Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales. Anonymous
not even fetch water from the well, but lay on the stove all day long and rolled among the warm cinders. If they gave him anything to eat, he ate it; and if they didn’t give him anything to eat, he did without. His father and mother fretted sorely because of him, and said, “What are we to do with thee, O son? for thou art good for nothing. Other people’s children are a stay and a support to their parents, but thou art but a fool and dost consume our bread for naught.” But it was of no use at all. He would do nothing but sit on the stove and play with the cinders. So his father and mother grieved over him for many a long day, and at last his mother said to his father, “What is to be done with our son? Thou dost see that he has grown up and 16 yet is of no use to us, and he is so foolish that we can do nothing with him. Look now, if we can send him away, let us send him away; if we can hire him out, let us hire him out; perchance other folk may be able to do more with him than we can.” So his father and mother laid their heads together, and sent him to a tailor’s to learn tailoring. There he remained three days, but then he ran away home, climbed up on the stove, and again began playing with the cinders. His father then gave him a sound drubbing and sent him to a cobbler’s to learn cobbling, but again he ran away home. His father gave him another drubbing and sent him to a blacksmith to learn smith’s work. But there too he did not remain long, but ran away home again, so what was that poor father to do? “I’ll tell thee what I’ll do with thee, thou son of a dog!” said he. “I’ll take thee, thou lazy lout, into another kingdom. There, perchance, they will be able to teach thee better than they can here, and it will be too far for thee to run home.” So he took him and set out on his journey.
They went on and on, they went a short way and they went a long way, and at last they came to a forest so dark that they could see neither earth nor sky. They went through this forest, but in a short time they grew very tired, and when they came to a path leading to a clearing full of large tree-stumps, the father said, “I am so tired out that I will rest here a little,” and with that he sat down on a tree-stump and cried, “Oh, how tired I am!” He had no sooner said these words than out of the tree-stump, nobody could say how, sprang such a little, little old man, all so wrinkled and puckered, and his beard was quite green and reached right down to 17 his knee.––“What dost thou want of me, O man?” he asked.––The man was amazed at the strangeness of his coming to light, and said to him, “I did not call thee; begone!”––“How canst thou say that when thou didst call me?” asked the little old man.––“Who art thou, then?” asked the father.––“I am Oh, the Tsar of the Woods,” replied the old man; “why didst thou call me, I say?”––“Away with thee, I did not call thee,” said the man.––“What! thou didst not call me when thou saidst ‘Oh’?”––“I was tired, and therefore I said ‘Oh’!” replied the man.––“Whither art thou going?” asked Oh.––“The wide world lies before me,” sighed the man. “I am taking this sorry blockhead of mine to hire him out to somebody or other. Perchance other people may be able to knock more sense into him than we can at home; but send him whither we will, he always comes running home again!”––“Hire him out to me. I’ll warrant I’ll teach him,” said Oh. “Yet I’ll only take him on one condition. Thou shalt come back for him when a year has run, and if thou dost know him again, thou mayst take him; but if thou dost not know him again, he shall serve another year with me.”––“Good!” cried the man. So they shook hands upon it, had a good drink to clinch the bargain, and the man went back to his own home, while Oh took the son away with him.
Oh took the son away with him, and they passed into the other world, the world beneath the earth, and came to a green hut woven out of rushes, and in this hut everything was green; the walls were green and the benches were green, and Oh’s wife was green and his children were green––in fact, everything there was 18 green. And Oh had water-nixies for serving-maids, and they were all as green as rue. “Sit down now!” said Oh to his new labourer, “and have a bit of something to eat.” The nixies then brought him some food, and that also was green, and he ate of it. “And now,” said Oh, “take my labourer into the courtyard that he may chop wood and draw water.” So they took him into the courtyard, but instead of chopping any wood he lay down and went to sleep. Oh came out to see how he was getting on, and there he lay a-snoring. Then Oh seized him, and bade them bring wood and tie his labourer fast to the wood, and set the wood on fire till the labourer was burnt to ashes. Then Oh took the ashes and scattered them to the four winds, but a single piece of burnt coal fell from out of the ashes, and this coal he sprinkled with living water, whereupon the labourer immediately stood there alive again and somewhat handsomer and stronger than before. Oh again bade him chop wood, but again he went to sleep. Then Oh again tied him to the wood and burnt him and scattered the ashes to the four winds and sprinkled the remnant of the coal with living water, and instead of the loutish clown there stood there such a handsome and stalwart Cossack[3] that the like of him can neither be imagined nor described but only told of in tales.
There, then, the lad remained for a year, and at the end of the year the father came for his son. He came to the self-same charred stumps in the self-same forest, sat him down, and said, “Oh!” Oh immediately 19 came out of the charred stump and said, “Hail! O man!”––“Hail to thee, Oh!”––“And what dost thou want, O man?” asked Oh.––“I have come,” said he, “for my son.”––“Well, come then! If thou dost know him again, thou shalt take him away; but if thou dost not know him, he shall serve with me yet another year.” So the man went with Oh. They came to his hut, and Oh took whole handfuls of millet and scattered it about, and myriads of cocks came running up and pecked it. “Well, dost thou know thy son again?” said Oh. The man stared and stared. There was nothing but cocks, and one cock was just like another. He could not pick out his son. “Well,” said Oh, “as thou dost not know him, go home again; this year thy son must remain in my service.” So the man went home again.
The second year passed away, and the man again went to Oh. He came to the charred stumps and said, “Oh!” and Oh popped out of the tree-stump again. “Come!” said he, “and see if thou canst recognize him now.” Then he took him to a sheep-pen, and there were rows and rows of rams, and one ram was just like another. The man stared and stared, but he could not pick out his son. “Thou mayst as well go home then,” said Oh, “but thy son shall live with me yet another year.” So the man went away, sad at heart.
The third year also passed away, and the man came again to find Oh. He went on and on till there met him an old man all as white as milk, and the raiment of this old man was glistening white. “Hail to thee, O man!” said he.––“Hail to thee also, my father!”––“Whither doth God lead thee?”––“I am going to 20 free my son from Oh.”––“How so?”––Then the man told the old white father how he had hired out his son to Oh and under what conditions.––“Aye, aye!” said the old white father, “ ’tis a vile pagan thou hast to deal with; he will lead thee about by the nose for a long time.”––“Yes,” said the man, “I perceive that he is a vile pagan; but I know not what in the world to do with him. Canst thou not tell me then, dear father, how I may recover my son?”––“Yes, I can,” said the old man.––“Then prythee tell me, darling father, and I’ll pray for thee to God all my life, for though he has not been much of a son to me, he is still my own flesh and blood.”––“Hearken, then!” said the old man; “when thou dost go to Oh, he will let loose a multitude of doves before thee, but choose not one of these doves. The dove thou shalt choose must be the one that comes not out, but remains sitting beneath the pear-tree pruning its feathers; that will be thy son.” Then the man thanked the old white father and went on.
He came to the charred stumps. “Oh!” cried he, and out came Oh and led him to his sylvan realm. There Oh scattered about handfuls of wheat and called his doves, and there flew down such a multitude of them that there was no counting them, and one dove was just like another. “Dost thou recognize thy son?” asked Oh. “An thou knowest him again, he is thine; an thou knowest him not, he is mine.” Now all the doves there were pecking at the wheat, all but one that sat alone beneath the pear-tree, sticking out its breast and pruning its feathers. “That is my son,” said the man.––“Since thou hast guessed him, take him,” replied Oh. Then the father took the dove, and immediately it 21 changed into a handsome young