A wealthy peasant had three sons. The two eldest were smart people and skilled in any work, but the third, the youngest, was already known as a fool from childhood: he could not cope with any task properly. Before his death, the father gave his sons this instruction:
“My days, as I feel, are coming to an end, and when I go to another world, you, my elders,
sons, divide all property equally among you; If you wish, divide the land in half. And if only one of you wants to manage here, let him pay the other half the value of our land. You, Peeter, my youngest son, are not fit to be either an owner or a worker, so you should go seek your fortune throughout the world. Your godmother gave you a Koestin, an old ruble coin, on your day. She called this coin an irredeemable ruble and ordered to give it to you when you leave your parents' house. The godmother said this: “As long as my godson has this treasured coin in his pocket, he will not know any worries - neither grief nor need can touch the lucky one.” Take your godmother’s gift as an inheritance and try to live with it.
The next day the father died. His sons closed his eyes and buried him. The older brothers were not yet married, so they stayed together to manage their father’s house. They gave the younger brother a bag of food, which would be enough for a week, and said:
- Go and look for happiness!
Peeter, whistling, left the gate and headed east, thinking at the same time: “The sun, rising in the morning, will show me where to go, so I won’t go astray.”
While there were supplies in the bag, the young man walked carefree along the road, singing songs and whistling, moving further and further away from his home. A few days later, after eating, he saw that his bag was empty, but since he was full, he was not at all upset about it. The next morning, when he woke up, he reached for the bag, but it was as empty as the guy’s stomach. Having sadly walked several miles, he sat down to rest and began to think about how to get food. True, the ruble lay untouched in his pocket, but how could that help here, in a deserted place, where there was no one to buy bread from? The traveler stretched out on the grass and laid his head on a stone, hoping that perhaps a good thought would strike him in a dream.
Waking up, he saw that an unfamiliar old man with a long white beard and one eye was sitting next to him. This single eye sparkled in the middle of his forehead, above his nose, and where people’s eyes are, the old man had two large warts sticking out, like the horns of a ram. Three black dogs, one larger than the other, lay at his feet.
The old man looked intently at Peeter with his only eye and asked:
- Countryman, would you like to buy dogs from me? I'll sell them to you cheap.
“I have nothing to eat myself,” Peeter answered, “what am I going to feed the dogs?” The old man smiled and said:
- Well, don’t let that bother you. My dogs won’t ask you for food, they will also feed you.
- So these are hunting dogs? asked Peeter. “Do they catch all sorts of game in the forest and bring it to the owner?”
“No, my dogs are better than any hunting dogs,” answered the old man. “And if you don’t want to buy a pig in a poke, I’ll now show you what benefits they bring to their owner.”
He touched his finger to the head of the smaller dog and shouted:
- Run-carry-eat!
The dog jumped up, ran as fast as the wind and instantly disappeared from sight. Less than half an hour had passed before she returned with the basket in her teeth.
Peeter's joy was great when he saw that the basket was filled with the most delicious food: there was pork, fresh fish, sausage and flatbread. The guy ate to his fill.
The old man said:
“Whatever food you have left, you must give to the dogs: the basket must be cleaned so that not a crumb remains.”
Peeter was sorry to throw food to the dogs, but he did not dare to disobey the old man who helped him satisfy his hunger.
“I would probably buy this little dog,” Peeter said hesitantly, “if I had more money.” But, except for one ruble coin, I have nothing behind my soul. If you agree to sell the dog for this price, then we'll shake hands!
The old man agreed, but said:
- These dogs cannot be sold one by one to different hands, otherwise disaster will happen to both the owners of the dogs and themselves. But since you don’t have any more money, I’m ready to sell you a smaller dog for this ruble, and in addition I’ll give you the rest. I think you'll be pleased with your purchase. As you have already heard, the first dog is called Run-Carry-Eat, the middle one is Tear, and the biggest one is Break-Iron. If something unexpected happens to you and you need the help of dogs, click on the one you need, and your wish will come true. This smaller one will feed you every day, and the other two will protect you from enemies.
And the old man shouted to the dogs:
- Here is your new owner!
The dogs wagged their tails and began to lick Peeter's hand, as if they wanted to show that they understood the order.
Saying goodbye, the old man touched Peeter’s forehead with his finger, and the young man seemed to be pierced through and through by lightning. At that same moment, the old man disappeared: whether he melted into thin air or crumbled into dust, Peeter could not explain. Peeter said to himself: “Until this day I lived as if in a thick fog, but now I have come out into the bright light!” The dogs looked sharply into his eyes and wagged their tails, as if they wanted to say: yes, you’re right!
The young man thought about the amazing incident for a long time, then got up and moved on. In the evening, Peeter accidentally put his hand into his pocket and found his ruble coin there. He could not understand how she got there: he clearly remembered that he had given a ruble to the old man as payment for the dog, and before his eyes he put the coin in his pocket. How could she come back?
In the evening, Run-Bring-Eat, on his orders, brought a full basket of food, so that there was enough for both the owner and the dogs; the same thing happened the next morning. But the amazing story with the ruble coin could not leave Peeter’s head, and he decided today to make another test. He exchanged his caftan with a peasant he met for a better one and gave the peasant his ruble in addition. After walking a mile, he again found the coin in his pocket!
Now Peeter understood what property the irredeemable ruble had: given away upon purchase, it always returned to its owner. Peeter began to buy himself clothes and other necessary things every day, or just various trifles, as rich people do, but his godmother’s gift always remained in his pocket. Peeter did not know how the ruble was returned to him from someone else’s hands. He thought with joy: “I can, if I want, bypass
all over the world - nowhere will I lack either food or money.”
Wandering from place to place, Peeter once found himself in a dense forest. Sensing something unkind, the dogs raised their muzzles and looked at the owner as if they wanted to say: something is wrong here, be careful! Peeter nevertheless moved on. He saw that the dogs were becoming more and more restless, but he did not notice anything special around.
Suddenly, from afar, he heard the rumble of wheels, as if a heavy cart was slowly rolling over cobblestones. The roar kept getting closer, and finally a carriage with four black horses appeared from behind the trees. One might have thought that they were carrying a dead person in it: the carriage was covered in black and the coachman was dressed all in black. The horses' heads and ears were lowered, as if the horses also felt grief,
Peeter looked through the window into the carriage and saw a beautiful young woman in a black dress. She cried bitterly, wiping her tears with a thin white handkerchief.
Peeter asked the coachman what all this meant, but received no answer. Then Peeter shouted menacingly:
- Scoundrel! Stop your horses and answer! Otherwise, I myself will open your mouth so that you can learn to talk to people!
The coachman looked at Peeter and his big dogs and decided that this was no joke. Stopping the horses, he began to talk.
“In this forest,” he said, “lives a terrible beast - half bear, half bird; The monster is equally good at running on the ground and flying through the air. It devours people and animals throughout the kingdom and would have long ago destroyed all life in the country if an innocent girl had not been sacrificed to it every year, whom the beast swallows whole in an instant. Every year, by order of the king, sixteen-year-old girls from all over the country gather and lot decides which of them will be sacrificed. This year, the fatal lot fell on the only daughter of the king, who is now being taken to the monster to be devoured. And although the king and all his subjects deeply mourn this, nothing can be done here: the girl on whom the lot fell must be sacrificed, no matter who she is - rich or poor, noble family or low rank.
Peeter's heart became heavy when he heard the coachman's story and saw how heartbroken the unfortunate princess was. He immediately decided to accompany the girl on her final journey. The carriage slowly moved on, and Peeter and his dogs followed behind.
When they reached the foot of a high mountain surrounded by forest, the coachman stopped the horses and asked the princess to get out of the carriage: here was the border that separated life from death. Without a word, like a lamb, the princess got out of the carriage and began to climb the mountain. Peeter wanted to follow her, but the coachman shouted:
- Hey, fellow countryman, stop fooling around! Even though you will die here just like the girl, you won’t help the matter!
Peeter objected to this;
“This is my business, it doesn’t concern you!” and with a firm step he walked after the girl.
The princess looked at him with gratitude through her tears, and the black dogs wagged their tails approvingly, as if they wanted to say: what a brave act!
Before they had time to climb even one third of the height of the mountain, noise and thunder were heard, as if a strong thunderstorm was approaching. From the top of the mountain, a terrible beast with the body of a bear, but larger in size than the largest horse, ran down the slope; Instead of fur, his body was covered with scales, there were two curved horns on his head, and two long wings on his back. Huge teeth half an arshin long, similar to boar tusks, protruded from the mouth of the terrible beast, and there were long sharp claws on its paws. Before reaching the princess a few dozen steps, the terrible predator stuck out his long tongue, intending to sting the girl like a snake before swallowing her.
But at the same moment Peeter boldly shouted:
- Tear it to pieces!
Hearing a human voice, the monster's eyes flashed furiously, and steam poured out of its mouth, as if in a bathhouse, when water is splashed on hot stones. But the black dog, following the owner’s order, pounced on the beast with lightning speed and began to fight with it. Deftly dodging the terrible claws and fangs of the predator, the dog slid between his legs, sank its teeth into his belly and tormented him until his entrails fell out and the dog’s fangs pierced the very heart of the monster. The beast crashed to the ground, so that the mountain shook, and soon gave up the ghost. The dog, despite the fact that it was ten times smaller than the beast, ate it whole, with skin and bones, so that only a pair of horns and four long fangs remained, which Peeter picked up and put in his bag.
After this, he hurried to the aid of the princess, who fainted from fright. Peeter brought water from the spring in his hat and moistened the girl’s forehead and cheeks until she came to her senses.
As if waking up from a dream, the girl at first could not remember what happened to her. But seeing that the terrible beast had disappeared and she was no longer in mortal danger, she fell to her knees before her savior and thanked him with tears of joy in her eyes.
Then the princess asked the young man to get into the carriage with her and go to her father to receive a well-deserved reward, royally generous. But Peeter thanked him for the kind invitation and replied:
“I am still young and inexperienced, so now I do not dare to appear before the royal eyes.” I want to travel around, look at the world, and in three years, if I’m alive and well, I’ll come back here again.
So they parted. The princess got into the carriage and drove back to the palace, while Peeter continued his journey to distant foreign lands.
Meanwhile, a bad thought occurred to the coachman. Having heard what the princess was talking about with Peeter, he decided to impersonate her savior and receive a rich reward. When they entered a dense forest, where a deep abyss yawned near the road behind a steep cliff, the coachman stopped the horses, got off the box and said to the royal daughter:
“Your deliverer has gone his way; it is unlikely that he will ever return and demand a reward for your work from you and your father.” I think that you should give this reward to me: after all, it was I who advised the guy to help you, otherwise he would not have followed you. When we arrive home, tell your father that it was I who saved you and killed the hellish beast. Then the reward will be paid to me.
But the king's daughter replied:
- That would be an obvious lie! It will be a grave injustice if a person who deserves a reward is deprived of it and the reward is given to someone who has done nothing. God save me from such sin. The coachman frowned and shouted angrily:
- Well, have it your way! But you will not leave my hands alive. Prepare to die!
The princess fell to her knees in front of him and began to beg for mercy. But the villain's stony heart did not soften. He said rudely:
“Choose one of the two, whichever you consider best: either you tell your father that it was I who killed the monster, or, if you don’t want to lie, I will throw you into the abyss and there your tongue will be numb forever!” And at home I’ll tell you that the monster swallowed you, like many other girls, and the matter will be over.
The princess saw that she would have no hope of salvation if she resisted the villain, and promised to lie to her father, as the coachman had taught her. He also forced her to confirm with an oath that she would pass off lies as truth and would not utter a single word to a single living soul about what happened here today.
Dull with despair and fear, the princess submitted to the will of the scoundrel. But the closer she got to the house, the heavier her heart became. And yet she could not break the oath and was forced to call the coachman her savior.
The joy of the king and all the people was indescribably great when the girl they mourned returned alive and unharmed and brought the news that the monster had been destroyed and no one was in danger anymore. People threw off their mourning clothes and dressed up in festive dresses. The king hugged his daughter with tears and for a long time could not utter a word out of joy. When his tongue began to obey him again, he thanked his daughter’s savior, extended his hand to him and said:
- Honor and praise to you, brave man! You not only saved my only child from death, but also delivered the entire country from its worst enemy. For this great deed I will pay you a reward, and in addition, I will give you my most precious treasure. You must become the husband of my daughter and my son-in-law. But since my daughter is still too young, we will get married only in a year.
The coachman was immediately dressed in a rich dress and appointed a royal courtier. He began to live in honor and luxury and even forgot about the time when he was a simple servant.
The princess was terribly frightened when she learned that her father had promised to give her to the imaginary savior as a reward. She was sad and often cried in secret when no one saw her tears. Bound by a heavy oath, she could not tell anyone the truth about her salvation, much less reveal what tormented her soul day and night: that she would not be able to marry her good savior.
When a year had passed, she asked her father for permission to postpone the wedding for another year. The groom was unhappy, but since the king fulfilled his daughter’s request, he was forced to agree. But when the second year came to an end and the daughter again came to the king with a request to postpone the wedding, the king burned with anger.
- You are an ungrateful creature! - he exclaimed. “Why don’t you want to marry the brave man who saved you from the jaws of an evil monster and saved my entire kingdom from a severe scourge?!”
The daughter turned pale as death and fell at his feet. She could only say:
“Oh, how I regret that the monster didn’t swallow me two years ago!”
These words, full of bitter complaint, pierced the father’s heart like red-hot arrows. He picked up his daughter, sat her on his lap and said:
- Dear child, I fulfill your request for the last time. But in a year, no forces will save you from marriage, because with my royal word I promised you as a wife to your savior.
The daughter thanked her father for the new kindness. She still hoped that the sweet young man who had snatched her from the clutches of death would fulfill his promise to return in three years.
But the third year also came to an end much sooner than she expected and hoped, and nothing was heard about the young man’s arrival. The princess knew that it was impossible to ask her father for a new postponement, so she looked with alarm at the preparations for the wedding, cried quietly and asked God for help.
The night before the wedding, she dreamed of a one-eyed old man with a gray beard. He consoled her and said:
- Be courageous, don’t be afraid of anything! Injustice will not hide from the eyes of a higher being, even if it remains unknown to people.
Waking up, the princess felt new strength and hope in her soul.
And so it happened that on the very day when the wedding was celebrated in the royal palace and the whole city was rejoicing, some unknown young man entered the city gates with three black dogs. He asked why the people were so happy and having fun, and they told him that today the king’s daughter was marrying that daredevil who three years ago snatched her from the mouth of a terrible beast.
The stranger asked:
- Tell me, where is this man?
“Where should he be if not in the royal palace?” - they answered the young man. “After all, the groom always sits next to the bride.”
Then the young man shouted angrily:
“Let me go to the king, I will prove to him that he is marrying off his daughter to a shameless deceiver.” Let me go to the king!
The guards stationed at the royal palace considered him insane. The young man was seized, shackled on his hands and feet and thrown into a prison tower with an iron door so that the madman would not overshadow the festive fun.
Peeter realized that he had taken up the matter thoughtlessly and began to repent of his ardor. After all, while he languishes in captivity, the princess will become the wife of another. Then he heard scratching and a dog squealing behind the wall. “My faithful dogs,” he thought, “are trying to get to me. Will I be able to escape with their help?”
Fortunately, it occurred to him to call a third dog. And at the same moment he shouted:
“Break-iron!” - his largest dog rested his paws on the window bars, and the iron bars fell apart like dry brushwood. The dog jumped towards Peeter, bit the chains on his legs and arms, as if they were threads of tow, and jumped out of the window, with Peeter following behind.
Jumping out of the dungeon, he began to think about what to do next so that the king’s daughter would not fall into the hands of a deceiver. Feeling hungry, he shouted to the first dog: “Run, bring, eat!” The dog ran away like the wind and soon returned with a basket in its teeth. The food filling the basket was covered with a thin white handkerchief, and a gold ring was tied in the corner of the handkerchief. Peeter saw the princess's name on the ring, and this gave him new hope.
And with the handkerchief and ring it was the same.
The king feasted with his noble guests at the festive table; To the right of the king sat his daughter, and to the left was the groom, a former coachman who was destined to become the king's son-in-law. Suddenly a black dog runs in with an empty basket in its teeth, rushes straight to the princess, looks at the girl with pleading eyes and licks her hand, as if he wants to say:
put something in my basket!
The princess's hands trembled with joy: she immediately recognized this beautiful dog as belonging to her deliverer. The princess took meat and fish from the table, several pieces of sweet cake and put it all in the basket. In addition, she took the wedding ring off her finger, tied it in the corner of a scarf and covered the basket with this scarf.
The dog immediately ran away. The princess whispered a few words in her father's ear, after which the king stood up, took his daughter by the hand and went with her into another room. A little later the pastor was invited there.
The king asked the pastor whether a man was obliged to keep the oath he took under threat of death in order to save himself from the hand of a murderer? The pastor replied:
- An oath that a person took against his will, obeying violence, has no value in the face of divine and human law. Such an oath means absolutely nothing.
Then the princess revealed her secret and told everything that happened to her in the forest three years ago. The king immediately ordered the servants to follow the dog's tracks, find its owner and bring him to the palace.
Soon this man was found and, together with three dogs, brought to the king. The princess immediately recognized him as her savior, threw herself on his neck and exclaimed:
“Today you save me from an evil beast once again!” I thank you a thousand times for this benefit!
Then the king returned with his daughter to the guests, and Peeter ordered him to wait in another room until he was invited.
At the table the king asked:
- What punishment does a person deserve who conceals the brave deed of another and appropriates for himself a reward deserved by another?
The former coachman thought: “Come on, I’ll show what a wise judge I am!” And he answered the king’s question:
“The fairest punishment for such a criminal is to tie a millstone around his neck and drown the villain in the depths of the sea!”
“Very good, this is exactly the sentence that should be given to him!” - the king answered and ordered to call the unfamiliar young man.
Seeing Peeter with his three black dogs, the coachman turned white as a wall, fell on his knees in front of the king and began to beg for mercy.
“You, low man,” said the king, “have pronounced your own sentence and must suffer the punishment that you just spoke about.” But so that our celebration will not be overshadowed because of you, you will sit in prison until the wedding celebrations are over.
The coachman was immediately taken away, chained and imprisoned.
Peeter took out the evidence of his feat from the bag - the horns and fangs of a terrible monster, and joyful cries burst from the lips of the guests. The king seated Peeter next to him in the chair where the coachman had previously sat, and ordered the young couple to be married that same evening. Four weeks later, when the festivities were over, the coachman suffered the well-deserved punishment to which he had sentenced himself.
One day, having appeared before the king, Peeter began to say that although he, a simple peasant, was lucky enough to unexpectedly achieve a high position, he still had two more brothers at home. Peeter asked the king for permission to take them to himself, so that not only he alone could enjoy wealth and luxury, but so that his brothers would also have an easier life. The king agreed and immediately sent a messenger for his son-in-law's older brothers.
On the day when the elder brothers arrived and Peeter greeted them kindly, the largest black dog spoke in human language.
“Now,” she said, “our service is over.” We were obliged to stay with you until we saw whether you would now, living happily, remember your siblings. God bless! You, as befits a noble man, fulfilled your duty in everything!
And the dogs suddenly turned into swans, and they spread their mighty wings and flew away. To this day, no one can say where.
Peeter, as the king's son-in-law, lived in honor and luxury and helped his brothers, who over time became wealthy people. He gave an irreplaceable ruble as a christening gift to the first-born of his older brother, saying:
- When the boy grows up and decides to leave his father’s house, give him this gift on the road. He will help the young man find his happiness, just as he once helped me.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru