FAIRY TALES (text) - 56. A MAN CAN NEVER LIVE ON HIS OWN

A MAN CAN NEVER LIVE ON HIS OWN

Once upon a time there was a father who had only a son. One day, the son was blowing his own trumpet to his father and said:

 So that you know father, I am the bravest and the most wonderful person in the world. So I am setting off to travel the world.

Oh no son, don’t talk like that, – said his father. –a man can never live lonely, so you’d better stay home.

But the boy insisted and set off to travel around the world. He saw a man somewhere, who took the breath out of his mind and gyrated two mills. Once he closed one of the nostrils, then the other one, but the strong puff never stopped.

Wow, this man never stops the puff! –the boy was thinking.

Then he went and aimed at him with mace on his back, but he did not stop the wind. The boy beat him again but he still did not stop the wind. He hit for the third time, then the man turned to the boy and said:

Oh, a flea bit me!

He saw the boy but felt sorry and couldn’t eat him with a bite and said:

If you want to rescue yourself, run away and do not stop the run for six days and six nights, but if I catch you then, I’ll eat you.

And son ran for six days and six nights and didn’t stop, until he saw a man who was plowing the field with twelve oxen.

– Good man, – said the boy – someone is running towards me and will eat me, so please help me hide because I don’t know where to go.

– Come here – said the man and put him into his mouth.

The man who gyrated the mills came and asked the one who was plowing the land:

Have you seen a boy passing around here?

– No, no one has passed here since I came to plow – he said.

So the man who gyrated the mills turned back empty-handed.

– Come out, you’re rescued this time, – said the man to the boy.

Then the boy went back home and said to his father:

Father, from what I saw out there, your words were so true: a man can never live on his own. I’d better stay here and help you than go and live alone out there.