Serbian Folk-lore. Anonymous

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СКАЧАТЬ the girl said, ‘Nothing has bitten you; a man struck you!’

      When Moustachio heard that he jumped up, but Bear’s son had thrown away his mace and ran away. Moustachio pursued him, and though the Bear’s son was lighter than he, and had gotten the start of him a considerable distance, he would not give up pursuing him.

      At length the Bear’s son, in the course of his flight, came to a wide river, and found, near it, some men threshing corn. ‘Help me, my brothers, help—for God’s sake!’ he cried; ‘help! Moustachio is pursuing me! What shall I do? How can I get across the river?’ One of the men stretched out his shovel, saying, ‘Here! sit down on it, and I will throw you over the river!’ The Bear’s son sat on the shovel, and the man threw him over the water to the other shore. Soon after Moustachio came up, and asked, ‘Has any one passed here?’ The threshers replied that a man had passed. Moustachio demanded, ‘How did he cross the river?’ They answered, ‘He sprang over.’ Then Moustachio went back a little to take a start, and with a hop he sprang to the other side, and continued to pursue the Bear’s son. Meanwhile this last, running hastily up a hill, got very tired. At the top of the hill he found a man sowing, and the sack with seeds was hanging on his neck. After every handful of seed sown in the ground, the man put a handful in his mouth and eat them. The Bear’s son shouted to him, ‘Help, brother, help!—for God’s sake! Moustachio is following me, and will soon catch me! Hide me somewhere!’ Then the man said, ‘Indeed, it is no joke to have Moustachio pursuing you. But I have nowhere to hide you, unless in this sack among the seeds.’ So he put him in the sack. When Moustachio came up to the sower he asked him if he had seen the Bear’s son anywhere? The man replied, ‘Yes, he passed by long ago, and God knows where he has got before this!’

      Then Moustachio went back again. By-and-by the sower forgot that Bear’s son was in his sack, and he took him out with a handful of seeds, and put him in his mouth. Then Bear’s son was afraid of being swallowed, so he looked round the mouth quickly, and, seeing a hollow tooth, hid himself in it.

      When the sower returned home in the evening, he called to his sisters-in-law, ‘Children, give me my toothpick! There is something in my broken tooth.’ The sisters-in-law brought him two iron picks, and, standing one on each side, they poked about with the two picks in his tooth till the Bear’s son jumped out. Then the man remembered him, and said, ‘What bad luck you have! I had nearly swallowed you.’

      After they had taken supper they talked about many different things, till at last the Bear’s son asked what had happened to break that one tooth, whilst the others were all strong and healthy. Then the man told him in these words: ‘Once upon a time ten of us started with thirty horses to the sea-shore to buy some salt. We found a girl in a field watching sheep, and she asked us where we were going. We said we were going to the sea-shore to buy salt. She said, “Why go so far? I have in the bag in my hand here some salt which remained over after feeding the sheep. I think it will be enough for you.” So we settled about the price, and then she took the salt from her bag, whilst we took the sacks from the thirty horses, and we weighed the salt and filled the sacks with it till all the thirty sacks were full. We then paid the girl, and returned home. It was a very fine autumn day but as we were crossing a high mountain, the sky became very cloudy and it began to snow, and there was a cold north wind, so that we could not see our path and wandered about here and there. At last, by good luck, one of us shouted, “Here, brothers! Here is a dry place!” So we went in one after the other till we were all, with the thirty horses, under shelter. Then we took the sacks from the horses, made a good fire, and passed the night there as if it were a house. Next morning, just think what we saw! We were all in one man’s head, which lay in the midst of some vineyards; and whilst we were yet wondering and loading our horses, the keeper of the vineyards came and picked the head up. He put it in a sling and slinging it about several times, threw it over his head, and cast it far away over the vines to frighten the starlings away from his grapes. So we rolled down a hill, and it was then that I broke my tooth.’

THE WONDERFUL KIOSK.

       Table of Contents

      ONCE upon a time there lived a king, who had three sons and one daughter. The daughter was kept by her father for safety in a cage, since he cared for her as for his own eyes. When the girl grew up, she one evening asked her father to let her walk a little with her brothers in the front of the palace, and her father granted her request. She had hardly, however, taken a step outside the door of the palace before a dragon came down, caught her away from her brothers, and flew up with her into the clouds.

      The three brothers ran as quickly as they could, and told their father what had happened to their sister, and asked him to let them go in search of her. To this their father consented, and gave each of them a horse, and other needful things for their travelling, and they went away to find their sister. After they had travelled a long time, they came in sight of a kiosk, which was neither in the sky nor yet on the earth, but hung mid-way between both. On coming near it, they began to think that their sister might be in it, and they consulted together how they might contrive to reach it. After much deliberation they settled that one of them should kill his horse, make a thong out of the hide, and fastening one end of the thong to an arrow, shoot it from the bow so that it should strike deep in the side of the kiosk, and that thus they might be able to climb up to it. The youngest brother proposed to the eldest that he should kill his horse, but this he refused to do. In like manner the second brother refused, so that nothing remained but that the youngest should kill his horse, which he did and made a long thong out of the hide; to this he tied an arrow, which he shot towards the kiosk.

      The question was then asked, who would climb up the thong? The eldest brother declared that he would not; the second also refused, and thus it was the youngest was forced to climb up. When he had reached the kiosk he went from room to room, until at length he found his sister sitting with the dragon sleeping with his head upon her knee, while she passed her fingers through the hair of his head.

      When she saw her brother she was very much frightened, and made signs for him to go away before the dragon woke up. But this her brother would not do, and instead of going away took his mace and struck with all his might on the head of the dragon. The dragon moved his paw a little towards the place where he had been struck, and said to the maiden, ‘I felt something bite me just here.’ As he spoke the king’s son gave him another blow, and the dragon said again, ‘I felt something bite me just here.’ When the brother lifted his mace to strike the third time, the sister pointed and showed him where to strike at the life of the dragon. So he struck at the life, and the dragon immediately fell down dead, and the king’s daughter pushed him from her knee and ran quickly to her brother and kissed him. Then she took him by the hand and began to show him the various rooms of the kiosk.

      First, she took him into a room where a black horse stood ready to be mounted, with all his riding-gear on him, and the whole of the harness was of pure silver.

      She then led him to a second room, and in it stood a white horse, also saddled and bridled, and his harness was entirely of pure gold.

      At last the sister took her brother into a third room, and there stood a cream-coloured horse, and the reins and stirrups and saddle, which were on him, were all thickly studded with precious stones.

      After passing through these three rooms, she led him to a room where a young maiden sat behind a golden tambourette, busily engaged in embroidering with golden thread.

      From this room they went into another, where a girl was spinning gold thread, and again into another room where a girl sat threading pearls, and before her, on a golden plate, was a golden hen with her chickens, sorting the pearls.

      Having seen all these things, the brother went back to the room where the dragon lay dead, and threw him down to the earth, and СКАЧАТЬ