On the edge of a settlement, right next to the steppe, lived two brothers: a rich one and a poor one. A poor man once came to a rich man and sat down at his table. And the rich man drives him away.
“Get away,” he says, “away from the table: is it better to go to the lectern and drive away the rooks?”
Let's go, poor brother, and let's chase them. The rooks flew away, and one kite flew off and then landed again. The poor man is already exhausted, chasing, and let's scold him. And the kite says:
“You can’t live in this settlement, you won’t have much happiness here, it’s better to go to another settlement.”
The poor man returned home, gathered his boys and his wife, took some clothes and belongings and dragged himself to another settlement, throwing a bottle over his shoulder. They walk, walk along the road, and the evil ones (they are like bubbles in the water or something like that) cling to the man and say:
-Where are you taking us? We will not leave you behind, because you are ours.
The kids wanted to drink, so the man turned to the river. He collected water, and then took the evil ones and stuffed them into the bottle, plugged them with a plug and buried them along with the water on the shore.
They moved on. They walk and walk and see that there is a settlement, and on the edge of it there is an empty hut - people have died of hunger. They went there to live. One day they were sitting in the hut and heard someone from the attic shouting: “Abrade! Abrade!” The owner came out into the hallway, took the string and climbed into the attic. Lo and behold, there’s a little goat sitting with horns (he was a devil, he wouldn’t be remembered in the house). The man tied the little goat by the horns with twine and wanted to slowly lower him down. As soon as he carried him to the stairs, money began to fall into the hallway. The owner came down and let's collect them and collected two whole krinks of them.
So the owner tells his brother through people to come and live with him. The brother heard and thought:
“He must have nothing to eat, which is calling me.” He ordered the baking sheets to be baked and went. He heard on the way that his brother had become rich, and he felt sorry for carrying the burning sticks: he took them and buried them in the clay. He comes, and his brother shows him a chest with money, and then a second one. The rich man was overcome by envy. And my brother says to him:
“I still have money, buried in a bag near the river; if you want, take it.
He didn’t even want to visit, he quickly went to the river and - for the eggplant! As soon as he opened it, the evil ones jumped out and clung to him.
- You are ours, ours! - They say.
He comes home, looks - and all his wealth, which he had, was burned and, where the hut stood, only ashes remained. He then began to live with the evil ones in the dugout where his poor brother had lived before.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru