“A bad fellow, that Ivan! now he’s rich, he’s abandoned us!”
“Who are you?” asks Ivan. “I don’t know you a bit.”
“Not know us! you’ve forgotten our faithful service, it seems! Why, we’re your Zluidni!”
“God be with you!” says he. “I don’t want you!”
“No, no! we will never part from you now!”
“Wait a bit!” thinks Ivan, and then continues aloud, “Very good, I’ll take you; but only on condition that you bring home my mill-stones for me.”
So he laid the mill-stones on their backs, and made them go on in front of him. They all had to pass along a bridge over a deep river; the moujik managed to give the Zluidni a shove, and over they went, mill-stones and all, and sank straight to the bottom.[242]
There is a very curious Servian story of two brothers, one of whom is industrious and unlucky, and the other idle and prosperous. The poor brother one day sees a flock of sheep, and near them a fair maiden spinning a golden thread.
“Whose sheep are these?” he asks.
“The sheep are his whose I myself am,” she replies.