Veliki Peter in Mali Peter

Besedilo

Veliki Peter in Mali Peter

Once upon a time there were two brothers, and both were called Peer. The elder was known as Store-Peer, and the younger as Vesle-Peer. When their father died, Store-Peer took over the farm and married a woman with a great deal of money besides. But Vesle-Peer stayed at home with his mother and lived on her allowance until he came of age. Then he received his inheritance, and Store-Peer told him he could no longer stay on the farm eating up his mother’s keep; he had better go out into the world and find something to do.

Well, Vesle-Peer thought that was not such a bad idea. He bought himself a fine horse and a load of butter and other farm produce, and drove to town with them. With the money he made, he bought spirits and other drink, and no sooner was he home than he began celebrating his trip to town. He poured drinks and entertained neighbours and acquaintances, and they poured drinks and entertained him in return, and he lived in clover as long as the money lasted. But when the last penny was gone and Vesle-Peer’s purse was empty, he came home to his old mother again, with nothing left to his name but a calf. When spring came, he turned the calf out to graze in Store-Peer’s meadow. This made Store-Peer so angry that he killed it. Vesle-Peer skinned the calf, hung the hide in the bathhouse until it was thoroughly dry, then rolled it up, put it in a sack, and went about the district trying to sell it. But wherever he went, people laughed at him and said they had no use for a smoked calfskin. After he had walked a long way, he came to another farm. He went inside and asked for a night’s lodging.

“No, I’m afraid I can’t put you up,” said the wife, “for my husband is away at the mountain pasture, and I’m home alone. You must try the neighbouring farm. But if they won’t take you in, you may come back, for we can’t have you left without a roof over your head either,” she said. As Peer passed the window of the little chamber, he saw a priest inside, whom the wife was carrying on with. She set out ale and spirits and a great pot of sour-cream porridge. Just as the priest had sat down to eat and drink, the master of the house came home. But when the wife heard him in the porch, she lost no time: she put the pot of porridge beneath the hearthstone, the ale and spirits in the cellar, and locked the priest in a great chest that stood there.

Vesle-Peer stood outside watching all this, but once the husband was safely indoors, he followed him in and asked whether he might have a night’s lodging. “Yes,” said the man, “you may stay here,” and he invited Peer to sit down at the table and eat.

So Vesle-Peer sat down at the table, taking the calfskin with him, and laid it at his feet. When they had been sitting there a while, he began treading on the hide.

“What’s that you’re saying now? Can’t you keep quiet?” said Vesle-Peer. “Who are you talking to?” asked the man. “Oh, it’s a soothsayer I have in this calfskin,” said Peer. “And what does she foretell?” the man asked. “She says there’s a pot of sour-cream porridge beneath the hearthstone,” said Vesle-Peer.

“Her prophecies can’t be worth much. There hasn’t been any sour-cream porridge in this house for a year and a day,” said the man. But Peer urged him to look, and when he did, he found the pot of porridge.

They began to feast on it, and while they were enjoying themselves, Peer trod on the calfskin again. “Hush!” he said. “Can’t you hold your tongue?” “What does the soothsayer say now?” asked the man.

“She says there’s ale and spirits under the cellar stairs,” Peer replied. “If she’s never foretold anything wrong before, she’s doing it now,” said the man. “Ale and spirits? I can scarcely remember having such things in the house.” “Go and look!” said Peer. The man did, and sure enough, he found the drink, which pleased him mightily.

“What did you pay for that soothsayer? I must have her, whatever you ask,” said the man. “I inherited her from my father, and I wouldn’t part with her for a trifle,” said Peer. “To tell the truth, I’m not much inclined to part with her at all, but never mind: let me have that old chest in the little chamber, and she’s yours.” “The key to the chest is lost!” cried the wife. “I’ll take it without a key,” said Peer, and he and the man soon struck their bargain.

Peer was given a rope instead of the key, and the man helped him hoist the chest onto his back. Off he staggered with it. After he had gone some way, he came to a bridge. Beneath it ran a river so swift that it foamed and seethed, making such a roar that the bridge shook. “That liquor, that liquor!” said Peer. “I can tell I’ve had a drop again. What am I doing lugging this chest about? If I hadn’t been drunk and out of my wits, I’d never have traded my soothsayer for it.

