In ancient times, there lived an old man in a village. How passionately he loved to fish. Only bad luck - he was no fisherman. He sits by the sea all day, but the fish he catches are not enough for dinner. The old man thought about what he should do and came up with the idea: “I’ll go fishing at night. There’s no one around, and the fish are sleepy and quiet, maybe I’ll get lucky.”
One day a fisherman went to the sea at night. I found a windless place, right next to the rock, threw my fishing rod and began to wait. Suddenly he sees another fisherman sitting behind a rock.
The old man got angry. “And there is no peace at night,” he thinks. “Why did he come to fish in my place?” He wanted to tell the fisherman to go away, but he changed his mind and decided to take a better look at him.
He looked more carefully, but was completely speechless from fear - sitting behind a rock was a monster that lived on a large mulberry tree: his face was red, his hair was red, sticking out in different directions. The old man was frightened, cowered all over, and could barely breathe. I completely forgot about the fish. But the monster’s fish do nothing but bite. So they sat until dawn.
“Just wait for the morning,” the old man thinks. “When the sun rises, the monster will disappear.” I’ll never go fishing at night again!” And then it began to get light. The monster stood up, stretched and asked:
- Hey, old man, why are you so taciturn? Are you afraid of me, or what? Don't be afraid, I won't touch you. I see that you also like to fish at night. I really like this, otherwise it’s boring to while away the night alone.
“I didn’t know,” the old man answers, “that monsters like to feast on fish.” I would never have thought that you went fishing.
“And I don’t like fish at all,” the monster winced. “I only like fish eyes, but I don’t touch the fish itself.”
-Where are you taking her? - the old man was surprised.
“I’m throwing it away,” answered the monster. “But you can take it for yourself if you want.”
The old man stands there, doesn’t know what to do: he’s afraid to take fish from the monster.
- What are you thinking about? - the monster laughed. - Take it - you won’t regret it. Fish is like a fish.
The old man took that fish, took it home and cooked the fish soup. It turned out to be a nice soup.
Since then it has been like this. As soon as the moon rises, the old man takes a fishing rod and hurries off to go fishing, and the monster is already waiting for him at the gate.
“Hello, old man,” he says. “It’s been a warm night today, I feel like there’s going to be good fishing.”
They will come to the shore, sit by the rock and fish until the morning. And when dawn breaks, he will take out the monster from the left eye of the caught fish and eat it, and give the rest to the old man.
The monster had a big catch. The old man began to bring home a lot of fish - he couldn’t eat it alone. Then he decided to sell fish. And wow, that eyeless fish sold out in an instant!
The old man got rich. He became too lazy to go fishing with the monster every night. So he decided to get rid of his friend.
One day they went fishing, and the old man said:
“Here you are, monster, so lucky in fishing, there’s probably nothing in the world that you couldn’t do.”
“Yes, perhaps,” the monster agreed. “I can do a lot.”
“Are you really not afraid of anything in the world?” - the old man was surprised.
“It’s hard to scare me,” the monster laughed. “There are, however, two things that I don’t like at all.” I haven’t told anyone about them, but I’ll tell you as a friend. I really don’t like slippery octopuses, and even roosters that announce the beginning of the day.
The old man remembered the monster’s words well and decided to scare him at all costs.
The old man waited until nightfall, put on a straw cloak, pulled the hood over his head and climbed onto the roof of his house - waiting for the monster to come for him. But the monster doesn’t even know that the old man is up to no good, he walks along the path, waves his fishing rod and hums a song. He walked up to the gate and stopped dead in his tracks. He sees a big rooster sitting on the roof, flapping his wings.
The monster was surprised: “What is this rooster doing on the roof in the middle of the night?” The old man saw that the monster had noticed him, and let’s wave his arms even faster, like wings, and shout at the top of his lungs: “Kokkekko! Kokkekko! The sun will rise soon! The sun will rise soon!”
The monster was frightened, backed away, and stopped. “This rooster has a strange voice,” he thinks, “it sounds like an old man.” It guessed that the old man had decided to trick him, and he became angry.
“Where is your gratitude, old man?” - asks. “I wanted to be friends with you, but you...
The monster began to cry, covered his face with his hands and ran away, but at the gate he saw an octopus - slippery, disgusting. The monster screamed, trembled, and disappeared in the darkness, as if it had never come at all.
The old man was glad that he got rid of evil spirits. “I don’t need to go fishing now,” he thinks. “I’ll sit at home, count my money, and bask in the sun.”
But it didn’t work out the way the old man wanted. He woke up in the morning - it hurt here, it hurt there. He groaned and groaned and died.
Old people say that this monster punished him for not knowing how to be grateful.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru