Once upon a time there were two brothers. One of them was very poor and lived in a small house with his wife and son. The other, who was unmarried, was very rich and lived in a large house.
The rich brother never did anything to help his less fortunate brother. He was much too busy showing off to his rich friends to have any time for his poor brother and his family. In fact, he was rather ashamed of him.
Naturally, the poor brother was very surprised when one day he received an Continue reading
There were once three sisters who lived by themselves in the heart of the thick forest. The two elder sisters were mean and bad tempered, but the youngest sister was very kind hearted and helpful.
Every summer they used to go out into the forest to collect all the different kinds of berries which were there, and there were so many berries to pick that it was often growing dark before they returned home.
One summer evening the eldest sister had just filled her basket when she Continue reading
“Thank you, Antipka,” she said sweetly. “I heard everything. I don’t know how to thank you.”
Before Antipka could reply, the merchant and his wife rushed in and first hugged their daughter and then hugged Antipka. Then the merchant beamed and his wife burst into tears again.
“You shall name your reward, my friend,” said the merchant. “Go away and think it over. And then come back and ask for whatever you want and you shall have Continue reading
The merchant’s daughter, who was very beautiful, lay quietly hiccoughing and sneezing between silken sheets. The shutters were closed and it was quite dim in the room, but Antipka could see what he wanted to see – the stove. Bending down on hands and knees, he peered under it and called, “Come out. I know you’re there. I can see you.”
“No fear,” came the hobgoblin’s voice. “You might try to catch me, and I’ve never been so Continue reading
Antipka felt that he knew the answer. It must be the hobgoblin who was making the rich merchant’s daughter ill. Now was Antipka’s chance to catch the nasty little creature and to do the merchant and his daughter a service at the same time.
“My daughter is ill, my wife has taken to her bed with grief, and I am absolutely wretched with worry,” moaned the merchant. “If only I knew the man who could cure my beautiful girl, I would make him very rich Continue reading
The next morning Antipka quickly gathered up all the odd pieces of rope he could find, and knotted them together until he had made one very very long rope out of them. He wasn’t an unkind man at heart and he didn’t want to leave his wife in the mud at the bottom of the pit for too long.
With his rope coiled over his shoulder and under his arm he bounced along the road, whistling to himself.
“Hee hawwww”, brayed Sasha’s donkey.
“Be Continue reading
Feeling please with his morning’s work, he took up his basket and hummed to himself as he made his way back home. “I wouldn’t want to hurt her,” he thought, “but it would do her good to sit at the bottom of a cold, dark pit for just one night.”
The sound of the latch woke up his wife, who had been asleep all the morning in front of the stove.
“What time do you call this?” she demanded. “And look at the basket: it’s not Continue reading
She was such a big woman and Antipka was such a small, mild young man that he always got the worst of their arguments. And so to calm her down he said quietly, “If you would like to go picking cranberries, my dear, I’ll go indoors and do the washing-up and the housework.”
“That’s right,” shrieked his wife. “That’s you all over. Trust a man to choose the light work and send his poor wife off to break her back and catch her death of cold Continue reading
Early one morning Antipka was sitting sadly on the steps of his little wooden house, sunk in thought. He had plenty to be happy about: a cosy home which he had built himself, a nice plot of ground and a good crop of cabbages and sunflowers. And yet one thing made him miserable; he had married a bad-tempered woman. When he first knew her she seemed such a sweet young girl and then, immediately after the wedding, she became spiteful and irritable, and now Antipka’s life was absolute Continue reading
