There lived one poor peasant, he had neither land nor a crumb in his house. There was only one dilapidated house, which was propped up and supported by logs on the sides so that the wind would not blow it away. And the peasant has nothing to do; he just walks around all day doing nothing. I was barely getting ready to get married.
He brought his wife from a distant village. And she turned out to be efficient, hard-working. The wife saw that her husband was walking around with nothing to do all day long, and began to bite him: “Move your hands, go somewhere, work, get money - then we’ll die of hunger!”
He doesn’t want to work, he’s lost the habit. And I don’t feel like getting up from a heated bed in the morning. Until his wife grabs his legs and drags him out of bed, he won’t get up. One day a wife says to her husband: “Go and work some field.” If you don’t have your own, even if you plow the government land, you’ll get something.
The wife ran to the neighbors, borrowed a plow and oxen and brought them to her husband. “You go to work, and I’ll cook lunch and bring it to you in the field.” The husband went. He walked and walked and came to Mount Kodori. There he found government land and began to plow. The man plows and plows. I've walked the entire field three times already. Suddenly they became bulls. The man waved his stick. “Hey!” - shouts.
The bulls pulled and began again. They apparently caught something with the plow. The man hit him with a stick, the bulls pulled as hard as they could, and they threw up a huge chest as big as heaven and earth. The man got scared and trembled all over. “I died, and I destroyed my family. Apparently, something was buried in these state-owned lands, and I dug it up. Our king will hang me for this.”
He opened the chest, and what does he see? The entire chest is full of gold coins. Maybe two or three coins are made of silver or copper, otherwise all of them are gold.
The man is crying. “They will report this to the king and kill me.”
A poor man sits and cries. Suddenly he sees a priest coming. The priest served in the village, filled the khurjin with good things - chickens and pies, and got drunk himself - the poor mule could barely drag it. The priest felt sorry for the poor man. “My son, what kind of misfortune has befallen you?” The poor man told him about everything. “It’s nothing,” the priest consoled him, “I’ll help you, just help me pour all this gold into my khurjin.” The poor man was happy.
Pop cleared the entire chest. He poured all the large gold coins into his khurjin, and gave the poor man some small coins. “Take it, it’s okay, I’ll pray to the Lord, and the king will forgive you.”
Even the afternoon passed in these troubles. Both the priest and the poor man were quite hungry. The man looks - his wife is coming, carrying lunch and a jug of wine. The man ran and rejoiced his wife that he was saved from trouble. “That’s how it was, but the priest, God’s ambassador, saved me.” The wife got angry: “I’ll punish you for your stupidity!”
So what can we do? The priest has all the gold. The wife of the peasant priest called the peasant priest to dinner, and she whispered to her husband: “When the priest asks what your name is, say: “Sort of,” and to me, “Worse than that.” We sat down to dinner. The woman keeps pouring wine into her butt, but gives her husband nothing. “Give me a little of this wonderful drink,” the husband asks. But the wife doesn’t even look at him. “Give me wine too,” the husband asks.
The wife looked at her husband, so much so that the poor man stopped thinking about wine. And the priest gulps and gulps Chkhaveri wine. “Since you respected me so much, at least tell me your names,” says the priest. The wife pushed her husband in the side. He says: “I am “Sort of”, and my wife is “Worse than That.” The priest was whipped, so much so that he couldn’t even stand on his feet. “My sister,” the priest asks, “put me to sleep.” His wife pulled him away and leaned him against a tree. The priest fell asleep. “Come on, hurry up,” the wife says to her husband, “put the khurjin and gold on the mule, get on it yourself and ride home.”
And so they did: the man loaded the priest’s mule full of gold, sat down himself, drove the bulls forward, and rode off.
And the priest, you know, snores. The wife ran to the neighbors, took out scissors, and went to the butt. The priest is sleeping - at least shoot from the cannons. The wife cut off half the beard and half the mustache of the priest, took the scissors to the owners and ran after her husband.
The priest woke up at dusk. He looks - neither the peasant, nor his wife, nor the mule, nor the khurjin with gold. What to do? The priest jumped up and rushed after the husband and wife. He runs and sees peasants working in the field. - Hello! - says the priest. - Great! - the peasants answer. “Didn’t you see “This”, didn’t he pass here? The peasants laughed. “No, we haven’t seen anything like this anywhere,” they said. The priest ran on. Again the peasants are working in the field. - Hello! - he screams, he can barely breathe. - Great! - they answer. “Have you seen “worse than this” anywhere? - says the priest. - It’s hard to see worse than this, - people laugh, - the priest cut off half his beard and runs around.
The priest grabbed his beard and understood everything. “Oh, they, the damn servants, husband and wife, did this to me!”
So the priest was left a fool. And the husband and wife became rich from that gold. They built a house on two floors, had children and lived happily.
Pestilence is there, feast is here, Elimination is there, torment is here.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru