Arys - field

An old man had a beautiful daughter, and they lived together peacefully until he married another woman, who turned out to be an evil witch. The witch took an instant dislike to her stepdaughter and nagged the old man:

"Drive her out of the house so I never have to lay eyes on her again."

The old man obeyed and married off his daughter. She lived happily with her husband, and they had a son.

But the witch grew even more envious and spiteful. Seizing an opportunity, she transformed her stepdaughter into a beast called Aryss-Pole and banished her to the deep forest. Then she dressed her own daughter in the stepdaughter's clothes and presented her as the old man's daughter.

She orchestrated everything so cunningly that neither the husband nor anyone else noticed the deception. Only an old nanny figured it out, but she was too afraid to speak up.

From that day on, whenever the child grew hungry, the nanny would carry him to the forest and sing:

"Aryss-Pole! The child cries,
The child cries, he wants to eat and drink."

Aryss-Pole would come running, shed her animal skin under a log, take the boy, feed him, and then put the skin back on and return to the forest.

"Where does the nanny go with the child?" wondered the father. He began to watch her and saw Aryss-Pole arrive, shed her skin, and feed the baby.

The father crept out from behind the bushes, grabbed the skin, and burned it.

"Ah, something smells like smoke; could it be my skin burning?" said Aryss-Pole.
"No," replied the nanny, "it must be the woodcutters setting the forest on fire."

The skin burned away, and Aryss-Pole returned to her human form. She told her husband everything.

Immediately, the people gathered, seized the witch, and drove her away along with her daughter.

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