Once upon a time, two girls, Beth and Molly, worked on a farm near Tavistock. And you probably know that in ancient times in the entire Devonshire county there would hardly have been at least one house without its own brownie, or, as they were also called, brownies.
There were also various packs, elves and mermen, but they didn’t really look like brownies. Do you remember the Hilton Brownie? Looks like him!
Beth and Molly were very pretty girls, and both loved to dance. But here’s what was strange: other girls, for example, often didn’t have enough money even for colored braid or new ribbons and combs for their hair. It happened that because of this, no, no, and they would cry secretly. And Beth and Molly always had an extra penny, and they bought whatever they wanted from the village peddler.
And no one could find out from them where they get the money for this. This was their secret! And to give away a secret means to scare away luck; whoever, and they knew it well.
Every evening, before going upstairs to bed, they placed a low wooden bucket of water in front of the fireplace grate in the kitchen. The next morning the bucket turned out to be empty, and instead of water at the bottom there was a silver coin. Only, of course, no one except them knew about it.
One day the girls returned from dancing very late and immediately went to bed. Suddenly Beth heard a noise, as if someone was pounding on the kitchen door with small fists. She sat up on the bed and listened. The knock sounded again, and she heard loud, high-pitched voices: “The water has been locked!” The water has been locked!—Wake up, Molly! - Beth whispered, shaking Molly's shoulder. - These are probably our brownies. We forgot to leave them water.
But Molly only responded by pulling the blanket higher over her head and saying that she would never get out of her warm bed, even for all the brownies from all over Devonshire.
Beth sat and listened to the brownies knocking on the door and shouting, and finally she got out of bed and went downstairs.
She didn’t see anyone in the kitchen, but in the corners someone was rustling and whispering in thin voices. She removed the lid from a large barrel and began to pour water from it into a low wooden bucket. And while I was pouring it, I kept listening to what the brownies were whispering about in the corners. It turns out that the talk was about how to punish Molly for not wanting to get out of a warm bed “even for the sake of all the brownies from all over Devonshire.”
One said that she should be pinched several times for this. Another wanted her to go blind in one eye. The brownies argued for a long time and finally agreed that the worst punishment for Molly would be for her not to be able to dance anymore!
And they decided to make her lame for seven years. In seven years, it will be possible to remove this punishment from her, but this will require a herb with the strange name “kiskilaskiscat.” That’s what everyone said, loudly and syllable by syllable: “Pussy-caress-scat!”
Having heard what a terrible punishment Molly was facing and what a long name the herb that would help remove this punishment had, Beth was very scared. She was afraid that she would immediately forget this long and strange word and then would not be able to help poor Molly.
So she quickly ran upstairs to the bedroom, repeating this word to herself all the time, and began to wake Molly up to say this word to her. But Molly didn't want to wake up. And the more Beth shook her shoulder, the higher Molly pulled the blanket over her nose.
And when Beth woke up in the morning, she could not remember a single letter of this word. So poor Molly became lame.
Seven years passed, and one day Molly was walking alone in a field far from home. Suddenly she saw a large mushroom in the middle of the field. She bent down to pick it, but the mushroom jumped and turned into a wonderful little man. The little man shouted some wonderful long word that Molly had never heard before, and hit her on the sore leg with some wonderful long grass. - the little man shouted, and Molly immediately stopped limping and ran home at a run. From that day on, she and Beth began going to dances again.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru