Once, in ancient times, one man did not carry out the master’s orders, so the master decided to severely punish him for this. On the third day the man was to be hanged near the barn as a warning to others to diligently carry out the master’s will. The man's wife was completely exhausted from grief. In the end, she decided to go to the estate to ask - maybe the master will take pity and have mercy on her husband. She's getting ready to go on the road. And she also had a baby. You can’t leave it at home - you took it with you.
She walks and walks - she entered the forest. She was exhausted herself, and the baby started crying. The woman thinks she should sit down somewhere under a tree, take a break herself and feed the child. Fine. I did it as I thought. And she herself also wanted to eat, so she little by little chewed the bread that she had taken with her from home. The woman looked up and saw a bird feeding its chicks in the spruce branches. The woman looked at the ground - the ants were also eating under her feet. She rested, fed the baby and moved on.
He comes to the estate and begins to beg the master not to hang his husband, but to let him go home. How can you live without a man with a small child? The master promised to let the man go home if she told him a riddle that he couldn’t guess. The woman thought a little and said that she would tell him such a riddle. The master was a great master at solving riddles and therefore only chuckles. This is the riddle she asked him: “I eat, it eats from me, it eats above me, and it eats under me.”
The master thought and thought, but still could not solve such a wonderful riddle. It occurred to Baba to tell how in the forest, under a spruce tree, she ate herself, the child was fed from her, the chicks ate above her, and ants crawled and ate under her. There was no way the master could guess such a riddle, and he had to let the man go free, because his word had to be kept. But the man, out of joy, could not praise his wife’s wisdom; he did not know how to thank her.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru