HOW A HUTZUL TAUGHT A PRINCESS TO KEEP HOUSE
There once lived a tsar and tsarina who had a daughter, as lazy a girl as they come. Indeed, so lazy was she that she would not lift a finger to so much as chase away a fly if it happened to light on her nose. All she did was lie in a cradle and rock all the day long.
This made the tsar very unhappy. He called his ministers and said to them:
"You all know that I have one child, a daughter, who is so lazy that she sleeps her life away. I have thought about it and it seems to me that the only thing I can do to change her ways is to marry her off to some worthy young man. For, as all of you know, a wet log will catch fire if it is put beside a dry one."
"You are right, Your Majesty," the ministers said. "Even a sparrow will learn to sing if it is kept in the company of a nightingale long enough."
"Well, then, tell me how I am to find a good husband for a worthless young girl like the princess."
The ministers thought this over.
"You will have to use cunning, Your Majesty," said they. "You cannot tell the man you want the princess to marry the truth, you must tell him she is an angel."
Now, the tsar had a great many liars in his service, and he had them go to all the corners of the earth and lie their heads off, telling all who would listen to them how lovely a girl the princess was.
Many young men were lured to the palace in this way, but no sooner were they there than they went away again.
This made the tsar very angry. He called his ministers again and said:
"Find a husband for my daughter or you shall pay for it!"
The ministers thought and pondered for a long time.
"No one will marry the princess of his own free will," they said.
"The only thing to do is to marry her off to a Hutzul, for a Hutzul is a match for the devil himself!" The tsar was close to tears.
"Oh, very well, let her marry a Hutzul. But where is a Hutzul to be found?"
"To the right from here, beyond the fields, hills and forests. The first young man you come across there is sure to be a Hutzul."
"What if he refuses to marry the princess?" asked the tsar.
"We'll throw him in prison and he'll sit there till he changes his mind."
There was no more to be said, and the very next day the ministers set out to find a Hutzul. They went to the right, across the fields and beyond the hills and the forests, they walked and they walked and after a while they met a Hutzul, and a handsome young man he was.
"Where are you going, lad?" the ministers asked.
"To the market-place," the Hutzul replied.
"What will you be selling there — bad luck?"
"Not I! Bad luck can neither be sold nor traded for anything. No, I'm off to buy some grain." "Why didn't you take your wife along?"
"I'm not married."
"Where's the girl you are going to marry?"
"Playing with dolls still."
"Better say rocking in a cradle in the palace."
"In the palace? I'm too poor for even a peasant girl to marry. "Now, now, the princess herself would not refuse a handsome lad like you!"
"Is it the lazy one you mean? They say that she is too lazy to wipe her own nose!"
"How dare you speak like that about the princess? Seize him, guards!" And the Hutzul was seized and bound and thrown in prison.
"Trouble comes when a man least expects it!" said he to himself, and he lay down and fell asleep.He slept for a whole week, and at the end of it the prime minister came to see him.
"Well, have you changed your mind about marrying the princess?" he asked.
"Lead me to her!" said the Hutzul. "I shouldn't wonder that she is as ugly as a monkey."
They had him scrub his face and hands, dressed him in the finest of clothing and led him to the princess who clapped her hands in delight when she heard that a husband had at last been found for her.
"Don't be sad," she said to the Hutzul. "I am the tsar's daughter, and if you marry me, you will be rich!"
"Better to lie on a mat of straw if it is your own than on another's feather bed!” the Hutzul told her.
The ministers waited no more. They seized the Hutzul, dragged him to the altar and married him to the princess then and there.
The tsar held a great feast to celebrate the wedding, but the Hutzul refused to stay for it. He put on his Hutzul trousers, vest, hat and shoes and, seizing his wife by the hand, said:
"Let us leave the palace and go to my village, wife, I don't belong among the highborn!"
"All right, but I want to take my cradle along," said the princess.
"What do you need it for?"
"To rock in."
"Oh, very well!"
The Hutzul threw the princess's golden cradle in his wagon, cracked his whip, and away they rode for his home in the hills. They were there soon enough, the Hutzul placed the cradle in the middle of the floor, and the princess climbed into it and began to rock. She rocked and she rocked till she fell asleep, and when morning came the Hutzul made breakfast himself. They ate and then he took a bag, and, hanging it on a hook, said to the princess:
"I am off to reap the corn. Tell this bag to cook me a pot of borshch and bring it to the field for me to eat."
"Very well, husband," said the princess and she started rocking in the cradle again.
She rocked in it till midday and then she said to the bag:
"Come, bag, get off the hook, cook some dinner and take it to my husband for him to eat in the field."
But the bag seemed not to hear and did not so much as stir. The princess shouted at it and called it names, but all to no avail.
Evening came, and the Hutzul returned, very hungry and angry because of it. But instead of scolding the princess, he took hold of the cradle, and, saying "Sleep, little wife, sleep!" swung it hard, and the cradle turned over, sending the princess rolling to the floor.
"You bad cradle! How dared you drop my wife!" the Hutzul cried in fury. "I don't care that it's gold you are made of, I'll punish you for this!"
And he took an axe and chopped the cradle to pieces.
Then he made supper and fed himself and his wife.
Morning came, and he said to her:
"I am off to the field to mow the hay. Tell the bag to bring me my dinner there."
"Very well, husband," the princess replied.
She lay on the stove till midday, and then she said:
"Come, bag, get off the hook! Make some dinner for my husband and take it to him."
But the bag never stirred. It seemed not to care whether or not the Hutzul was left without his dinner.
The Hutzul came home in the evening, and the princess said:
"The bag won't listen to me, husband, you must punish it for not making any dinner for you."
"Don't worry, I will!
He slipped the bag off the hook, threw it over his wife's shoulders, and, taking a length of rope, struck the bag hard again and again. With every blow dust flew from the bag, and the princess jumped. After that the Hutzul made supper and fed himself and hip wife.
Morning came, and he again hung the bag ^>n the hook and said to the princess:
"I'm off to plough the field. Let the bag bring me my dinner at noon."
"Very well, husband," the princess replied.
She curled up on the stove and lay there without a thought in her head.
Noon came, and she said to the bag:
"Please, bag, get off the hook and prepare my husband's dinner for him, he must be hungry by now."
But the bag hung there and did not so much as stir.
What was to be done? The princess recalled what had happened the night before and climbed down from the stove. She lit it, made dinner and when it was all ready ran to the field.
"I told the bag to make your dinner, husband, but it wouldn't, so I had to do it myself. Come home and eat while the food is warm."
"So the bag refused to do what you told it to, did it," the Hutzul said. "Well, I'll give it such a hiding that it'll remember it to the end of its days!"
And the Hutzul, beside himself with rage, ran home with the princess. He rushed into the hut, grabbed the bag and began pounding it with his stick.
"That's how all who refuse to do what I tell them will fare!" he cried.
They sat down to dinner, and the Hutzul ate and praised what he ate.
"A good dinner and well cooked, I've never eaten a better one in my life!" he said. "I don't think I'll go to the field at all today, wife, but stay home with you."
On the following morning the Hutzul made ready to go to the field again.
"I must finish ploughing today, wife," he said.
"Very well, husband," said the princess.
He left the hut, and she lay on the stove a little while longer and then climbed down.
"Come, bag, you've been hanging on the hook long enough," she said. "It's time to get to work. My husband doesn't like loafers. He'll only thrash you again, and we don't want that to happen, do we!"
But talk to it as she did and beg it as she would, the bag, being a bag, just hung there and did nothing. So the princess lit the stove, made dinner and took it to her husband. The Hutzul saw her coming and asked:
"Didn't the bag listen to you today either, wife?"
"No, it wouldn't even speak to me. Had I waited for it to make dinner you would have been left without."
"True enough, wife. Never depend on another to do your chores for you, do everything with your own hands."
And so it was that the princess began to learn how to cook and do the many other things that need to be done about the house. So good a housekeeper did she become that her husband could not have wished for a better. And he threw away his stick as there was no need for it any more.
And that, my friend, is the tale's end.
