Devil and potter with clay jugs Print

Russian folktale Potter A potter rides in an expensive way; to meet him a passerby: “Hire,” he says, “me to the workers!” - Do you know how to make pots? - Just as I know how! They got it right, shook hands and drove together. They come home, the worker and says: “Well, master, prepare forty carts of clay, tomorrow I will take up work!” The master prepared forty carts of clay; but the worker was unclean himself, and he punishes the potter: “I will work at night, and you don’t go to my barn!” - Why so? - Well, that’s so! You will come - you will make troubles! It was a dark night; just at twelve o'clock he shouted unclean in a loud voice, and the devils gathered to him, apparently invisibly, began to sculpt pots, there was thunder, knock, laughter throughout the yard. The owner could not stand it: - Let me go - I'll see! Comes to the barn, looked into the crack - devils sit on their haunches and sculpt pots; only one lame one doesn’t work, looks around, sees the owner, grabs a lump of clay and as soon as it starts up - and he gets him in the eye! The owner shook his eyes in one eye and returned to the hut, but in the barn there, yes, laughter was more than ever! The next morning the worker says: - Hey, master! Go pots count how much has been accumulated in one night. The owner counted - forty thousand has been accumulated. - Well, now prepare me ten fathoms of firewood; tonight I will burn the pots. Exactly at midnight, again screamed an unclean loud voice; imps ran to him from all over, killed all the pots, left the skull in the oven and let’s burn. And the owner crossed the click and looks. “Well,” he thinks, “the job was gone!” The next day, his employee calls: - Look, did you do well? The owner comes to watch - all forty thousand pots stand intact, one is better than one! On the third night he called unclean imp, painted the pots with different colors, and left everything to the last one. The owner of the market day waited and took the pots to the city for sale; and the unclean one ordered his little devils to run through all the houses, along all the streets and the people to click — to buy pots. Now the people tumbled down to the bazaar: they surrounded us on all sides of the potter and in half an hour all the goods were taken apart. A man came home and brought a bag full of money. “Well,” the unclean one tells him, “let's divide the profits.” Divided in half. The devil took his part, said goodbye to the owner and disappeared. A week later, a man went with pots to the city; no matter how much he stood in the market, nobody buys; all bypass him, and scold him in every possible way: - We know your pots, old horseradish! It looks like kazists, and if you pour water - now they will fall apart! No, brother, now you can’t cheat. Stopped taking pots from him; the peasant completely impoverished, washed down with grief and began to wallow in taverns.