Not far from one village there grew a tall tamarind tree. A brahmarakshasa, an evil cannibal spirit, lived on this tree for a long time. People and animals were very afraid of him. No one even dared to approach the tamarind tree. And although in the summer the whole tree was hung with fruits - ripe, juicy - no one touched these fruits, not even the birds pecked at them.
But one day two women, two sisters, came there from the village and began to build themselves a hut under the tree. Both of them had been widowed the year before, and their parents had died even earlier. So the sisters decided to leave the village - it’s not easy for widows to live in the village. Neighbors began to dissuade them:
-Where are you going, crazy people? Or are you not afraid of rakshasa?
Sisters laugh:
- What do we need this rakshasa for? We ourselves may be more terrible than any rakshasa! We'll see who scares who!
They built themselves a hut from branches and leaves, dragged all their belongings there and began to live.
And they fed themselves by buying rice from their neighbors, pounding this rice into flour, making dough from the flour, baking flatbread from the dough, and selling the flatbread in the city. Here, under the rakshasa tamarind tree, the first thing they did was put stone mortars at the door of the hut, poured rice into the mortars, took long pestles in their hands and began to work. There was a knocking and roar throughout the forest. A rakshasa wakes up in a tree and cannot understand who is disturbing his sleep - a man or an animal. Finally, he looked out of his nest and saw: two women standing right under the tree and beating someone with long thick sticks. You can’t see who they’re beating, only the noise is so loud that every leaf on the tree is shaking.
“These women are not simple,” thinks the brahmarakshasa. -Look at the sticks they have. I’d better sit in a tree until they leave, and then I’ll climb down and go hunting.”
But the sisters did not even think about leaving. They pounded the rice for an hour, two, three - until the evening, and in the evening they prepared the dough and began to bake flat cakes so that they could get to the market early in the morning. They baked a whole mountain of flatbreads - delicious, rosy, juicy. Then they put them in a large basket, covered the basket with a lid, and, tired, they climbed into their hut and went to bed.
All this time the rakshasa sat on the tree and waited. He had not eaten anything all day and was very hungry. His nose caught the delicious smell of rice cakes.
“Smells nice! - he said to himself. - I wish I could try what it is! I have long wanted to taste human food...”
He carefully went downstairs, approached the basket, lifted the lid and began to eat the cakes - one after another, he devoured them. Soon the basket was completely empty, only two or three cakes remained at the very bottom. The rakshasa climbed after them, and the lid slipped off the basket and crashed to the ground. The sisters jumped up and ran out of the hut - and what? - The rakshasa sits by the basket, eating the last flatbread.
How they attacked the rakshasa, how they began to beat him! They beat and say:
- Oh, you thief, oh, you nasty thief! Ate all our flatbreads! Here you go! Here you go! Here you go!
Each grabbed her pestle, and the work began again: the eldest would strike, the youngest would add; The younger one will hit, the older one will swing. The poor rakshasa is not allowed to breathe. The rakshasa prayed here:
- Let me go, good women, I will never come to you again, I will forget the way here!
The sisters are silent, only pestles flicker in the air. The rakshasa asks again:
- Let me go, I will leave your village forever. I’d better go to the city and start scaring the city women. After all, they walk on carpets all their lives, they don’t see real work, if a crow caws nearby, they huddle close to their husbands in fear. Let me go, have pity, I was hungry!
“No matter how it is,” the women say, “you ate all our cakes!” How are we going to live now? What shall we take to the market? Don't cry, but until you pay, we won't let you go.
The rakshasa screams and prays:
- I'll get you money! Just trust me. Now I’ll go to your network’s house, I’ll pinch him, choke him, tickle him, I’ll whisper scary stories to him. I tell him to give you money, and he will bring it. It will bring a whole wallet of gold!
The women believed and released the rakshasa. And he is barely alive.
In the morning, neighbors came to them from the village and said that the venerable settie had apparently lost his mind: he was running around the village, tearing out his hair, screaming in a voice that was not his own.
And in the evening the setty himself came to the sisters - all beaten, exhausted, God knows what his soul was holding on to. He brought them a wallet, and in the wallet were brand new gold coins. So two poor widows got rich, and all because they knew how to work well with a wooden pestle... Since then, evil spirits have not touched women - they are afraid!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru