“Now mind, fool! obey our wives, and pay them respect as if they were your own mothers. We’ll buy you red boots, and a red caftan, and a red shirt.”
The fool said to them:
“Very good; I will pay them respect.”
They gave the fool their orders and went away to the downstream towns; but the fool stretched himself on top of the stove and remained lying there. His brothers’ wives say to him—
“What are you about, fool! your brothers ordered you to pay us respect, and in return for that each of them was going to bring you a present, but there you lie on the stove and don’t do a bit of work. Go and fetch some water, at all events.”
The fool took a couple of pails and went to fetch the water. As he scooped it up, a pike happened to get into his pail. Says the fool:
“Glory to God! now I will cook this pike, and will eat it all myself; I won’t give a bit of it to my sisters-in-law. I’m savage with them!”
The pike says to him with a human voice:
“Don’t eat me, fool! if you’ll put me back again into the water you shall have good luck!”
Says the fool, “What sort of good luck shall I get from you?”