Prevod

A father sent his boy to the mill and told him not to grind his grain at any mill where he found a beardless man. When the boy reached a mill, there sat a beardless man inside. “God be with you, beardless man!” “And God help you, my son.” “Might I grind a little grain here too?” “Of course you may; why not? Mine will soon be finished, and then you can grind as much as you please.” But the boy remembered what his father had told him, so he went outside and followed the stream up to another mill. The beardless man quickly took a little grain and ran by another path, reaching the next mill before the boy and pouring a little grain into the hopper there too. When the boy came to the second mill and saw a beardless man there as well, he went on to a third; but the beardless man again took a little grain and ran by another path, reaching the third mill ahead of the boy and pouring it in. And so it went at the fourth. At last the boy grew tired of this and thought to himself: There must be a beardless man in every mill. So he took the sack off his back and stayed to grind with the beardless man. When the man’s grain was ground and the boy had poured in his own, the beardless man said, “Come, my son! Let us make a loaf from your flour.” The boy still kept in mind what his father had told him, not to grind at a mill where he found a beardless man, but now he thought: What’s done is done. So he said, “Very well.” The beardless man got up and made a hollow in the boy’s flour in the meal bin, then told the boy to bring water in his cupped hands. The boy began bringing water, and the beardless man began mixing the dough a little at a time. They went on like this until all the grain was ground and the beardless man had mixed all the flour into dough. Then he kneaded it into one great round loaf, and they raked the fire aside and buried the loaf in the embers to bake. When it was baked, they took it out of the fire and propped it against the wall. Then the beardless man said to the boy, “You know what, my son? If we divide this loaf, there won’t be enough for either of us. Let us tell lies instead, and whoever outlies the other shall have the whole loaf.” The boy thought to himself: There’s no way out of it now. So he said, “Very well! You begin.” Then the beardless man began telling all manner of lies, this way and that, and when at last he had lied himself out and grown weary, the boy said, “Well, my beardless friend! If that is all you know, it amounts to nothing. Wait till I tell you something that is the honest truth. When I was an old man in my younger days, we had a great many beehives, and every morning I used to count them. I could count all the bees, but I could never count the hives. One morning, when I counted the bees, I found that the finest drone was missing. So I quickly saddled my rooster, mounted him, and set off in search of the drone. When I followed the trail to the sea, I found he had gone across it, so I followed his tracks over the sea. Once I had crossed, I found a man who had harnessed my drone to a plough and was ploughing a field for millet. I shouted at him, ‘That is my drone! Where did you get my drone?’ And the man answered, ‘Brother! If he is yours, here he is.’ So he gave me back the drone, and a whole sack of millet from his ploughing besides. Then I slung the sack of millet on my back, moved the saddle from the rooster to the drone, mounted the drone, and led the rooster by the reins to give him a rest. As I was crossing the sea, one of the straps on my sack somehow broke, and all the millet spilled into the water. By the time I reached the other side, night had fallen, so I dismounted from the drone and turned him loose to graze, tied the rooster beside me and gave him some hay, then lay down to sleep. When I got up in the morning, wolves had come and slaughtered and eaten my drone. There was honey everywhere! Ankle-deep in the valley and knee-deep on the hill. Then I began wondering what I could gather the honey in. It occurred to me that I had a little axe, so I took it and went into the forest to catch some wild beast and skin it to make a waterskin. And there I found two deer hopping on a single leg. So I flung my little axe and broke that leg, caught them, and stripped three skins off them. I gathered all the honey into those skins, loaded them onto the rooster, and carried them home. When I reached home, my father had just been born, and they sent me to God for holy water. Now I began wondering how to climb up to heaven, until I remembered that millet of mine which had spilled into the sea. When I got there, it had fallen on damp ground and grown all the way to heaven, so up I went along it. When I reached the top, my millet had ripened, and God had harvested it and made bread from it, and was eating it crumbled into hot milk. I greeted him: ‘God be with you!’ And he answered, ‘And God help you,’ and gave me the holy water. When I turned to go back, ill luck had brought rain, and the sea had risen and flooded all the millet and swept it away! Now I began to worry about how I was to get down to earth. Then I remembered my long hair: when I stood, it reached the ground, and when I sat, it reached my ears. So I took a knife and began cutting it off, hair by hair, and tying the hairs together. When darkness fell, I tied a knot in a hair and settled on it for the night. But what was I to do without a fire? I had my flint and steel, but no wood! All at once I remembered that I had a sewing needle in my waistcoat, so I took it out and split it into kindling, built a fire, and warmed myself to my heart’s content, then lay down beside it to sleep. After I fell asleep, as ill luck would have it, a spark flew up and burned through the hair, and I plunged headfirst to the earth and sank into it up to my waist. I twisted this way and that, trying to get out, but when I saw it was no use, I quickly ran home, fetched a hoe, dug myself out, and carried the holy water home. When I got there, the reapers were reaping in the fields. Dear God, what a blazing heat! The reapers were fit to burn. So I shouted, ‘Why don’t you bring that mare of ours here, the one that is two days long and half a day wide, with willows growing along her back? Let her shade the field.’ My father ran off at once and brought the mare, and the reapers went on reaping comfortably in the shade. I took a jug and went to fetch water. When I got there, the water was frozen, so I took off my head, broke the ice with it, and filled the jug. When I brought the water to the reapers, they cried, ‘Where is your head?’ I reached up with my hand, and there was no head: I had forgotten it by the water. So I hurried back, and when I got there, a fox had come and was scooping the brains out of my head and eating them. Slowly, slowly, I crept up close, then kicked the fox in the backside. She took fright and let out a f...t, and with it she f...ted out a ledger. When I opened it, there it was written: the loaf for me, and s...t for the beardless man.” Then the boy got up, took the loaf, and went home, while the beardless man stayed behind, staring after him.