Once upon a time there lived a guy, and he had a distant relative just around the corner. The guy went to him to ask for a wineskin.
This relative sewed a wineskin from the skins of ten buffaloes, filled it with wine and gave it to the guy. And he put the wineskin on his shoulder and went home. When the guy started to climb the pass, some passerby caught up with him and said:
“I’ll help you cross the mountains, and you give me two sips of wine.”
- OK! – the guy agreed.
They crossed the mountains, he untied the wineskin and said:
- Drink!
The passer-by took only one sip, but there wasn’t a drop of wine left in the wineskin.
- What are you talking about, brother! - the guy shouted. -You have no conscience!
“You promised me two sips, but I only drank one.” Get more wine wherever you want! - the passerby got angry.
Word for word - they quarreled, almost fought. And a horseman rode past.
-What kind of scream are you making here? - he asks the assertors.
They told the rider what the dispute was about.
- Uh-uh! Leave it alone! It's not good to quarrel! - said the rider. He picked them both up with one hand, put them behind their boots, and drove on.
Seven days later he came home and asked his wife to pull his boots off. His wife took off his boots, and two people fell out.
- Look! And I completely forgot about them! – the husband was surprised. - They are probably hungry. Feed them well, wife, and let them go wherever they want...
...Now let's leave this guy and the passerby. Let's see what happens to the rider.
He ate, rested, and then asked his wife:
– What do you think: is there another strong man like me in the world?
– Don’t be offended, but there are many people in the world stronger than you.
-Where do they live? - asks the husband. His wife told him how to look for those strengths, and without hesitation he set off on his way. He walked and walked until he met a plowman. The plowman was lopsided. With one hand he drove the plow in front of him, with the other he scattered the wheat seeds, and behind him, attached to his belt, the harrow dragged.
For a long time the man could not decide whether to speak to the plowman or not, but he finally plucked up courage and approached:
- God help you! - speaks.
- Thank you! - answered the plowman, and he himself, fearing that this man might fall under a layer of earth, took it and put it in a basket with wheat.
By noon the plowman got hungry, grabbed a handful of grain and started chewing it. And he inadvertently threw the grain into a man’s mouth! The only way the man was saved was by hiding in the hollow of the last tooth.
The wife brings lunch to the plowman in the field.
“Wife,” he says, “I put such a funny little man in a basket!” Take it for yourself.
The woman searched and searched, turned over all the seeds, found nothing...
– Where did he go?! - the plowman is surprised - Ah! Maybe I threw it into my mouth along with the wheat. Well, look, maybe he's stuck somewhere?
The plowman opened his mouth: and there, in the hollow of the last tooth, a little man was sitting, his eyes sparkling. The plowman's wife pulled it out with two fingers, put it in an empty dinner bowl, put the bowl on her shoulder and went home.
In the evening the plowman returned from the field and asked:
- Tell me, baby, who you are and where you come from?
– What to talk about! I considered myself a strong man, I went to test my strength with someone... But I got in your way... Better tell me about yourself.
And this is what the plowman told him.
“We had nine brothers in our family. Once we were riding on nine horses, and a thunderstorm caught us in a field. We saw a mound nearby, with a cave in it. We hid in it from the rain and suddenly we felt: our cave shook, staggered, and the entrance through which we entered was over our heads. Then someone shouted, probably a shepherd at his dog: “Get out! You’ll be old to me.” pick up bones! Our cave has stopped shaking, but we cannot get out of it: there is no way out.
And then someone threw us and the cave high, high, and then threw us to the ground... It was not in the cave that the nine of us took refuge from the thunderstorm, but in an old ram’s skull. And the old shepherd picked us up with his crooked stick and threw us out of the way...
All my brothers died, and all our horses were killed. And you see, I fell successfully, only hitting the ground sideways. He became lopsided, but survived."
Then the man realized that he had decided to test his strength to see what kind of strong men there were, and he hurried to get out of the plowman’s house as quickly as possible.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru