Russian Fairy Tales (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library) by Afanas'Ev Aleksandr

Author:Afanas'Ev, Aleksandr [Afanas'Ev, Aleksandr]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307829764
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2013-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

THE GRUMBLING OLD WOMAN

NIGHT AND DAY a certain old stepmother grumbled—one wondered why her tongue did not ache! She grumbled always at her stepdaughter: the girl was not clever enough and not pretty enough; no matter where she went or sat or stood, it was never right, never as it should be! And so the stepmother grumbled from dawn to dark like a gusla all wound up. She wearied her husband to death, and everyone else too felt like running away from the house. One day the husband harnessed a horse to carry millet to town, and his wife cried: “Take your daughter too, take her anywhere you want, to the dark forest, only get her out of my way!”

The old man took his daughter. It was a long and difficult road, with woods and swamps all around; where could he leave the maiden? He spied a little hut on chicken legs, supported by a cake and covered with a pancake; and the little hut turned round and round. He thought it would be best to leave his daughter in this little hut; so he put her down from his cart, gave her some millet for gruel, whipped his horse, and vanished from sight. The maiden remained alone; she pounded some millet and cooked a great deal of gruel, but there was no one to eat it. Night came, long and terrifying; she felt that to sleep would wear out her sides, to look at the dark would tire her eyes, and there was no one to exchange a word with. It was boring and fearsome. She stood on the threshold, opened the door nearest the forest, and called out: “Whoever is in the forest, in the dark night, let him come be my guest!” A wood goblin answered her call and turned into a brave youth, a Novgorod merchant; he came into the little hut and brought a present for his hostess. After that he came in for a chat quite often and sometimes he would bring her a gift; he brought her so many gifts that there was no place to put them.

Meanwhile the grumbling old woman found life empty without her stepdaughter; it was quiet in her house, she felt queasy, and her tongue was parched. “Go, husband,” she said, “get my stepdaughter, raise her up from the bottom of the sea, snatch her out of the fire! I am old, I am sickly, there is no one to tend me.” The husband did as she asked; the stepdaughter returned. When she opened her coffer and hung out her things on a rope that stretched from the house to the gate, the old woman, who had opened her mouth to greet her in her customary abusive way, pursed up her lips, seated the welcome guest under the icon, and said to her civilly: “What is your pleasure, madam?”

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