Once upon a time there lived a poor widow, she had many children, all babies. With great difficulty she obtained food for them.
One day, a widow was sitting on the threshold of a hut, mending a child's dress. Suddenly a chick fell out of the swallow's nest and found itself at her feet. The widow took the chick in her hands, examined it and saw that it had broken its leg. A kind woman took pity on the chick, tied the broken leg with threads and put it in the nest
Autumn has come, the birds have flown to warmer climes, and the swallow's nest is empty. So the winter passed, and in the spring the swallows arrived again.
One spring day, the widow, as always, sat on the threshold of her hut and, as always, darned something.
Suddenly a swallow flew up to her. She placed a pumpkin seed on the widow's lap, chirped tenderly, fluttered up and disappeared.
The widow guessed that this swallow was the same chick that she had saved and cured.
She planted a pumpkin seed in the garden, and a pumpkin grew from it, such a huge one that the widow had never seen before.
When the pumpkin was ripe, the widow cut it with a knife, and gasped: gold and silver coins fell out of the pumpkin with a clink, and so many that you couldn’t even count them.
The happy woman told her neighbor about everything.
And she, cunning, greedy and evil, envied her. She thought for a long time and finally came up with an idea: she waited until summer, found a swallow’s nest, took out the chick from there and broke its leg. And then she carefully secured it with silk threads. Then she put the chick in the nest and began to wait for her reward.
And this is what happened: when spring came and the birds returned from warm countries, a swallow flew up to her and dropped a pumpkin seed
The greedy neighbor was delighted, planted a seed in the garden, and couldn’t wait for the pumpkin to grow.
A pumpkin grew - so huge that you couldn’t wrap your hands around it. With difficulty, the neighbor dragged her into the house, locked herself and cut her open. But not gold and silver coins fell out of the pumpkin, as she expected, but copper-red snakes crawled out.
They attacked the greedy and envious woman with a hiss and began to bite her.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru