Once upon a time there lived an old man who was so poor that he didn’t even have bread to feed his only son. And one day the poor man said to his son:
- Go, son, seek your happiness around the world. Go in whichever direction you want! Just remember my advice: pick up the first thing you come across on the road and keep it.
With that we said goodbye. The father stayed at home, and the son, with a knapsack over his shoulders, walked along a dusty road to distant lands.
He walks and suddenly sees a pea lying on the road. Then he remembered his father’s order, picked up the pea and put it in his knapsack. He goes further and sees a second pea. He picked it up and put it in his knapsack. By evening he came across a third pea. He also picked up the third pea and hid it.
Late in the evening he approached a large castle and asked to spend the night.
“I’ll accept it for one night, so be it,” says the wife of the owner of the castle, looking the handsome young man from head to toe. She liked him, and even more so did her daughter, who stood next to her mother.
“It doesn’t hurt that our guest looks like a poor man,” the hostess says to her husband at dinner. “It seems to me that he wants to marry our daughter, so he pretended to be a poor man in order to take a closer look at us.” It wouldn't be a bad idea to try it out.
And the hostess ordered the servant to make a hard bed for the guest, and to crawl under the bed himself and be on alert all night.
“If he’s really poor, he’ll sleep like a log, and if he’s from a noble family, he’ll toss and turn all night,” she explained her cunning to her husband.
They prepared the young man's bed as ordered. He undressed and lay down. And he put his knapsack (all his property) under his head out of harm’s way. The knapsack was not tied tightly, and three peas rolled out of it and landed under his back. He began to look for them and put them back into his knapsack. He puts one in, and the other one rolls back. He catches the second one, and the third one is right there - under his back. So he suffered with them all night, he didn’t even sleep a wink.
In the morning, the mistress impatiently asks the servant:
- How did he sleep?
“I tossed and turned all night, I was even afraid that the bed would collapse.”
- Yeah! That’s why it immediately seemed to me that he was not a poor man at all,” the hostess was delighted and ran as quickly as possible to tell the good news to her husband and daughter. All three conspired to detain the guest for another day. And in order to finally make sure that he was a nobleman in disguise, they decided to test him again - to lay him a soft and comfortable bed.
Everyone was so kind to the young man that he agreed to spend one more day in the castle. After a hearty dinner, they took him to the best room, richly and beautifully decorated.
“Hey, every day I feel better here,” thought the poor man. “It’s immediately obvious that I’m not just somewhere, but in a good and respectable house. No, now I won’t put my knapsack under my head and catch peas all night like yesterday. I’ll get a good night’s sleep.” He hung the knapsack on a nail, undressed, lay down and fell asleep sweetly.
- How did he sleep? - the next morning the mistress asks the servant: he was again guarding under the bed.
— I slept soundly all night.
“I knew it, he’s not a poor man!” - exclaimed the delighted hostess. “He is at least a noble gentleman, if not a prince,” and she ran to tell the good news to her husband and daughter.
After breakfast, the guest began to thank the count for his kindness, for the bread and salt, and the owner asked:
-Where are you going, my dear?
- I’m going wherever my eyes lead me.
- Well, if that’s the case, then we won’t let you go. You know, I have a daughter the same age as you. You saw it and I hope you liked it. If you want, I will give it for you even today. And live there as you please.
The poor man was taken aback by such an unexpected matchmaking, but quickly came to his senses and agreed.
They got married that same day. They feasted at the wedding for forty days and forty nights. Everyone was having a lot of fun. The poor groom, in his great happiness, completely forgot to think about what awaited him ahead.
On the forty-first day the mistress called her son-in-law and said to him:
- Well, son! The holiday is over, it's time for you to show your wife your castle. Tomorrow you will hit the road.
"Lock!" - the poor newlywed almost screamed and wanted to admit, as if on the verge of spirit, that his father did not have any castle, but only a lopsided house, but he caught himself in time and agreed to take his wife to his castle. The joy was gone, the young man’s face showed sadness and concern.
“I see how hard it is for you to leave us!” - the hostess said affectionately. - Don’t worry, my beloved son-in-law! After all, we will see each other soon. Stay there for a while and come back to us.
The next day they put three bags of oats for the horses and a bag of money in a large carriage; The young couple and two servants got into the carriage and went to their husband’s castle.
The young lady was sad, and her husband was even sadder. He was so depressed that he could not utter a word. Looking at him, his wife also became sad, although she was pleased that he had a kind heart. The servants thought: “The young woman is sad because of separation from her relatives.” And the newlywed was haunted by the thought of what he would do when they arrived at his father’s rickety house.
In the evening, a carriage with travelers drove into a dense forest. The young woman asks her despondent husband how far it is to his castle.
- Far, very far! - he answers. “You’ll still have time to get a good night’s sleep before we get there.”
The wife dozed off, and the husband jumped out of the carriage - and straight into the thicket of the forest. “It’s better to die than to reveal the truth to her,” he thought. But he had barely taken a few steps when an old man white as a harrier came towards him and asked:
- Where are you going, son, on such a dark night?
“I want to settle things with myself,” the poor man answered and told what an amazing story happened to him.
- That's why you're so tense! Get into the carriage and ride on with your wife. Soon you will arrive at my castle. I'll be back in a year. Until then, be the boss there. Just remember: when I return and approach the castle, the walls will tremble. You and your wife immediately run away. If you hesitate a little, your last hour will strike!
The young husband thanked the old man from the bottom of his heart and returned to the carriage that was waiting for him on the road. And there the wife had already woken up and thought with alarm that her husband had left her.
“It seemed to me that we had lost our way, and I went looking for the way,” he reassured his wife. “Now I see that we are on the right road and it’s just a stone’s throw to my castle.”
They soon arrived at a large, brightly lit castle. A crowd of dressed-up servants stood at the gate. They greeted their new masters with low bows and good wishes.
- Oh, your castle is much more beautiful than ours! - the young woman exclaimed and in her soul she was glad that she had listened to her sneaky mother and married a poor-looking stranger.
Weeks and months flew by unnoticed. Lived happily and carefree in the castle. The year has come to an end. And suddenly the castle swayed and shook so much that it seemed like it was about to collapse. Only now did the poor man remember the old man’s order. He wanted to run away, but his wife, as luck would have it, disappeared somewhere. He ran and darted around the castle - from room to room, from the basement to the pantry, from the pantry to the attic, then back to the basement - his wife was nowhere to be found, as if she had fallen through the ground! And some nasty old woman is messing around in the basement. Her eyes are scary, and everything is looking at him, but he doesn’t even care about her annoying looks - he was very worried about his wife.
“Do you know, mother, where my wife is?” - he asked the old woman politely. “I searched the whole castle, she’s gone, it’s like she’s disappeared into the water.” After all, inevitable death awaits her if she does not leave the castle before the owner arrives.
“Don’t worry, son,” the old woman answers. - Go to the cook and tell her to take the flour sifted seven times from the mill. And from that flour let him knead the dough seven times and bake the bread seven times... Let him place that bread in front of the castle gates, the rest is not your concern!
“Happiness smiled at me twice, maybe it will smile the third time,” thought the poor man and, having calmed down, he went to the cook and told her to do everything as the old woman had taught.
Before he could finish speaking, the castle shook again, so violently that the walls began to crack.
“The castle will collapse a hundred times before this bread is baked,” thought the poor owner. “Well, whatever happens, it’s better to die than to upset your wife and expose her to ridicule; it’s better for her not to know that she married a beggar.”
Meanwhile, the cook baked bread and placed it in front of the gate, as she was told. And just in time. A huge seven-headed snake was already approaching the castle, with seven tongues sticking out of each mouth. Well, he was scary!
“My castle stinks of human flesh!” - the snake roared from afar.
From all its seven mouths the flame burns seven seven fathoms long. And then the snake turned to the gate and shouted:
- Hey, the iron gates of my castle! Why don't you open up? Or did they not recognize their master?
And then the seven times baked bread spoke:
- Snake! You're wasting your time. If you want to enter the castle, let yourself be sown seven times, reaped seven times, threshed seven times, kneaded seven times and baked seven times. Otherwise you better leave!
The snake became furious at such insolence. He leaned on the gate with all his might. The castle turned over three times, but the gate did not open. The snake fell on them again, and with such force that the castle turned over six times. But the gates did not budge. The snake fell for the third time, so much so that it itself fell into pieces in front of its own castle.
So the poor man remained in the snake castle with his beautiful wife. They live happily to this day, if they have not yet died.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru