In former times, tailors did not sit in one place, but walked around the villages and offered people their services: sewing or mending clothes. One such tailor, named Thomas, once worked on a farm in the North Riding in Yorkshire, and while working, he talked about this and that with the mistress. Thomas saw her pour fresh cream into a bowl and put it outside the threshold for a brownie, or little brownie, and asked:
- Do you really believe in brownies, elves and all sorts of fairies?
- Why not! - answered the farmer's wife.
“And I,” Thomas grinned, “if I ever met a fairy... I would take this fairy and put it in a bottle so that she wouldn’t play pranks.”
- Tsk! - the woman whispered in fear.
- Lest some fairy hear you. They can be quite vindictive if you offend them.
“Just think how scary it is,” Thomas chuckled, bit the thread and smoothed out the sleeve seam on a special tailor’s board. - And I claim that no fairies exist.
“And very stupid,” said the farmer’s wife. It began to get dark. The tailor finished his work, put the needle, thread and scissors into his bag, and took the tailor's board under his arm.
“We should get home before dark.” The wife was probably tired of waiting.
“Here, take this for your wife,” said the hostess. - This is a homemade pig pie, she will like it.
“Thank you,” Thomas replied. - Good night.
“Be careful,” came the parting voice to him, “beware of the fairies!”
- Fuck them! - the tailor responded and quickly walked home.
At first he walked along the path, but then decided to take a shortcut and go straight through the field. As the tailor climbed over the fence, he awkwardly swung his bag and dropped the scissors on the ground.
I had to put down my bag and tailoring board and start looking for scissors. It would seem that the scissors were not a needle, but for some reason they did not want to be found.
“That’s bad luck,” Thomas grumbled. — Scissors for a tailor are the most important thing, and they are so excellent! OK. I'll return to this place in the morning and find it.
He picked up his bag and pie... but where was the tailor's board? Where could she have gone? He put the pie and bag down again, rummaged around on his knees - and in vain.
“Well, the devil be with her,” he thought. “No one will take it until the morning anyway.” I’ll go home and eat some pie with my wife while it’s still fresh.”
Not so! He picked up the bag, but there was no pie nearby. He crawled on all fours almost the entire meadow, but found nothing but stones and thorns. All that remains is to lick your lips, remembering the pie, and go home light, with one bag. Thomas returned to the place where he left the bag, but it was not there! He thought that he was in the wrong place, but all the signs matched - there was a hedge, there was a large boulder, only the bag had disappeared.
- Oh, if only I had a lantern! - Thomas groaned. - What should I do now - without a needle and thread, without scissors and my tailor's bag?
He turned towards the house... but where is it, his house? He wandered and circled so much in search of his things that he completely lost his way, and the night was black as a pit. And suddenly, to his great joy, he noticed a light ahead. It was as if someone was walking slowly with a lantern through a meadow.
- Here! - Thomas called. - Hey, with a lantern! Here!
- Come here yourself! Come here yourself! - responded a mocking voice.
The tailor wandered towards the light, but the mysterious light also did not stand still: it was approaching almost closely - it seems that you just stretch out your hand and grab it! - then suddenly disappeared and flared up somewhere in the distance, at the edge of the field.
Thomas was smeared knee-deep in the clay of the gullies, scratched his face with thorns, and tore his clothes. He chased the will-o'-the-wisp until he was completely exhausted and despaired.
The light completely disappeared. It was getting light. The tailor heard the clinking of milk cans on the farm, looked around and saw in front of him the same farm and the same yard from which he had left yesterday. And next to him on the grass lay all his lost things!
Thomas was too exhausted to go home to his village. He knocked on a familiar door. The hostess saw him and clasped her hands in amazement:
- Lord! What happened to you? She helped the tailor clean his clothes and fed him breakfast, and then suddenly smiled and asked:
- Well, how? Did you put a fairy in a bottle? But Thomas didn't answer. And I never spoke a bad word about fairies in my life.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru