Prevod

There was once a poor man who tried all manner of ways to make a living. At last he gathered a sackful of moss, put a little wool on top, and set off for the fair to sell the whole sack as wool. On his way he met a man who was likewise taking a sackful of pine cones to the fair to sell as walnuts, having covered the cones with a few walnuts at the top. When they asked each other what they had in their sacks, one answered that he was taking walnuts to the fair, and the other wool, and both were eager to strike a bargain there on the road. The man with the moss argued that wool was dearer than walnuts and asked for something extra in the exchange. But when he saw that the man with the pine cones would give nothing extra and wanted to trade one sack for the other outright, he thought to himself that even walnuts were better than moss.

And so, after much haggling, they agreed that the man with the pine cones should give the other two coins into the bargain. But as he did not have even those on him, he remained in the other's debt, and to make all the more certain that he would repay them, they swore brotherhood. Having exchanged sacks, they hurried away in opposite directions, each thinking he had cheated the other. But when they reached their homes and emptied the goods out of their sacks, they saw that neither had really got the worse of the bargain. Some time later, the man who had had the moss set out to find his sworn brother and ask for his two coins. He found him in a village, working as a priest's hired hand, and said, “You cheated me, brother.” The other answered, “Indeed, brother, and you cheated me.” Then the first began demanding his two coins, saying that a debt promised and sealed by sworn brotherhood ought to be paid. The other agreed that it ought to be paid, but began making excuses, saying he did not have two coins. “But,” he said, “there is a great pit in the ground behind my priest's house, and he often goes down into it. Most likely there is money or something else of value in it. So come tonight and lower me into the pit, and when we have plundered it, we shall divide the spoils, and I shall pay you your two coins.” The other agreed.

That evening the priest's hired hand found a sack and a rope, went with his sworn brother to the pit, and climbed into the sack. His brother tied the rope around its middle and lowered him into the pit. Once below, he climbed out of the sack and poked about here and there, but found nothing except grain. He thought to himself, “If I tell my brother now that there is nothing here, he may go away and leave me in the pit. And what shall I do tomorrow when the priest finds me here?” So he climbed back into the sack, tied himself securely with the rope, and called up, “Brother, haul up the sack! It is full of all sorts of things!” As his brother hauled up the sack, he thought to himself, “Why should I share this with my brother? Better to take it all myself and let him find his own way out of the pit.” So he hoisted the sack, with his brother inside, onto his back and ran through the village. A pack of dogs came after him, barking and chasing him. When he began to tire a little and the sack slipped low down his back, his brother cried from inside, “Lift it higher, brother! The dogs are biting me!” At this, the man threw the sack to the ground. Then the one inside said, “So, brother, you meant to cheat me?” And the other answered, “Indeed, and you cheated me too.” After much talk, the man who owed the two coins promised that he would certainly pay them when his brother next came to see him, and they parted.

A long time passed, and the man who had been the priest's hired hand acquired a little house of his own and married. One day, as he sat with his wife in front of the house, he saw his sworn brother in the distance, heading straight towards them. He cried to his wife, “Wife! Here comes my sworn brother! I owe him two coins. There is no getting out of it now, for I promised to pay him when he found me. I shall go and lie down inside, and you must cover me up, then wail and lament and say I am dead. Then he will turn back.” So he went inside, lay on his back, and folded his arms across his chest, while his wife covered him and began to wail. Just then his sworn brother came up to the house, greeted her with “God be with you!” and asked whether this was the house of such-and-such a man. The wife answered with a great show of grief, “It is, alas, poor wretch that I am! There he lies dead inside.” Then his sworn brother said, “May God rest his soul! He was my sworn brother. We worked and traded together, and since I have found him like this, I shall at least stay to follow him to his grave and cast a handful of earth upon him.” His wife told him he would have a long wait before the burial, and that he had better go. But he answered, “God forbid! How could I leave my sworn brother like this? I shall wait even three days, if need be, until they bury him.”

When the wife went inside and whispered this to her husband, he told her to go to the priest and say he was dead, so that they might carry him to the church, around which the graveyard lay on the hillside. Perhaps then his sworn brother would leave. The wife went and told the priest, who came with a few men. They laid the supposed dead man on a bier, carried him to the church, and left him on the bier in the middle of it, to pass the night there according to custom. The next day they would hold the funeral service and bury him. When the priest and the other men were leaving the church, the sworn brother said that he would on no account leave alone his brother, with whom he had done so much trading and shared so much bread and salt, but would keep watch over him all night. And so he stayed in the church.

That night a band of outlaws came that way. They had plundered someone's manor and carried off a great deal of treasure, clothing, and weapons. As they passed the church and saw a candle burning inside, they said to one another, “Let us go into this church and divide our spoils.” When the sworn brother saw armed men entering the church, he hid in a corner. The outlaws came in, sat down, and divided the treasure by the capful, sharing out the clothing and weapons as best they could. They settled everything to everyone's satisfaction, until only one sabre remained, which some of them thought worth a great deal of money. Then one of them took it in his hand and sprang to his feet, saying, “Let us try it on this dead man and see whether it is as good as you say. If I cut off his head with a single stroke, it is a fine blade indeed.” He went towards the bier, but the supposed dead man suddenly sat bolt upright and shouted, “You dead men! Where are you?” And his sworn brother called from the corner, “Here we are, all ready!”

When the outlaws heard this, the man dropped the sabre, and the others left their shares lying in heaps, sprang up, and fled without looking back. When they were far away, their chief said, “Brothers, for God's sake! We have roamed the mountains and all manner of places by day and night, fought men, and stormed towers and manors, and nothing ever frightened us until tonight, when we took fright at dead men! Is there a brave man among us who will go back and see what is happening in that church now?” One said, “I will not,” another said, “I dare not,” and a third said, “I would sooner face ten living men than one dead man.” At last one of them offered to go. He went back and crept quietly beneath the church window, hoping to hear something. Inside, the sworn brothers had divided all the outlaws' treasure, clothing, and weapons, but at the last they had quarrelled over the two coins and had almost come to blows. The outlaw beneath the window could hear nothing but shouting: “Where are my two coins? Give me my two coins!” Just then the man who owed the money caught sight of the outlaw beneath the window. He thrust his hand out, snatched the cap from the man's head, and held it out to his sworn brother. “A curse on your two coins! Here, take this for them!”

When the outlaw saw what had happened to him, he fled without looking back. He reached his companions half dead with fright and cried, “Brothers, thank God we escaped alive! We divided the treasure by the capful, but now all the dead have risen, and there was barely enough for each to have two coins. One could not get even that much, so they took my cap and gave it to him instead!”