I don’t know, maybe before that, what is truly told in this story could not have happened. But before that, lions didn’t jump into burning hoops, and elephants didn’t walk in front of a person, let’s say, “on their hind legs.” Why shouldn't a camel crawl through the inaccessible eye of a needle now? ..
So, once a very rich man voluntarily and without any receipts distributed all his huge fortune to poor people. We will not dwell on how he managed to do all this legally, we will only note that there was much more wealth than those poor people who got it during the division. The lucky ones sincerely thanked their benefactor, prayed for him, invited him to visit the newly built houses. The rich man felt truly happy and satisfied. But after a while they stopped inviting him, now they greeted him only from afar and, if there was such an opportunity, they went around as much as four miles. The clothes of the rich man had worn out by that time, and only his gait remained the same confident and independent.
He is not at all like us! - the former poor people were now discussing the former rich man. - He has nothing, and he behaves as if
he is richer than us!
- Hey, you! If you continue to turn up your nose, we will beat you! - repeatedly warned him.
But the rich man did not want to change himself, he did not want to succumb to rudeness, ignorance,
anger. He rejoiced when things went uphill for another, he still continued to wear a tie and would never agree to pick his nose with his finger, as his neighbors did.
- You probably really want to get into the Kingdom of Heaven? - the poor people incited him when he distributed the earned money to the poor. - But you won't get there, because you remain as rich as you were. You still have the same walk of a rich man, the same manners and habits, and in general, none of us poor people will ever voluntarily distribute money to the poor!
- Become a beggar if you really want to get into your Heavenly Kingdom!
The poor people could not understand what was happening. Desperate, they pronounced their sentence on the rich man and stopped greeting him when they met. There was nothing left for him to do but quit his job, sew a bag for himself and go into poverty. I must say that he lived very calmly among the same, like him, all abandoned people. His gait and appearance were of no interest to anyone there. Gathering at the end of each day in the doss-houses, the beggars did not ask the newcomer where he put his hard-begged crumbs. Seeing that he was hungry, they shared with him without reproach. But even here they flatly refused to believe that this strange beggar had once been a very rich man.
- The rich will never voluntarily become a beggar, - the inhabitants of the slums suspiciously whispered behind him, - a beggar can become rich, but again for a while, until his wealth exceeds the wealth of the rich. But for the rich to become poor is even unfair.
- What if he really is the same Rich Beggar? - whispered someone from the crowd and crossed himself.
Everyone fell silent at once, meticulously trying to look into the soul of their new brother.
- Well, let's fold, how much can anyone? one of the new beggars suggested sagely.
- What are we, poor or what, what? - the beggar supported him more impressively. - Let's drop who has how much!
He was the first to approach the Rich Beggar and put all his savings into his bag - take it, look for your Kingdom!
Donations from other beggars poured into the same bag. Only now it was different money, unlike the one that the rich man had before. And they rustled now, like the hands of a mother, affectionately stroking her unlucky child on the head.
Why, my friends? - Through tears, the Rich Beggar tried to stop them. - I don't need any of that!
“Take it, take it,” they generously patted him on the shoulder, “it will come in handy for you.”
- Since you are a rich man, therefore, you should have wealth.
Take it, friend, take it! beggars cheered him on all sides.
Having equipped it as it should be on the road and, having called a taxi, the beggars said a touching goodbye to the now really rich beggar:
“You… it… if you find it… the Kingdom of Heaven, let us know.”
- Well, if you don't find it, come, don't hesitate.
- And do not distribute more of your wealth to the poor, from this they become even poorer.
The rich Beggar from the taxi looked into the eyes of the mourners and for the first time in his life wept at the sight of truly rich people...
The taxi took the Rich Beggar to the Kingdom of Heaven, and the beggars stood on the road for a long time, hoping that he would change his mind and return.
What does "Russian Siberian fairy tale" mean? Is this a special fairy tale, different from those that existed in the European part of Russia or in the Russian North? Of course not. Any fairy tale has its roots in deep antiquity, in a pre-class society, when nations and nationalities had not yet formed. This is one of the reasons why many fairy tales are international.
“To some extent, a fairy tale is a symbol of the unity of peoples. Peoples understand each other in their fairy tales,” wrote V.Ya. Propp. The tale is structurally incredibly stable, it is anonymous, it has no authors. This is a collective product. Folklore has recorded the names of unique storytellers, but not authors.
A fairy tale, like other folklore genres - songs, riddles, proverbs, traditions, legends, epics - came to Siberia along with pioneers and settlers from beyond the Urals. “Going to a new fatherland, the settlers took with them, as the treasured heritage of their ancestors, beliefs, fairy tales and songs about the epics of the past,” wrote one of the first collectors and researchers of Siberian folklore S.I. Gulyaev. He believed that "beliefs, fairy tales and songs" are common to the entire Russian people "over the entire immeasurable space of the Russian land", "but in Siberia there are almost more of them than in all other places."
These lines refer to 1839, but such a view was not characteristic of many researchers, ethnographers, writers of fiction - researchers who wrote about Siberia. The view on the tradition of oral poetic creativity in Siberia was, rather, directly opposite up to late XIX V.
The specificity of the Siberian fairy tale
First of all, it must be said that a fairy tale, especially a fairy tale, is very difficult to undergo any significant changes. You can read dozens of fairy tales recorded in Siberia, but you can never determine the place or time of their recording.
Nevertheless, the Russian Siberian fairy tale has certain specific features. These features are determined by the specifics of Siberian life, economic life of the past. The fairy tale reflects the worldview of its bearers. The very preservation of the fairy-tale tradition in Siberia, especially in the taiga village, is explained by the presence here of a relatively archaic way of life in the recent past. No roads, almost complete isolation of many settlements from the outside world, hunting life, artel work, lack of education, secular book tradition, remoteness from cultural centers - all this contributed to the preservation of traditional folklore in Siberia.
Siberia since the end of the 16th century. became a place of exile, this also left its mark on the fairy-tale tradition. Many storytellers were exiles, settlers or vagabonds who paid with a fairy tale for lodging and refreshments. Hence, by the way, one very striking feature of the Siberian fairy tale is the complexity of the composition, the multiplot. The tramp, who wanted to stay longer with his hosts, had to try to captivate them with a long tale that would not end before dinner, would not end in one evening, or even in two, three or more. So did the storytellers invited to work in the artel specifically for the entertainment of the artel workers. They often combined several plots in one narrative so that the fairy tale was told all night or several evenings in a row. Narrators were especially respected by artel workers, they were specially allocated a part of the booty or proceeds.
Details of local life penetrate the Siberian fairy tale. Her hero, often a hunter, ends up not in a fairy forest, but in the taiga. He comes not to a hut on chicken legs, but to a hunting lodge. In the Siberian fairy tale there are names of Siberian rivers, villages, this or that locality, the motif of vagrancy, wandering is typical. In general, the Siberian fairy tale is part of the all-Russian fairy tale wealth and belongs to the Eastern Slavic fairy tale tradition.
An analysis of some plots of a fairy tale will help to better understand on what basis and why exactly such plots arose in the fairy tale tradition. At the same time, it must be remembered that the fairy tale is included in the system of folklore genres; in isolation, it does not exist by itself. The genres of folklore are interconnected by many sometimes subtle connections, and it is an important task for a researcher to discover and show them. I have taken one of the aspects of folklore - secret speech and fairy tales associated with it.
Prohibitions and secret language
Most fairy tales, especially fairy tale, telling about "a distant kingdom, a distant state" and various miracles, are incomprehensible to the reader. Why do these and not other heroes, wonderful helpers, act in a fairy tale, and why does everything happen in this way and not otherwise? Sometimes even the dialogues of the characters seem too exotic, far-fetched. For example, in the fairy tale "The Rich and the Poor" it is not clear why the master needs to call the cat - "clarity", the fire - "redness", the tower - "height", and the water - "grace":
A beggar came to a rich man to hire himself. The rich man agreed to take him on the condition that he guess the riddles given to him. Shows the rich beggar to the cat and asks:
- What's this?
- Cat.
No, it's clarity.
Shows the rich to the fire and says:
- And what's that?
- Fire.
No, it's red.
Indulges in the attic:
- And what's that?
- Tower.
No, height.
Indicates water:
- And what's that?
- Water.
Thanks, you didn't guess.
The beggar went out of the yard, and the cat followed him. The beggar took it and set fire to her tail. The cat ran back, jumped into the attic, and the house was busy. The people fled, and the beggar returned, and he said to the rich:
- Your clarity dragged the redness to the heights, grace will not help - you will not own the house.
Such tales need to be specially investigated, looking for those representations in the real life of the past with which the tale is closely connected. The vast majority of fairy-tale motifs find their explanation in the life and ideas about the world of a person of past eras.
The tale "The rich and the poor" has its own explanation. There is no doubt that it is connected with the so-called "secret speech". But before talking about this, it is necessary to make one remark. When we want to penetrate into the nature of folklore or ancient literature, for example, when we try to understand the origins of this or that plot, image, we must first of all abstract ourselves from all modern ideas about the world. Otherwise, you can come to wrong conclusions.
A fairy tale is a product of past eras and the worldview of the past. Proceeding from this, it is necessary to “decipher” the fairy tale. The ideas of ancient man about the world were very special. ancient man even laughed “not like that” and not for the reason why we are laughing now. And which of us would think that swinging on a swing or riding an ice slide has its own secret meaning, something other than a fun holiday entertainment?
The life of an ancient person was strictly regulated by ritual, tradition, filled with many different prescriptions and prohibitions. There was, for example, a ban on pronouncing certain names under certain circumstances. Ancient man had a completely different attitude to the word. The word for him was part of what it meant. J. Fraser writes about this in his work The Golden Bough:
“Primitive man, unable to distinguish clearly between words and things, usually imagines that the connection between a name and the person or thing that it designates is not an arbitrary and ideal association, but a real, materially tangible tie that connected them. so closely that it is just as easy to exert a magical effect on a person through a name as through hair, nails, or another part of his body. Primitive man regards his name as an essential part of himself and takes proper care of it.
The name had to be kept secret, pronounced only in certain situations. Knowing the name of the enemy, it was possible to harm him through magic and sorcery: "The natives do not doubt that, having learned their secret names, the foreigner received an opportunity to harm by magic," writes Fraser. Therefore, many ancient peoples used to give two names each: one real, which was kept in deep secret, the second was known to everyone. Witchcraft allegedly worked only when using the original name.
J. Fraser gives an example of how a person caught stealing was corrected in the Kaffir tribe. To correct a thief, "it is enough just to shout his name over a boiling cauldron of healing water, cover the cauldron with a lid and leave the thief's name in the water for several days." Moral revival was provided to him.
Another example of magical faith in the word concerns the custom of the Negroes of the Bangal tribe of the Upper Congo. When a member of this tribe "fishes or returns from a catch, his name is temporarily banned. Everyone calls the fisherman mwele no matter what his real name is. This is done because the river is full of spirits, who, having heard the real name of the fisherman, can use it in order to prevent him from returning with a good catch. Even after the catch is landed, the buyers keep calling the fisherman mwele. For the spirits—when they heard his real name—would remember him and either get even with him the next day, or spoil the fish he had already caught so much that he would get little for it. Therefore, the fisherman has the right to receive a large fine from anyone who calls him by name, or to force this frivolous talker to buy the entire catch at a high price in order to restore good luck in the fishery.
Such representations were characteristic, obviously, of all ancient peoples. They were afraid to pronounce not only the names of people, but in general any names of creatures and objects with which the corresponding representations were associated. In particular, bans on pronouncing the names of animals, fish, and birds were widespread. These prohibitions were explained by man's anthropomorphic ideas about nature.
Comparison is at the heart of human knowledge. Knowing the world, a person compares objects, phenomena, identifies common and features. The first idea of a person is the idea of himself, the awareness of himself. If people can move, speak, understand, hear, see, then in the same way they can hear, see, understand fish, birds, animals, and trees - all nature, the cosmos. Man animates the world around him. Anthropomorphism - likening the surrounding world to a person - is a necessary step in the development of mankind, in the development of its ideas about the surrounding world.
Anthropomorphic ideas and verbal prohibitions that arose on their basis were also recorded among the Eastern Slavic peoples. Russian traveler and explorer of the 18th century. S.P. Krasheninnikov in his book "Description of the land of Kamchatka" (1755) reports on the remains of an ancient secret speech among Russian hunters. S.P. Krasheninnikov writes that the elder in the sable trade “orders”, “so that they hunt with the truth, they would not hide anything to themselves ... also, according to the custom of their ancestors, a crow, a snake and a cat should not be called by direct names, but would be called riding, thin and baked. The industrialists say that in previous years, in the fields, many more things were called strange names, for example: a church - a sharp-topped one, a woman - a husk or a white-headed one, a girl - a commoner, a horse - a long-tailed one, a cow - a roar, a sheep - thin-legged, a pig - low-eyed, a rooster - barefoot." The industrialists considered the sable a smart animal and, in case of violation of the ban, they believed that it would harm and would not be caught again. Violation of the ban was punished.
The question of verbal prohibitions among hunters was discussed by D.K. Zelenin in the work "Taboo of words among peoples of Eastern Europe and North Asia" (1929-1930). He considers the basis of the prohibitions of hunters and fishermen “first of all, the confidence of the primitive hunter that animals and game that understand the human language hear at very large distances - they hear not only everything that the hunter says in the forest while fishing, but often also what what he says at home, going to fish.
Learning from the conversations of the hunter his plans, the animals flee, as a result of which the hunt becomes unsuccessful. To warn so backfire, the hunter, first of all, avoids pronouncing the names of animals ... So it became forbidden on the hunt proper names game animals."
It is not surprising that as forbidden word Russian hunters also mention a church. East Slavs until recently, they retained many pagan ideas dating back to pre-Christian history, pre-class society. pagan beliefs right up to the present, they coexisted with Christian ones, but not peacefully and harmlessly, but rather antagonistically. Widespread persecution of traditional folk holidays, games, amusements, etc. by the Russian Church is known. This did not pass without a trace for folk art, including fairy tales. Demonological pagan creatures oppose Christian characters in folklore - this is the result of the struggle of the Russian church with folk beliefs. “Mountain father,” testifies A.A. Misyurev about the beliefs of the miners of the Urals, is the antipode of the Orthodox God and the worst enemy of church rites. “I am the same person as everyone else, I just don’t have a cross on me, my mother cursed me,” writes D.K. Zelenin.
After the adoption of Christianity, mermaids, for example, began to be thought of as girls who died unbaptized; the appearances of a goblin, a brownie, a devil, a demon often acquire similar features - a kind of general demonological image is formed. Christ never laughs, in medieval Moscow there was even a ban on laughter, and in bylichki laughter is a sign of evil spirits. Mermaid laughing, tickling kills people. Laughter is a sign of the devil, damn it. With a squeal and laughter, creatures born from the connection of the devil with a mortal woman disappear from the eyes. There are a lot of interesting links here that need to be specially investigated.
Naturally, the Russian hunter in the taiga, in the forest, was afraid to mention the Christian God or other characters. sacred history, church, priest. With this, he could anger the owners of the forest, injure himself in a successful hunt, and therefore concealed his intentions. Hence the well-known saying “no fluff, no feather”, which was said before the hunter went out to hunt.
In the same way, a Christian was afraid to mention the name of the devil, to curse, especially in front of icons or in church, this was the greatest sacrilege. There are many stories in folklore in which the devil, the goblin appear immediately after the mention of their names and do what they were asked to do, voluntarily or involuntarily.
The culture of riddles
The secret speech was brought to us not only by a fairy tale, but also by a riddle. And in the riddle, it was reflected most fully. Try to guess the riddle:
Rynda digs, skinda jumps,
Thurman is coming, he'll eat you.
In this case, the answer is a pig, a hare and a wolf. Answers to such riddles must be known in advance, they are associated with a secret speech. There is no doubt that riddles taught secret speech, substitute words. Riddles were made at special evenings, and young, inexperienced members of the community, guessing them, learned secret speech. Here are some more examples of such riddles:
Shuru-muru came,
Carried away chiki-kicks,
The minnows saw
The inhabitants were told:
The inhabitants of Shuru-Mura caught up,
Cheeky kicks were taken away.
(Wolf, sheep, pig, man)
I went on tuh-tuh-tu,
I took with me taf-taf-tu,
And I found on snoring-tah-tu;
If only it wasn’t taf-taf-ta,
I would have been eaten by snoring-tah-ta.
(Translation: "Went hunting, took a dog with me, found a bear...")
Only with the widespread use of secret speech could such riddles exist. Now children and the elderly know riddles and fairy tales. This is an entertainment genre. In ancient times, the riddle was a much more serious genre. In Russian fairy tales and songs, whether the hero can solve the riddle often depends on his life or the fulfillment of what he wants, for example, a wedding.
In a famous ancient legend, the sphinx - a monster with the head and chest of a woman, the body of a lion and the wings of a bird - asked travelers a riddle and killed everyone who could not guess it: three?" The Sphinx, located on a mountain near Thebes, killed many residents of the city, including the son of King Creon. The king announced that he would give the kingdom and his sister Jocasta as a wife to the one who would save the city from the sphinx. Oedipus guessed the riddle, after which the sphinx rushed into the abyss and crashed.
Guessing a riddle is obviously associated with a special relationship to the word, with the magic of the word. Guessing and guessing riddles is a kind of duel. The one who does not guess is defeated.
There are known bylichkas in which the competition in guessing riddles takes place between evil spirits and a person who will live only if they guess the riddles. Here is an example of such a bylichka, recorded in the Altai Territory:
“Three girls gathered to tell fortunes. Near the house where they told fortunes, a lost horse lay. Suddenly the horse jumped up and ran. She ran up to the house and began to ask for a hut. The girls got scared and turned to their grandmother. Grandmother put cups on their heads, went to the door and said to the horse: “If you guess the riddles that I will ask you, I will let you into the house, if not, then no.” The first riddle: “What in the world is for three braids?” The horse did not guess. Grandmother said the answer: “The first is for girls, the second is for the rooster, the third is for mowing.” The second riddle: “What in the world for three arcs?” The horse did not guess. The answer was this: the first is a harness, the second is a rainbow, the third is an arc near the boiler. The horse was forced to leave."
There is nothing exotic in this plot, it follows from the superstitious ideas of the people. It is possible to get rid of a dead horse only by resorting to the magic of the word, to a riddle.
Let us recall The Tale of Bygone Years, a legend about the revenge of Princess Olga on the Drevlyans for the murder of her husband, Prince Igor. The wise Olga, as it were, challenges the Drevlyans to a duel, which they do not know about, and this predetermines their death. The princess speaks allegorically, her words have a hidden meaning. Olga offers them honor (they will be carried in a boat like matchmakers) and asks them to say: “We don’t ride horses or wagons and we don’t go on foot, but carry us in a boat.” These words symbolize the funeral rite. The dead do everything differently than the living, as the riddle says: “I washed myself wrong, dressed up wrong, and sat down wrong, and drove wrong, I sat down in a pothole, there’s no way to leave.” Or: “I’m going, I’m not going by the way, I’m not driving with a whip, I drove into a pothole, I won’t leave in any way.” The answer is "funeral".
In a fairy tale, the bride or groom often perform difficult task appear "neither on foot nor on a horse, neither naked nor dressed." They unravel the secret meaning of this task, and everything ends happily - with a wedding. Olga's matchmakers do not understand the meaning of what is happening. The symbolism of the funeral rite is used twice: the Drevlyans bathe themselves and feast on their own death.
Russian folk song has preserved for us the motifs of wooing - guessing riddles. For example, the song "Game tavleynaya". Well done and the girl play tavlei (chess):
Well done played about three ships,
And the girl played about a violent head.
How the girl beat the young man,
The girl won three ships.
The good fellow is sad about his ships, the fair maiden reassures him:
Do not be sad, do not grieve, good fellow,
Perhaps your three ships will return,
How can you take me, a red-haired girl, for yourself:
Your ships follow me as a dowry.
The rite does not end there either: as expected, the young man makes riddles to the girl:
I'll tell the girl a riddle
Cunning, wise, unguessable:
Oh, what do we have, girl, without fire burns?
Does it burn without fire and fly without wings?
Does it fly without wings and run without legs?
The girl answers:
Without fire we have a red sun burning,
And without wings, a formidable cloud flies with us,
And without legs, our mother runs a fast river.
Next riddle:
Oh, how I have a cook boyfriend,
So unless after all he will take you for himself!
Yes, what the soul of the red maiden will say:
Already the riddle is not cunning, not wise,
Not cunning, not wise, only guessing:
I already have a gosling girl,
Will she go for you!
The competition is won, the girl has won, has shown her wisdom. It is remarkable that here the bride, as well as in the Russian rite of matchmaking in general, is called not directly, but allegorically.
Fairy tale and parody
Let's go back to secret speech. Let's consider a fairy tale in which it is very vividly presented - "Terem flies". In this tale, first of all, it is interesting how insects and animals call themselves.
“A man was driving with pots, he lost a large jug. A fly flew into the jug and began to live and live in it. The day lives, the other lives. A mosquito flew in and knocked:
- Who is in the mansion, who is in the tall ones?
- I'm a hype fly; and who are you?
- I'm a peeping mosquito.
- Come live with me.
So the two began to live together.
Then a mouse comes - “from around the corner a hmysten”, then a frog - “balagta on the water”, then a hare - “folded on the field”, a fox - “beauty on the field”, a dog - “gam-gum”, a wolf - “from -behind the bushes hap" and finally the bear - "forest oppression", which "sat down on a jug and crushed everyone."
It is remarkable that the riddle conveys to us such metaphorical names. A bear in a riddle - “an oppressor to everyone”, a hare - “a spinner across the path”, a wolf - “a snatch from behind a bush”, a dog - “taf-taf-ta”.
Let us turn again to the tale "The rich and the poor" and its connection with the secret speech. Now this connection is clear enough. However, one more very important remark must be made. We spoke about the sacred attitude to secret speech, a very serious attitude, based on absolute faith in the need to use such speech in life, in its connection with the magic of the word. A fairy tale is a genre based on pure fiction, there is no connection between the events of a fairy tale and modern reality. Secret speech, the magic of the word is parodied in a fairy tale, its use is subject to fairy canons.
The fairy tale "The Rich and the Pauper" is characterized, first of all, by the social opposition of the characters: the poor and the rich. Initially, the rich have the upper hand, laughing at the poor. He owns a secret speech, he is initiated into it. The rich man riddles the beggar. The beggar did not guess anything, the rich man laughed at him, did not accept him as a worker.
But according to the laws of a fairy tale, the rich cannot defeat the poor. It happens here too: the beggar took revenge on the rich, he turned out to be smarter than him. It all ends with a joke, a hilarious pun. In this joke, not only a typical fairy tale ending, but laughter is also heard at the tradition of the most secret speech, at belief in the magic of the word. Here is the riddle from which this fairy tale was born:
darkness lightness
Carried to the height
But there was no grace at home.
(Cat, spark, roof, water).
The secret speech is also parodied in the tales of the cunning soldier (Russian folk satirical tales Siberia. Novosibirsk, 1981. Nos. 91-93). The fairy tale "For a rainy day" is recorded among all the Eastern Slavic peoples, including several variants - in Siberia. Its plot is this:
“There lived two old men, they worked all their lives without straightening their backs. They saved up pennies for a rainy day. One day the old man went to the market, and a soldier came to the grandmother. The grandmother thought that this “rainy day” had come. The soldier took all the money and begged for another 25 rubles - he sold the “solinets” to the old woman. He took out an iron tooth from a harrow from his pocket and said:
- That's what you're cooking, then stir with this salt and say: “Salt, salt, the old man will come from the market, put it in your sack, there will be slappers for you, there will be slippers for you! It will be salty!”
How the fairy tale ended - you can guess. The comic effect is enhanced by the fact that the soldier speaks in an allegorical, secret speech, and the old woman does not understand him. The same is true for the next story. The first riddle this time is the old woman. She didn't feed two soldiers.
“Here one soldier went out into the yard, released the cattle into the threshing floor, into sheaves of bread, comes and says:
- Grandmother, there the cattle went into the threshing floor.
- And you, by any chance, did not release the cattle?
The old woman went to the threshing floor to drive out the cattle, and the soldiers here managed to make their own prey: they looked into the pot in the oven, pulled out the rooster, and put the bast shoes. An old woman comes, sits on a chair and says:
- Guess the riddle, I'll give you something to eat.
- Well, guess.
She tells them:
- Kurukhan Kurukhanovich is cooking under the frying pan.
“No, grandmother, Plet Plekhanovich is cooking under a frying pan, and Kurukhan Kurukhanovich has been transferred to Sumin-city.”
The old woman did not understand that she had been deceived and let the soldiers go, giving them a piece of bread as well. She “guessed” the riddle only when, instead of a rooster, she pulled a bast shoe out of the pot. In another version of the tale of the same collection, Kurukhan Kurukhanovich from the city of Pechinsk is transferred to the city of Suminsk.
Such tales are close to an anecdote and perform the same function as it - they ridicule not only human greed and stupidity, but also parody the rite. Serious becomes funny and cheerful. This is the way of any tradition, any rite associated with beliefs in magical power. In antiquity, the ritual of swinging was associated with the belief in a connection between swinging upwards, tossing objects and the growth of vegetation. The church forbade this rite. Those who crashed on the swing were buried without a funeral service, often not in the cemetery, but next to the swing. In the same way, the skiing of the newlyweds from the ice slide to Shrove Tuesday was supposed to ensure fertility and the future harvest.
K. Marx in his work “Tragic and comic in real history” there are wonderful words: “History acts thoroughly and goes through many phases when it takes an outdated form of life to the grave. The last phase of the world-historical form is its comedy. The gods of Greece, who were already once - in a tragic form - mortally wounded in Aeschylus's Chained Prometheus, had to die once more - in a comic form - in Lucian's Conversations. Why is the course of history like this? This is necessary in order for humanity to cheerfully part with its past.
We are talking about the law of the development of human history, the understanding of which gives a lot for understanding the process of cultural development, including for understanding the folklore process.
Vladimir Vasiliev, Associate Professor, PhD in Philology, Siberian Federal University
or-there were two brothers: one rich, the other poor. A poor man comes to a rich man and asks:
Give me bread, brother!
And he says:
Let me gouge out your eyes, then I'll give you.
He agrees:
Well, gouge it out, but still give me bread! ..
The rich man gouged out the poor man's eyes and gave him food. So while the poor man went to ask for food, he gouged out his eyes and cut off his ears, chopped off his arms and legs, and all for that bread was unfortunate. Here is a peasant without ears and without everything, rolled without eyes, rolled into a fox hole and lies there. Suddenly, at night, as it rings, as it whistles, Saint Yuriy comes running with wolves, foxes and with every animal. He stopped at the hole where the man was lying, and said:
Just look, don't tell anyone about what I'll tell you: tomorrow there will be such dew that every sick person will be cured. The king has a sick daughter, if you anoint her with that dew, she would be healed. And people don’t have water, but if you lift a stone in such and such a place, then water would flow.
A peasant woke up in the morning and as he began to roll on the grass, his arms and legs suddenly grew. Then he anointed his eyes - the eyes began to see. So he smeared himself until he was completely healed, and then he collected this dew, went to the king and cured his daughter; and the king rewarded him generously for this. Having healed the princess, he went to the people who had no water, picked up a stone, and water flowed.
People rejoice and also rewarded him so generously that he became rich, and the one who was rich became poor. He walks and asks for bread.
Give me bread, gouge out my eyes, cut off my arms and legs, and take me to the hole where you were lying.
And the brother who was poor says:
No need, just take it!
No, he says, cut off my arms and legs and take me!
There lived two brothers: rich and poor. The rich man himself did nothing, he had many workers. And the poor man fished in the lake - that's how he lived.
Once a rich wedding celebrated - he married his son. He had many guests.
“I’ll go and visit my brother,” the poor man thinks. He borrowed a loaf of bread from his neighbors and went to the wedding.
He came and stands on the threshold with bread. His rich brother saw:
- What did you bring? I have guests here not like you! Get out of here!
And drove him away
It was a shame for the poor brother. He took a fishing rod and went to fish. I got into an old canoe and floated out to the middle of the lake. Fished, fished - and all the small fish come across. And then the sun is already setting. “Well,” the poor fisherman thinks, “I’ll throw it in for good luck one more time.” He threw a fishing rod and pulled out such a fish as he had never seen before: big and all silver.
He rejoiced at the marvelous fish and began to stuff it into a sack. And she suddenly says in a human voice:
- Don't kill me a kind person let go back to the lake.
The fisherman remembered his children and says:
- I can’t let you go - and I myself am hungry, and the children have been wanting to eat for a long time. What will I return home with?
“Since you are so poor,” says the fish, “put your hand in my mouth and pull out a golden ring.”
The fisherman thought and said:
- I'm afraid you'll bite off my hand.
- Don't be afraid, I won't take a bite!
The fisherman grew bolder, put his hand into the fish's mouth and pulled out a golden ring.
- What should I do with him? - asks the fisherman. Because he won't feed me.
- Nothing, - says the marvelous fish, - how to feed! Throw your little fish out of the boat and throw this ring in there.
So the fisherman did. And as soon as he threw a ring to the bottom of the shuttle, in an instant there was a whole pile of money.
The fisherman released the fish into the lake, and he quickly swam to the shore. He took off his shirt on the shore, put money in it and went home.
Now the poor brother has healed in such a way that it is better not to. He put up a new hut and called the guests to a housewarming party. But he didn’t call his brother - he couldn’t forgive him for insults.
The rich man found out that his poor brother had built a new hut and was feasting with the guests. He says to his son:
- Go see what he's doing there. The son came, looked and ran back.
- Oh, - he says to his father, - you don’t have what your poor brother has, - and the hut is new, and there are plenty of cattle, and there is plenty of everything on the table!
The rich man turned black with envy. He sends his son again to call his poor brother.
A poor brother comes to a rich one.
- Where do you get so much good? asks the rich brother of the poor. - You, they say, live better than mine.
The poor man told everything as it happened.
As the rich man heard this, his hands itched.
"I'll go," he thinks, "and I'll catch that fish."
He took a stronger fishing rod, got into a new canoe and swam to the middle of the lake. Caught, caught and fished out a marvelous fish.
“Don’t ruin me,” the fish asks, “let me go back, I have small children there ...
- No, my dear, - the rich man was stubborn. - I won't let you! Give me the same ring that you gave to my brother.
- So your brother was poor, he didn’t even have bread. Why would you?
- How so why? I don't want my brother to be richer than me! Give me a ring and that's it! If not, I'll take you home and roast you.
“Well then,” says the fish. - Take it, if you're so envious. Something to me.
She opened her mouth. And the greedy rich man put his hand into her mouth up to the very elbow. Then the fish, as if crushing with his teeth, bit off his hand and dived with it to the bottom of the lake.
The rich brother returned home without money and without a hand.
It serves him right! That's the end of the tale, and who listened, well done!
Once upon a time there were two brothers, the older one was rich, and the younger one was poor. The rich have feasts and fun, but sometimes the poor don’t even have a piece of bread: the guys are full of huts, small and small less.
They ate the last cow, there is absolutely nothing to feed the children. The poor man says to his wife:
- Let's go to my brother, ask for bread. Perhaps a bag will give flour.
- Well, let's go.
That day there was a celebration. Guests from all volosts gathered: merchants, and priests, and rich peasants are sitting in the upper room, feasting.
The poor man and his wife greeted each other and asked:
- Give, brother, bread, there is nothing to feed the guys! Autumn will come - pay off.
The rich man took out a stale carpet, gave it to his brother and said:
- In a bad time, you will work a day or two for this, and we will be in the calculation.
But he didn't invite me to the table. It seemed a shame to them, but what are you going to do! The worker brought kvass, drank, and with that they went home.
It is heard - the guests in the upper room sing songs at the brother's house.
The poor man says:
- And what, wife, let's sing too! Let people think that they treated us with wine.
- What are you talking about! The guests there sing because they ate sweetly and drank a lot, but you and I are not up to songs.
And the poor man stands his ground - he sang a song, and he heard two voices: someone sings along in a thin voice.
- It's you, wife, helping me to sing?
- What are you, I did not think!
So who else sings?
“I don’t know,” the wife replies. - Come on, let's listen.
Again the poor man sang. One sings, and two voices are heard: someone sings along thinly. Stopped.
The poor man asks:
- Who's singing along?
Yes, I am your need.
The poor man turned around and saw a little old woman standing next to him - an old woman standing as tall as an elbow, all in rags.
Shouted to her:
- Well, why are you freezing in the wind? Get in my bag, I'll carry you.
Need climbed into the sack, the poor man tied the sack tighter, and went on.
At home, the hostess cut off a slice of bread for the children, fed them and began to put them to bed.
The husband does not go to bed, sawing and planing boards.
- What is there, looking at the night, you still want to make? the wife asks.
- Shut up, wife! Need to be buried. Tired, cursed, worse than bitter radish!
So he knocked together the coffin, He laid the need in the coffin and nailed the lid tightly with nails.
He grabbed a shovel and carried Need to the cemetery. He dug a deep grave there, lowered Need, and as soon as he began to dig in, he heard a shovel clang against something. He bent down and looked - he found a piece of gold. He quickly buried the grave, trampled the earth.
“Lie here, we will now live without need.”
Returned home, fell asleep. The next day I went to the city and sold the gold. With this money I bought a horse, a cow and three cartloads of bread. All the guys and the wife got a new thing, and there is still plenty of money left. He repaired the hut, coped with everything, began to work and live and live, forget the dashing time. Good luck went in everything: the harvest turned out to be good, and I caught plenty of fish, and the children began to grow up and help with the housework.
And the rich brother is jealous:
“There was a beggar, he worked for strangers, and now he started his own household. Did you steal something from me?"
Could not resist, came to his younger brother and asked:
- You were the last resident in the village, and now you have become a rightful owner. How did you manage to get out of poverty?
The younger brother told him everything without concealment: how he and his wife went home, and how Need sang along with him, and how he got rid of her.
The rich man asked where Need was buried, and hurried - he could not wait for envy.
- I stayed at your place, and things are waiting for me.
“Dine with us, brother, and have a cup of tea,” the younger brother persuaded.
- No, I have no time to dine and drink tea. I hurry home.
At home, he took a spade and an ax and ran to the cemetery. He found the place where Need was buried, dug up the grave, leaned over and asked:
Are you alive, Need?
“Oh, she’s alive,” Needle replies in a barely audible voice, “but it’s bad for me, oh, how bad!
"Alright, I'll let you out now."
He went down into the pit, opened the lid with an ax and said:
- Go, Need, to your little brother, you will live freely with him.
And Need contrived and jumped on his neck:
- No, that brother buried me alive, and you are kind - you released me into the wild! I'm not going anywhere from you now.
And the need remained with the elder brother. He began to live worse and worse, and in the end he was completely ruined.
