Medvedov sin

Besedilo

Medvedov sin

In a certain village, some women went up into the mountains to look for wild madder, and as they wandered about, one of them strayed from the others and came to a cave. A bear came out, seized her, and carried her inside. Living there with him, the woman became pregnant and gave birth to a boy. When the child had grown a little, she somehow managed to slip away and escape home to her village. The bear went on bringing all manner of things to feed the child, just as he had fed his mother before him. When the boy was quite big, he began insisting that he wanted to leave the cave and go out into the world. The bear tried to dissuade him, saying that he was still young and weak, and that out in the world there were wicked beasts called men, who would kill him. So the boy quieted down for a while and stayed in the cave. After some time, he again began insisting on going out into the world, and when the bear could find no other way to dissuade him, he took him out of the cave to a beech tree and said, “If you can pull this beech out of the ground, I shall let you go out into the world. But if you cannot, you must stay with me a while longer.” The boy seized the beech and tugged this way and that, but could not uproot it, so he went back into the cave with his father. Some time later, when the boy again insisted on going out into the world, the bear took him outside and told him to try whether he could now pull the beech out of the ground. The boy seized the tree and uprooted it. Then the bear told him to lop off its branches, shoulder it for a club, and go out into the world. The boy obeyed his father, and as he travelled through the world he came to a field where several hundred plough teams had gathered to plough for a landowner. He went up to the ploughmen and asked whether they had anything to give him to eat. They told him to wait a little: their dinner would soon be brought, and whatever there was for all of them, he could share it too. They were still speaking when carts, horses, mules, and donkeys appeared, bringing the dinner. When the food arrived, Međedović said that he would eat it all himself. The ploughmen marvelled and asked how he could possibly eat so much food, brought for so many hundreds of men. He said again that he could, and made a wager with them: if he failed to eat it all, he would give them his club, but if he succeeded, they must give him all the iron from their ploughs. The dinner was set out, and Međedović fell to and ate everything, and could have eaten more had there been any. Then they gathered all the iron from their ploughs into a heap, while he twisted a few birch saplings into ropes, bound it all together, and hung it on his club. Shouldering it, he went to a blacksmith and told him to forge a mace-head from the iron and fit it to the club. The blacksmith undertook the job, but thought there was too much iron, so he hid nearly half of it and knocked together a mace-head of sorts from the rest. To Međedović, the head seemed small for so much iron, and what there was of it did not look properly made. So, once the head was fitted to the club, he threw the mace up into the sky to test it, then went down on all fours beneath it and caught it on his back. To the blacksmith’s misfortune, the mace-head shattered. Međedović swung his club and killed the blacksmith, then went into his house and found all the hidden iron. He took it, together with the broken pieces of the mace-head, to another blacksmith and told him to forge a head for his club. But he warned him not to play any tricks: he must use all the iron and make a good mace-head, unless he wanted to end up like the man who had forged the first one. The blacksmith, who had already heard what had happened to the other smith, gathered all his workmen, and together they forged all the iron into as fine a mace-head as could possibly be made. When it was fitted to the club, Međedović again threw the mace into the sky to test it and went down on all fours beneath it. This time the head did not break but bounced off his back. Straightening up, Međedović said, “Now that is a good mace,” and shouldered it and went on his way. As he travelled, he came upon a man in a field, ploughing with two oxen yoked to his plough. He went up to him and asked whether he had anything to eat. The man replied, “My daughter will soon bring my dinner, and we shall share whatever God has provided.” Međedović began telling him how he had eaten everything prepared for several hundred ploughmen, and asked, “What will there be for me in one man’s dinner, and what will be left for you?” Just then the girl arrived with the food. As soon as she set it out, Međedović reached for it, but the man stopped him, saying, “Not until you have crossed yourself, like this, as I do!” Hungry as he was, Međedović had no choice but to cross himself. Then they began to eat, and both had their fill, with some left over. Međedović looked at the girl who had brought their dinner, a tall, sturdy, healthy beauty, and took a fancy to her. He said to her father, “Will you give me this daughter of yours for my wife?” The man answered, “Gladly would I give her to you, but I have promised her to Brko.” “What do I care about Brko?” said Međedović. “I shall deal with Brko with this mace.” But the man said, “Brko is no ordinary fellow, either. You will see him soon enough.” Just then a rumbling arose from one side, and over the hill appeared one whisker, with three hundred and sixty-five birds’ nests in it. Little by little the other whisker came into view, and there was Brko himself. As soon as he reached them, he lay face down with his head in the girl’s lap and told her to pick the lice from his hair. The girl began to do so, while Međedović rose quietly and struck Brko on the head with his mace. Brko put a finger to the spot and said to the girl, “Something bit me just here.” Međedović struck him again in another place, and again Brko put his finger to the spot. “Something bit me here again.” When Međedović struck him a third time, Brko felt the place once more and cried angrily, “Are you blind? Something is taking a bite out of me here!” Then the girl told him, “Nothing is biting you. There is a man here beating you.” When Brko heard this, he started and sprang to his feet, but Međedović had already thrown down his mace and was running across the field, with Brko hard on his heels. Being lighter on his feet, Međedović gained some ground, but Brko would not give up the chase. As he fled, Međedović came to a river, and beside it he found some men winnowing wheat on a threshing floor. He cried out to them, “Help me, brothers, for God’s sake! Brko is after me! What am I to do? How shall I get across this river?” One of the men held out his shovel and said, “Sit on the shovel, and I will toss you across.” Međedović sat on the shovel, and the man swung it and tossed him to the other bank, where he went on running. A little later Brko too came to the threshing floor and asked the men, “Did a man of such-and-such a sort pass this way?” They told him that he had. “How did he get across the river?” Brko asked. “He jumped across!” they answered. So Brko took a run, leapt over the river to the other bank, and set off after Međedović. Running up a hill, Međedović grew very weary. When he reached the top, he found a man in a ploughed field with a bag of seed hanging round his neck. He would take one handful and scatter it over the ground, then take another and put it into his mouth to eat. Međedović cried out to him, “Help me, brother, for God’s sake! Brko is chasing me, and he will catch me any moment! What am I to do? Hide me somewhere!” The man answered, “Indeed, Brko is no laughing matter. But I do not know where I can hide you. Come here into my bag, among the seed.” And he put him into the bag. When Brko arrived and asked about Međedović, the man told him that he had passed that way long ago, and God alone knew where he had got to by now. So Brko turned back. The man went on sowing his grain and forgot about Međedović, until all at once he scooped him up in a handful of grain and put him into his mouth. Afraid he would be swallowed, Međedović scrambled this way and that inside the man’s mouth, until by good fortune he found a broken tooth, where he lodged himself and kept quiet. When the sower came home that evening, he called to his daughters-in-law, “Bring me my toothpicks, children. Something is troubling me in that bad tooth of mine.” The daughters-in-law brought two great iron spits, and when he opened his mouth, one poked from one side and the other from the other, until Međedović sprang out of the tooth. Only then did the sower remember him, and he said, “A fine hiding place I found you! I very nearly swallowed you!” Afterwards, when they had eaten supper and begun talking of all manner of things, Međedović asked his host what had happened to that tooth to make it so much worse than all the others. And his host began this tale: “Once, about ten of us set off with thirty horses to fetch salt from Dubrovnik. On our way we came upon a girl tending sheep. She asked where we were going, and we told her we were going to Dubrovnik for salt. ‘Why trouble yourselves with such a long journey?’ she said. ‘There is some salt here in my knitting bag, left over from when I gave salt to the sheep. I think it will be enough for all of you!’ So we struck a bargain with her there and then. She took her knitting bag off her arm, and we took our sacks off the horses, and we measured and filled until we had filled enough sacks for all thirty horses. When we had settled with her, we turned homewards. It was autumn, and the weather was fair enough, but one day towards nightfall, just as we reached the top of Čemerno, clouds gathered and snow began to fall, driven by a north wind, until we and the horses quite lost our way. To make our misfortune worse, darkness fell completely. We wandered this way and that until, by good luck, one of us stumbled upon a cave and cried, ‘This way, brothers! Here is shelter!’ So we came over one by one, until we were all inside with all thirty horses. We unloaded the horses, lit a fire, and spent the night as snugly as if we were at home. But when daylight came, what a sight there was to see! We were all inside a human skull lying among some vineyards. While we were still marvelling at this and loading our horses, as ill luck would have it, along came the watchman of those vineyards. He picked up the skull, with all of us inside, put it into his sling, and whirled it a few times over his head. Then he flung it across the vineyards to frighten away the starlings, and when we landed on a hillside, that was when I broke this tooth.” And may you enjoy this tall tale!