How the Poor Man Got Rid of the Evil Spirits

One peasant was so poor that often both he and his family went to bed hungry. Yet he was a hardworking man, toiling from dawn till dusk, but all in vain. As the saying goes, even gold turns to stone in such hands. The poor man struggled like a fish on ice, but he could not escape poverty. Hail would destroy his crops, disease would take his ox, and all his chickens would die.

This poor man, however, was a skilled gusli player, the likes of whom could not be found in the entire village. Therefore, he was often invited to weddings and celebrations to entertain the people. And they always gave him something for his music. One Sunday, he returned home from a wedding, tipsy and merry, bringing with him a piece of lard and a loaf of soft bread. His children hadn’t seen such delicacies in a long time. He fed the hungry children and then took up his gusli and began to play a lively folk song. The children jumped up from their seats and started dancing: hop-hop, hop-hop!

The children danced and rejoiced, while their father watched them with joy. Suddenly, he noticed that some small, ugly creatures were dancing in the circle with them—horrible and repulsive little beings with long arms, evil eyes, crooked legs, and thin necks. And there were so many of them—too many to count!

The poor man was astonished and stopped playing. Instantly, the little creatures became agitated, scurrying about, pushing each other, and rushing to the stove, where they disappeared underneath it.
"Who are you?" asked the poor man. And the little creatures answered him in thin voices from under the stove:
"We are the Misery Spirits. We are happiest when someone works from dawn till dusk for a crust of stale bread and a pinch of salt and goes hungry forever."
"Aha!" the poor man realized. "So that’s why I’ve had such bad luck. It’s because of them that I can’t make ends meet!"
"Is it comfortable for you there, under the stove?" the peasant asked the Misery Spirits. And they answered in unison:
"How could it be comfortable? It’s so cramped and stuffy, we can hardly breathe. Can’t you see how many of us there are?"
"Well then, I’ll make you a better nest!"

With that, the poor man ran to the shed, brought back a large clay jug with two handles, and called out to the Misery Spirits:
"Come on, crawl out from under the stove and settle into your new home!"
The Misery Spirits jumped out, leaped for joy, and climbed into the clay jug. The peasant asked them:
"Are you all here?"
"Yes! All of us!"
"Are there any stragglers left under the stove?"
"No! No! We’re all here. There are no stragglers among us."

And that was exactly what the peasant was waiting for. He closed the jug with a lid, sealed it with dough, carried it to the field, and threw it into a ravine under a crooked wild pear tree. "Maybe now I’ll have some luck," he thought, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. Six months passed, or maybe more. The peasant’s luck indeed changed: everything he undertook succeeded. If he sowed rye, it grew chest-high, with heavy, full grains; if his sow gave birth, it was to twenty pink piglets; his hens laid two eggs a day. His fields were the envy of all, and his farm thrived!

Prosperity had come to the peasant’s home. No longer did the hungry children cry; they were clean and tidy, like the children of the gentry. The neighbors were amazed and couldn’t understand how such fortune had come to the poor man.

In that village, there lived a greedy and envious rich man. He went to the peasant and began to pry, asking how he had managed to escape poverty: had he found a pot of gold, or perhaps a kind wizard had taken a liking to him?
"I didn’t find any treasure, and no devil helped me," the peasant replied. "I simply work tirelessly, and that’s why we’ve become better off."
"But didn’t you work just as hard before?"
"I worked just as hard, but... well," the peasant couldn’t hold back, "the Misery Spirits were holding me back. Whatever I did, they ruined it. But when I got rid of them, everything started going well."
"How did you get rid of them?" asked the rich man.

The peasant told him how he had dealt with the Misery Spirits.
"And where did you take the jug?"
"To the ravine, under the crooked pear tree." The rich man bid farewell and ran straight to the ravine. He found the jug and opened the lid. Out poured the Misery Spirits, like peas from a pod. The rich man said:
"Hey, Misery Spirits, come out into the open! Go back to your master. He’s already grown rich and misses you terribly."

"Oh, no!" squeaked the Misery Spirits. "We’re afraid of him. He’ll think of some trap, and then we’ll be done for. You’re so kind—you help us, and we’ll go with you." The rich man was terrified and started running. But the Misery Spirits chased after him. He reached home and, gasping for breath, locked the door tightly behind him. But the Misery Spirits slipped through the cracks and hid in the darkest corners—you couldn’t find them even with a lantern! And they multiplied and spread like cockroaches behind the stove.

And so the rich man began to grow poor: his livestock died, his horses were stolen, wolves killed his sheep, and one night his house burned down. He barely escaped in his underclothes. The envious man was left as naked as a plucked chicken, poorer even than the peasant had been before. He bitterly regretted his actions, but it was too late.

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How the Poor Man Got Rid of the Evil Spirits

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