The king had two sons: one was evil and unjust, and the other was good and fair. When the father died, the unjust one said to the just one:
- Get out as quickly as possible. We won't live together anymore. Here are three hundred sequins and a horse - this is your share of your father's inheritance, and you will not receive anything more.
The good man took three hundred sequins, a horse, and went.
- Thank you for that too!
A little later the brothers met on the road. The good one said to the evil one:
- God help you, brother!
- So he will help! - answered the angry one. - Why do you keep remembering him? Falsehood is stronger than the truth!
“Let’s bet that the truth is stronger than falsehood,” says the kind one.
The brothers made a bet for one hundred gold coins and agreed that the one who first met them on the way would judge them.
They drove a little, and they met the devil in the guise of a monk on horseback, and they asked him:
-What is stronger, truth or falsehood?
“It’s false,” answered the devil.
And the good man lost a hundred sequins.
They bet on the second hundred, then on the third, and each time the devil appeared before them in different images, and by his decision the good one lost all three hundred sequins, and then the horse.
Then he said:
“I no longer have sequins, I don’t have a horse, but I still have my eyes, and I’ll bet on them.”
And he bet his own eyes that the truth was stronger than falsehood. Then the evil one, without waiting for someone else’s judgment, took out a knife and gouged out his brother’s eyes with the words:
“Let the truth help you now that you’ve lost your eyes!”
- I lost my eyes for the truth. But I beg you, brother, give me water to wet my lips and wash the wound, take me under the spruce to the spring and leave me there,” said the unfortunate man.
The brother obeyed, gave him water, took him under the fir tree to the spring and left him there.
Sitting under a spruce tree, the blind man heard in the middle of the night how the pitchforks came to bathe and how one of them said to her friends:
“Did you know that the king’s daughter fell ill with leprosy?” The king called all the doctors, but no one can cure her. If they knew that she needed to be sprinkled with the water in which we bathed, she would be healthy within a day! The deaf, the blind, the lame - everyone can be healed by this water.
Just then the roosters crowed and the pitchforks disappeared. Then the unfortunate man crawled on all fours to the source, washed his eyes and immediately regained his sight. Then he filled a jug with wonderful water and went straight to the king.
“I can cure the princess,” he said. “If you let me see her, she will recover in a day.”
They brought him to the room of the royal daughter, and he ordered to sprinkle her with water from the jug he brought. A day later the princess recovered.
The king rejoiced and gave him half of the kingdom and his daughter as his wife. And he became the king's son-in-law, the first person after the king.
The rumor about this spread throughout the kingdom; He even reached his evil brother, who insisted that lies are stronger than the truth. “You know, my brother found happiness under the spruce tree,” the evil one decided and went there. He filled a jug with water, stood under a spruce tree and gouged out his eyes.
In the middle of the night the pitchforks came to bathe and began to talk about how the princess had recovered.
“Someone must have overheard us when we were talking about how she could be cured.” Maybe they are eavesdropping on us now? Let's go have a look.
They looked under the spruce tree, saw the evil brother there - the one who said that falsehood was stronger than the truth, they grabbed him by the arms and legs and tore him apart. This is how deceit helped him, the damned one!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru