Russian Folktales

so rich?”

Then the peasant told him the bare truth⁠—how Sorrow had followed on his heels and how he and his Sorrow had gone into the inn, and he had drunk away all his goods and chattels to the last shred, until he had only his soul left in his body; and then how Sorrow had showed him the treasure-trove in the field, and he had thus freed himself from the thralldom of Sorrow.

And the rich man became envious and thought: “I will go into the field and will lift the stone up. Sorrow will rend my brother’s body asunder, so that he cannot then brag of his riches in front of me.”

So he left his wife behind and drove into the field, to the big stone. He whirled it off to the side and bowed down to see what was under the stone. And he had hardly bowed down, when Sorrow sprang up and sat on his shoulders.

“O!” Sorrow cried. “You wanted to leave me here under the earth. Now I shall never depart from you.”

“Listen, Sorrow: I was not the person who locked you up here!”

“Who was it, then, if it was not you?”

“My brother. I came in order to set you free.”

“No, you are lying and deceiving me again. This time it shall not come off.”

So Sorrow sat fast on the wretched merchant’s shoulders. He brought Sorrow with him home, and his household went from bad to worse. Sorrow began early in the morning enticing the merchant into the beerhouse day after day, and much property was drunk away.

“This life is absolutely unbearable!” thought the merchant. “I have done Sorrow too good a service. I must now set myself free from him. How shall I?” So he thought and he thought it out. He went into his courtyard, cut two oak wedges, took a new wheel, and knocked one wedge from one end into the axle. He went up to Sorrow. “Now, Sorrow, must you lie about like that?”

“What should I be doing? What else is there to do?”

“Come into the courtyard; let us play hide-and-seek.”

This suited Sorrow down to the ground, and at first the merchant hid and Sorrow found him at once.

Then Sorrow had to hide. “You will not find me so easily: I can hide myself in any crack.”

“What!” said the merchant. “Why, you could never get into this wheel, much less into a crack!”

“What! I could not get into the wheel? Just look how I manage to hide myself in it!”

So Sorrow crept into the wheel, and the merchant took the other oak wedge and drove it into the hub from the other side, and threw the wheel, with Sorrow inside, into the river. Sorrow was drowned, and the merchant lived as before.

Iváshko and the Wise Woman

Once there lived an old man and an old dame, and they only had one little son, and you can’t imagine how they loved him.

One day Iváshechko asked his mother and father, “Please may I go and catch fish?”

“What nonsense! you’re much too little yet: you might get drowned, and that would be a fine story.”

“Oh, no, I won’t get drowned. I’ll go and catch you a fish: let me go!”

So grandfather gave him a little white shirt to wear, with a big red sash, and off he went. Soon he was sitting in a boat and singing:

Little boat, little boat, sail far away,
O’er the blue water away and away.

The little skiff sailed far and far away and Iváshechko started fishing. Soon, how long I don’t know, up came the mother to the shore and said:

Iváshechko, Iváshechko, my little son,
Up to the shore let your little boat run:
Here is some drink and here is a bun!

And Iváshechko said:

Little boat, little boat, sail to the shore:
My mother’s calling me.

The little skiff sailed up to the shore; the woman took the fish and fed her little boy, changed his shirt and sash and sent him out again to catch fish. And there he sat on the boat and sang:

Little boat, little boat, sail far away,
O’er the blue water away and away.

The little boat sailed out so far away, and Iváshechko started fishing. Soon the grandfather came to the shore and called his son:

Iváshechko, Iváshechko, my little son,
Up to the shore let your little boat run:
Here is some drink and here is a bun!

And Iváshechko said:

Little boat, little boat, sail to the shore:
For father’s calling me!

The little skiff sailed up to the shore; the grandfather took the fish and fed his little boy, changed his shirt and sash and sent him out again to catch fish. And there he sat on the boat and sang:

Little boat, little boat, sail far away,
O’er the blue water away and away.

Now the wise woman saw how his grandparents called Iváshechko, and wanted to get hold of the boy. So she came to the shore and called out:

Iváshechko, Iváshechko, my little son,
Up to the shore let your little boat run:
Here is some drink and here is a bun!

But Iváshechko knew the voice, and whose voice it was. So he sang:

Little boat, little boat, sail far away,
O’er the blue water away and away.
The Evil Woman’s calling me

So the wise woman saw she must act the mother’s voice, so she ran to the smith and asked him, “Smith, just forge me a thin little voice like the one Iváshechko’s mother has, or I’ll eat you up!” So the smith forged the voice just like the mother’s. So up she went to the shore and sang:

Iváshechko, Iváshechko, my little son,
Up to the shore let your little boat run:
Here is some drink and here is a bun!

Iváshechko sailed up; she took the fish and seized and took Iváshechko himself away. When she reached home, she told her daughter Alyónka: “Just make my stove nice and hot and cook Iváshechko all through. I’ll go assemble my guests.”

And Alyónka heated the stove very