In ancient times, there lived two brothers in the world, one rich, the other poor.
Their mother and father died, and before their death they were ordered to divide the entire inheritance equally among themselves. Only the older brother was greedy and cheating. He took all his father's property for himself, and drove his younger brother out of the house with nothing.
This is how it turned out that one brother was living like a cheese in butter, and the other was surviving from bread to water.
Christmas has come. The elder brother has all kinds of food for the holiday, but the younger brother does not have a grain in the house.
Then his wife says to him:
“You should go to your rich brother and ask for something for the holiday, so that we too can celebrate Christmas like all good people.”
A poor man came to his elder brother and began to ask him for at least some food for the holiday. And the rich man answers him:
- Oh, I’m tired of you, brother! You keep going and begging!..
But I don’t have a tavern. Well, okay, so be it, I’ll give you a pork ham for Christmas. But only on the condition: where I send you, you will go there immediately and will not contradict me.
“Okay, I agree to everything,” says the poor man.
Then he threw the rich ham at him and shouted:
- Go to hell, brother, and don’t let me see you here again!
“Well, I won’t go back on my word,” the poor man answers.
He took the pork ham under his arm and went to hell to visit.
The poor man walked all day, and in the evening he came to some strange hut. An unprecedented light is pouring from the windows, and near the barn some old man with a long beard is chopping wood for the woodpile, which is always prepared for Christmas so that it will be warm all year round.
- Good evening! - says the poor man.
Good evening to you too! - the grandfather answers. -Where are you going, looking out at night?
“I’m going to hell to visit, but I just don’t know if I’m going there?”
- Well, if that’s the case, then you’ve arrived exactly at the right place. Enter the hut, there you will find the devil himself and all his offspring.
Just before that I want to give you one piece of advice. As soon as you enter, all the devils will immediately rush to you and begin to beg for you to sell them a pork ham. They are as passionate as they are for pork. So don’t give your ham for any money, but ask the hand mill that’s outside the door for it.
This mill is magical. Whatever you want, she will give it to you. And if you go back, I will then teach you how to use it and how to stop it.
The poor man thanked his grandfather for his good advice and went to hell into the house.
As the old man said, that’s how it all turned out.
As soon as the poor man crossed the threshold, all the devils and little devils rushed to him, surrounded him and began to beg for him to sell them a pork ham.
“To tell you the truth, I was going to eat some pork for Christmas with my old woman,” says the poor man. “But if you have such a need, take the ham, and for it give me that old mill that’s behind the door.”
The devil began to fuss and evade, but the poor man stood firm on his own, and he had to give the mill to the devils.
A poor man came out of his hut and asked the old woodcutter how he could manage this mill. His grandfather taught him:
- If you want to start the mill, turn the handle and say:
Handle, turn! Mill, grind!
If you need to stop her, turn the handle again and say:
Handle, don't turn around! Mill, stop!
- Thank you, grandfather, for the science! - said the poor man and hurried home with his magic mill. But no matter how much he hurried, he didn’t get home before midnight. He entered the upper room, and his wife attacked him:
-Where is this taking you? I've been sitting here since this morning, hungry and cold. Not a log of wood to light the fire in the hearth! Not a grain in the pan to cook Christmas porridge!
- Don’t bother, little wife! - the poor man answers.
“I was going about my business, but the path was not close. Look what I brought you.
He put the mill on the table and ordered it to grind candles, porridge, pork, beer, and various other foodstuffs for the Christmas dinner.
And when the mill had ground enough, the poor man turned the handle and said:
Handle, don't turn around! Mill, stop!
The mill stopped.
The wife just widened her eyes, and then began to ask her husband where he got this mill. Only husband; I didn’t reveal anything to her.
“Does it matter to you,” he says, “where I got it?” You see, she grinds to glory, and so will you!
The poor man and his wife celebrated Christmas, and the next day they called their elder brother and all their fellow villagers and gave them a rich feast.
Everyone at the feast ate, drank to their hearts’ content, and danced, only the elder brother had no time for fun, envy gnawed at him. He sat in the anger of a black cloud and kept thinking:
“Where did this brother get such wealth? Only yesterday he came to me to beg for food for Christmas, and now he’s giving such feasts, as if he were some kind of count or king!”
He sat down next to his brother, poured him some wine and said:
- And why the hell brought you all this goodness? And he grinned slyly and answered:
- Yes, the same one you sent me to visit! Only after the fifth glass did the younger brother begin to make noise in his head - and he told his brother everything about the magic mill. And the rich man decided to get this mill for himself at any cost. He tried to persuade his brother for a long time, and in the end he agreed to sell him the mill for haymaking for three hundred daler. “And before haymaking, I’ll have time to grind a lot of good things for myself,” he decided.
Then the hay season came, and the rich man came to his younger brother to buy the mill. He taught him how to operate the mill, how to stop it - he did not reveal this to his brother. The rich man brought the mill home, and the next morning he said to his wife:
“You go to the meadow, look after the mowers so that they don’t get lazy at work, and today I’ll cook dinner myself.”
Now it's time for lunch.
The rich man put the mill on the table and ordered it to quickly grind porridge, milk jelly and fried herring.
And the mill went to grind. He has filled all the bowls, all the cauldrons, all the pots, all the vats, all the tubs, and the mill keeps grinding and grinding.
Hot porridge and milk jelly flowed onto the floor, filled the entire house, flowed over the threshold, flooded the entire yard and flowed down the street. I almost choked on the rich man. The rich man ran out of the house, and the porridge, jelly and herring overtook him.
There was nothing to do, he threw himself into the milk jelly and swam.
Meanwhile, the rich man’s wife waited and waited for her husband, and then said to the mowers:
“The owner hasn’t invited us to dinner for a long time.” Apparently, nothing comes of his cooking. I'll have to go home and help him. And you too follow me. We'll have lunch at home.
They threw their braids over their shoulders and walked away. As soon as they approached the outskirts, they suddenly saw: the jelly river was flowing, noisy, overflowing, along the banks the porridge was gurgling and bubbling, like an unsteady swamp, and the owner himself was floundering in the jelly and shouting:
- Eat until your belly bursts! Just be careful not to drown in your lunch.
The rich man swam to his brother’s yard, barely got out of the porridge and jelly, ran into the house and shouted:
- Take your mill, for God's sake! Otherwise, soon the jelly and porridge will flood the entire area, and there will be nowhere to go from the herring.
- Eh, no! - his brother answers him. “First, give me three hundred dalers for the mill you promised.”
The rich man had to shell out three hundred dalers. Then the poor man got into the boat, sailed to the rich man, turned the handle of the mill and said:
Handle, don't turn around! Mill, stop!
The mill stopped.
The poor man called people from all over the village, some came running - some with a spoon, some with a bowl - and quickly finished with porridge, jelly and fried herring.
From then on, the younger brother lived happily ever after. He now had money and a rich household. The mill ground gold for him, and he built himself a new house under a golden roof.
His estate stood on the shore of the fjord, and the golden roof could be seen far away. And not a single ship that sailed through the fjord sailed past the estate.
Everyone came to the shore to admire the strange mill, because rumors about it had spread all over the world.
One day a skipper sailed from distant lands on his schooner.
He looked at the magic mill and asked the owner:
—Can she grind salt?
“Maybe grind some salt,” the owner replies. Then the skipper thought:
“For many years I have been bringing salt from foreign lands on my ship. And if I had this mill, I would grind salt, and I would not have to walk the seas in stormy and bad weather.”
And he began to ask the owner to sell him the magic mill.
He promised a lot of money for her. Only the owner did not want to give her up for any wealth.
“Well,” says the skipper. - No, there is no trial. Then let me spend the night at your house, otherwise it’s late and I have nowhere to go. And tomorrow morning I will set off on the return journey.
The owner agreed and put the skipper to bed for the night in his room.
And in the evening he noticed where the owner was hiding the mill. The skipper waited until everyone was asleep, quietly crept up to the chest, pulled out the mill, and that was it. He dragged the stolen mill to his ship and said:
Handle, turn! Mill, grind salt!
And the mill went to grind. The skipper filled the holds full, and the mill kept grinding and grinding. A whole mountain grew on the deck, the skipper called the whole crew and ordered them to throw salt into the sea with shovels. But nothing helped. The skipper rushed to the mill, began to twist and turn it in all directions, but did not know how to stop it. The ship became heavy with salt and sank.
So a ship lies somewhere at the bottom of the sea, and on it is a magic mill that grinds salt and grinds it.
That is why the water in the sea became salty.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru