stuffed with money.
The servants returned to their master and conveyed Joha's answer to him.
The merchant said:
- Go and tell him to come. If his bag goes missing, I'll give him another one full of money.
The servants again went to Johi and forcibly brought him, as he was stubborn, pretending that he did not want to go. But when they brought him to the merchant, he sat down and began to play on his pipe. He played until late at night, until everyone was overcome by sleep.
When the people fell asleep, he quietly got up, emptied his traveling bag - it was filled with earth - and threw it towards the hobbled animals and went to bed.
Early in the morning, the donkey drivers got up to throw food to the animals and saw the man’s empty bag. She was lying under the feet of the donkeys. They immediately went to the owner and reported to him:
— We found this man's empty bag. She was lying under the feet of the animals. What a deal!
- Oh, woe to us, how did this happen?
“We have no idea,” they answered and tried to blame each other.
Johi had long since woken up, but pretended to be asleep until the noise intensified. Then he stood up, yawning and stretching, and asked with an indifferent look:
- What happened?
— We found your bag empty. “She was lying under the feet of animals,” they answered him.
- What? - he exclaimed. “Didn’t I predict that you would steal my money?” That’s why I kept repeating: “I won’t go, I won’t go!” You forcibly dragged me here.
He tore out his hair and cried bitterly. He then went to the city to bring a complaint to the authorities. But the merchant said: “Bring him back.”
The servants went after him and forcibly dragged Johi to the merchant. The merchant filled his bag with money and gave it to Johi. The rogue put the bag on his donkey, took with him two ox skins, and set off on his way back in an extremely joyful mood.
Having driven a fair distance, he threw down the ox skins and drove the donkey towards the house. Soon all the villagers gathered around him.
“Look,” they said, “Johi brought a bag full of money.”
-Where did you get the money? - they asked him.
He replied:
“I brought two cowhide to Mosul and sold each for two thousand piastres.” If I had held back my goods a little, I would have earned five thousand piastres per skin.
Jokha's fellow villagers were big simpletons and believed everything. Having heard his story, they slaughtered all their bulls, cows, mules - in a word, all their livestock - and skinned them.
“You shouldn’t pickle them, however,” said Johi. “If you sprinkle salt on them, you won’t get anything for them.”
They obeyed him and went to Mosul with the raw skins. But before they reached the city, the skins began to rot, and the merchants gave only seven to ten piastres per skin.
The simple-minded owners of the skins pondered for a long time what to do with them, and, in the end, were forced to sell them for next to nothing. Returning home, they said: “We will beat this swindler Johi to death.”
Sensing that reprisals awaited him, Jokhi climbed onto the roof, and as soon as the figures of his fellow villagers appeared on the horizon, he ran away from the village.
Returning home, the simpletons began asking about Johi.
“There’s no trace of him long ago,” they were told.
Enraged peasants rushed after him.
After running away from the village, Johi met a shepherd.
“Give me your clothes, and I’ll give you mine,” Johi suggested to him.
The naive shepherd readily agreed: Jokha’s clothes were new and smart, he did not wear rags. And they immediately changed clothes.
Seeing the shepherd, people at dusk mistook him for Dzhokhi and dragged him to the lake to drown. And when he drowned, their joy knew no bounds.
Returning home, people said:
- Serves you right, predatory jackal and son of a jackal! Because of you, we are completely ruined.
Late at night they returned to their homes.
The next day Johi drove the flock of sheep to the village. Approaching her, he walked forward, while the sheep walked behind.
When the simpletons saw Johi, they were very surprised.
- Look, it's Johi! - they said. “Yesterday we drowned him in the lake, and today he has already returned, and not alone, but with a whole herd of sheep.”
People gathered around Johi and began to question him:
-Where did you get these sheep from?
“Oh, if you threw me into the lake again, I would only bring in rams, and not like these sheep, but the fattest and most thoroughbred ones, which are found only in the underwater kingdom.” You put me in a shallow place, so I could only pull out sheep.
And all the simpletons hurried to the lake and threw themselves into the abyss, while their wives and children remained on the shore to help their husbands drag the cattle from the water. Choking, they made sounds: “Buck, tank.”
- What are they saying? – the relatives asked Joha.
“They ask whether they should take rams with horns or hornless ones,” he answered.
The relatives said:
- Let them take both.
They waited on the shore for a long time. We waited an hour, two, three, but no one surfaced.
- What are they doing there? – people asked Joha.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “Some are so greedy that they won’t rest until they get a thousand sheep for themselves.” Perhaps let's go home. Because of their greed they may drown.
But the relatives did not leave. They waited on the shore until sunset. However, no one appeared on the surface of the water.
“Didn’t I tell you that because of their greed they could drown!” – Johi exclaimed.
Having sprinkled ashes on their heads as a sign of mourning, the wives and children returned home.
So, because of Jokha’s trickery and his excessive gullibility, all the men of this village died.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru