It was a long time ago. And old people no longer remember this and tell what they heard from their fathers and grandfathers.
Well, that's it. One evening the devil made his way through the dense forests of Polesie into his swamp. He was gloomy and gloomy: for the whole day he had not managed to do any harm to people. What the hell is he after that? Now, even if you don’t show your face in hell, they’ll laugh at him there!
The evil, contemptuous devil trudges along, gloomy thoughts gnawing at him. Suddenly he sees a gentleman from Warsaw rushing along the road. The guides ride in front, behind them too, and in the middle a gentleman sits in a carriage on soft cushions. A mustache sticking out like a bark beetle, a hat with three horns, red morocco boots, belts with twisted cords, gilded... Well, in a word, he carries a hundred fathoms!
The devil blocked the road, widened his eyes, and looked: I have never seen such a scarecrow in Polesie!
- Get out of the way, you idiot! - the gentleman shouted at the devil and moved his mustache menacingly. Damn it.
“You can go around,” he says, “if you need it.” The sir was arrogant and turned black with anger:
- Hey, hayduki, give him twenty pennies!
The hayduks cracked their whips and rushed to hell. And he jumped over them, grabbed the gentleman by the forelock and carried him over the forest, baring his teeth...
The devil flies and hits the treetops with his pan. Where a gentleman hits an oak tree, Pan Dembitsky instantly rises, and behind Dembitsky - Dubitsky...
When he hits a birch tree, Pan Brzezinski appears, and behind him comes Brzezovsky, and behind Brzezovsky comes Berezovsky...
Ladies grow like mushrooms.
When a pan jumps against a pine tree, Pan Sosnovsky grows up, against a hornbeam - Grabovsky, against a spruce - Elsky, against a willow - Verbitsky, against an ash tree - Yasensky, against an aspen - Osinsky...
The devil and the gentleman were jumping and jumping, and he just got tired. I looked, and all that was left of the gentleman was his guts: he deftly beat him up!
“What should we do with him,” he thinks, “shouldn’t we take him to hell?” The devil took it and scattered the master's guts on the ground. And from them the little gentlemen and sub-punks began to grow - Guts, Livers...
This is how the lords in Polesie divorced - the devil himself sowed them to harm people.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru