A gypsy camp roamed. The gypsies were driving through the forest and ended up on the bank of a river. There are meadows around, beauty.
The old grass has been cut down and new grass is already sprouting. The elder one says:
- Well, romale, let's stop, unharness the horses, feed them a little.
It’s still a long way to the village, we won’t spend the night here, but we can take a break.
The gypsies unharnessed the horses, set them free on the open grass, and they lit a fire, set out the samovars, and gathered to drink tea. And one gypsy had a beautiful daughter. She sat down on a pebble nearby and thought about something of her own. Suddenly an old man came out of the forest, a small man, wearing a rope instead of a sash. He looked at the gypsies, as if looking for someone, and then he saw a beautiful girl, came closer, sat down on her knees and began to look into her face. The girl got scared and screamed:
- Haspyam, romale! Take this man from me! What kind of person is this?
Where did this old man come from? Why is he looking at me like that? Take the stakes, romale, beat him!
The gypsies grabbed the stakes, but then the old woman-fortune teller came forward and shouted at them:
- Come on back, you fools, don’t touch this man, you can’t. Now he will get up and leave.
The old woman took a clean plate, put a piece of bread on it, a pinch of salt, and chicken eggs and took it to the old man. She gave him all this. He took the treat from the old woman’s hands, stood up and went his way.
An old man approached the forest and shouted to the gypsies:
- Well, okay, since you guessed it, I won’t touch it. The old man clapped his hands, laughed and began to grow before his eyes. He became so tall that his head became higher than the trees, the old man whistled and disappeared.
“Eh, gypsies, gypsies,” the old fortune teller shook her head, “who they wanted to raise their hand to, the forest father himself.” Yes, he would just blow, and there would be nothing left of you.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru