About the Lazybones

Once upon a time, though perhaps it never happened, there lived a husband and wife. The husband was such a lazybones that he didn’t want to do anything. All day long, he just ate and lounged around—rolling from one side to the other. Meanwhile, the wife worked as hard as she could, feeding and clothing both herself and her husband. She did everything, absolutely everything, all by herself. But no matter how hard she struggled, they remained poor. And what could she do alone? To make matters worse, their field was far away, rocky, and sandy, with nothing growing on it but nettles and weeds.

One spring, the wife gathered her courage, begged the neighbors for help, plowed the field with their assistance, borrowed some grain, sowed it, and the field sprouted—oh, what a field! It waved like the sea. When harvest time came and the crops ripened, the wife said to her husband:
"Get up, go and take a look at our field. Maybe nothing grew there, and we’re just hoping in vain."

The lazybones reluctantly got up and dragged himself there. But he didn’t even make it halfway before turning back. He returned home and said to his wife:
"I went, I saw—nothing grew there except nettles and weeds. We wasted all that grain for nothing."

The wife knew what their field was like, but she didn’t say anything to her husband. When harvest time came, she said to him:
"Either go to the field and reap, or stay home, churn butter, feed the hen and chicks, watch over them, sift flour, and bake bread."

The lazybones decided to stay home. He took a spool of his wife’s thread and, to keep the chicks from running around and bothering him, tied them all to the hen with one thread and let them loose in the barnyard.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a hawk swooped down, snatched the chicks, and flew off with the hen still tied to them. The lazybones slung a sack of flour, a sieve, and a bowl of milk on his back and chased after the hawk, thinking, "I’ll scare the hawk, make it drop the hen and chicks, sift the flour, and churn the butter—I’ll get everything done at once."

But he didn’t catch the hawk, didn’t sift the flour, and didn’t churn the butter—everything fell, broke, and spilled. He was left with nothing. The lazybones thought about how to face his wife without the chicks.
He remembered that his wife had some eggs set aside. He took the eggs, placed them in a basket, and sat on them, thinking, "I’ll sit here for a while. Maybe by the time my wife returns from the field, new chicks will hatch."

The lazybones sat on the eggs, clucking like a hen: "Cluck-cluck... Cluck-cluck..."
When the wife returned from the harvest, she called out to her husband:
"Open the door!"

But the husband just clucked in response:
"Cluck, cluck, cluck!"

The wife called again:
"Open the door!"
"Cluck, cluck, cluck!" he replied again. And when she called a third time:
"Where are you, where have you gone? Open the door, have you gone deaf?!"
No one answered her, only the sound of "cluck, cluck" coming from inside the house.

The wife broke down the door and entered. She saw her husband sitting in the basket like a hen, clucking.
"What on earth are you doing? Get out of that basket right now."
"The hawk took the hen and chicks, so I wanted to hatch new ones," said the husband.
"I don’t need your chicks, get out," said the wife, pulling him out of the basket and sitting him by the hearth.

The next morning, the wife asked her husband:
"What about you? Will you go reap, or will you stay home again?"
"No, I’ll go reap," said the husband, "but give me three chickens: one for breakfast, one for lunch, and one for dinner."
"Oh, if you just harvest the crops, I’ll give you not three but four chickens a day."

The lazybones went to the field. He didn’t even bind two sheaves in a day, just lounged and slept, but he didn’t forget the chickens—he ate all three at once. Time passed. Three or four days went by like this. The crops in the field would have dried up and fallen if the wife hadn’t finally dressed in men’s clothes, taken a weapon, mounted a horse, and ridden out. She approached her husband and called out:
"Hey, reaper, do you know any lazybones? The king’s son is sick and dying. We’ve been told to feed him the liver of a lazybones."

The lazybones was terrified and swore:
"I’ve only been reaping for an hour—how could I have harvested more?"
"Listen, if you don’t harvest all the grain by evening, I’ll come back, cut off your head, take your liver, and carry it away," said the warrior, and rode off.

The lazybones threw himself into reaping, harvested all the grain, and left not a single stalk. By evening, he collapsed, barely alive from exhaustion, groaning. His wife came, brought food, but he was too tired to eat. He could barely breathe.
The wife asked:
"Why are you so worn out?"

The lazybones told her about the man from the king who had threatened him: "If you don’t harvest all the grain by evening, I’ll come back, kill you, take your liver, and carry it away."
"Don’t be afraid," comforted his wife, "you’ve harvested everything, so he won’t do anything to you."

Somehow, they bound the sheaves, hauled them, threshed the grain, and stored it.

The lazybones had a pig. Whatever edible there was in the house, he fed it to the pig. He fed and fattened it. His wife said:
"We have nothing to eat ourselves—why are you feeding everything to that pig? Let’s slaughter it."
"No, I won’t slaughter it until the fat starts oozing out," said the husband.
The wife took some butter, melted it, poured it on the pig, showed it to her husband, and said:
"See how fat it is—the fat’s oozing out."
So the lazybones slaughtered his beloved pig—though he loved it, he clearly loved his stomach more.

The lazybones quickly ate the pig, leaving only one ham, which his wife managed to hide. When he found out she still had a ham, he pestered her:
"Give it to me!"
"No," said the wife, "I won’t give it to you."
"I’ll die if you don’t give it to me."
"Then die," said the wife. "If you die, no one will miss you."
The lazybones got up, lay down on the couch, shut his eyes, fell silent, and stopped breathing. The wife wept over him as if he were dead.

They brought a priest, made a coffin, placed the lazybones inside, and carried him to the church. The wife approached him one last time and whispered:
"Get up, or we’ll bury you."
"How can I get up? I’m dead."
"Get up, I said," repeated the wife.
"Give me the ham, and I’ll get up," said the husband.
"No!" said the wife.
"Then I won’t get up."

They carried the lazybones like a corpse and laid him in the church. When it got dark, the wife went to the church doors and shouted:
"Hey, dead people, old and new! Listen—a new temple is being built in heaven. Get up and carry bricks. The old dead must carry a hundred, the new dead must carry two hundred."
The lazybones thought, "I can’t even carry five bricks—why should I carry two hundred?" He jumped up and ran out of the church.

From then on, he stopped thinking about dying or asking for hams, and he didn’t lounge around anymore. He started working, and the husband and wife lived happily and prosperously.

Death there, feast here,
Chaff there, flour here.
May the storyteller and the listener
Be spared from death.

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About the Lazybones

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