“But now the chest is going into the river, and this very instant!” He began undoing the rope. “Oh, oh! For God’s sake, spare me! It’s the priest of this parish you have in the chest!” cried the man inside. “It must be the Devil himself, trying to make me believe he’s turned priest,” said Peer. “But whether he calls himself priest or parish clerk, into the river he goes.” “Oh no, oh no! It’s the parish priest! I was tending to the woman’s spiritual needs. Her husband is a wild, furious fellow, so she had to hide me in the chest. I have a silver watch and a gold watch on me; you shall have them both, and eight hundred dollars besides. Only let me out!” cried the priest. “Well, well, can it really be you, Father?” said Peer. He took a stone and smashed the lid of the chest, and out came the priest. Then away he went towards the parsonage, swift and light-footed, for neither his watches nor his money would weigh him down any longer.

Vesle-Peer went home again and said to Store-Peer, “Calfskins are fetching a fine price at market today.” “What did you get for that scrap of hide of yours, then?” asked Store-Peer. “Poor as it was, I got eight hundred dollars for it. But the skins of bigger, fatter calves fetch twice as much,” said Vesle-Peer, showing him the money.

“It’s a good thing you told me,” answered Store-Peer. He killed all his calves and cows, and set off for town with their skins and hides. When he reached the market and the tanners asked his price, Store-Peer demanded eight hundred for the small ones, and a price to match for the large. But everyone only laughed and made fun of him, saying he need not go to such trouble; he could get into the madhouse for less than that. Then he understood what had happened, and that Vesle-Peer had tricked him. He was in no pleasant mood when he came home, and he swore and cursed that he would kill Vesle-Peer that night.

Vesle-Peer stood listening to all this. After he had gone to bed with his mother, and the evening had worn on a little, he asked her to change places with him, for he was so cold, and it must be warmer next to the wall, he said. So she did.

Presently Store-Peer came in with an axe in his hand, crept up to the bed, and cut off his mother’s head with a single blow. In the morning Vesle-Peer went into Store-Peer’s room. “God help you for chopping our mother to death,” he said.

“The sheriff won’t think much of your way of providing for her.” Store-Peer was so frightened that he begged Vesle-Peer, for God’s sake, to keep what he knew to himself. If he would, he should have eight hundred dollars. Vesle-Peer pocketed the money, put his mother’s head back on, got her onto a sledge, and pulled her to market. There he sat her up with a basket of apples on each arm and an apple in each hand. Along came a ship’s captain, who took her for a market woman and asked whether she had apples for sale, and how many he could have for a penny.

But the old woman did not answer. The captain asked again. Still she gave no answer. “How many do I get for a penny?” he shouted a third time, but the woman sat there as though she neither saw nor heard him. This made the captain so angry that he gave her a cuff under the ear, sending her head rolling across the marketplace. At that very moment Vesle-Peer came running up, weeping and wailing, and threatening to ruin the captain for killing his old mother. “My dear fellow, only keep what you know to yourself, and you shall have eight hundred dollars,” said the captain, and on that they settled. When Vesle-Peer came home again, he said to Store-Peer, “Old women are fetching a fine price at market today. I got eight hundred for our mother,” and he showed him the money. “It’s a good thing I heard about that,” said Store-Peer. He had an old mother-in-law, so he killed her and hurried off to sell her. But when people heard that he was going about offering dead bodies for sale, they wanted to hand him over to the sheriff, and he escaped by the skin of his teeth. When Store-Peer came home again, he was so furious with Vesle-Peer that he threatened to kill him on the spot. There was no mercy to be expected.

“Well, well, we must all go that way, and there’s only a night between today and tomorrow. But if I must leave this world now, there’s one thing I’d ask of you: put me in that sack hanging over there, and carry me down to the river,” said Vesle-Peer. Store-Peer had no objection to that. He stuffed him into the sack and set off. But he had gone only a little way when he remembered something he had forgotten and had to go back for it, leaving the sack by the roadside. Just then a man came along driving a great, fine flock of sheep.

“To Heaven! To Paradise! To Heaven! To Paradise!” cried Vesle-Peer from inside the sack, and he went on chanting it over and over. “May I come too?” asked the man with the flock. “Yes, if you untie the sack and climb in instead of me, you shall go there,” said Vesle-Peer. “I don’t mind waiting till another time. But you must be sure to call out just as I did, or you won’t reach the right place.” The man untied the sack and took Vesle-Peer’s place. Peer tied it up again, and the man began shouting:

“To Heaven! To Paradise! To Heaven! To Paradise!” And he kept up the chant. Once Peer had him safely in the sack, he wasted no time: he hurried off with the flock, taking a wide detour. Meanwhile Store-Peer returned, shouldered the sack, and carried it down towards the river. All the way there, the sheep-drover sat inside calling:

“To Heaven! To Paradise!” “Well, well, see if you can find the way!” said Store-Peer, and threw him in. Having done that, Store-Peer turned for home, and on the way he met his brother driving the flock of sheep before him.

Store-Peer was utterly astonished, and asked how Vesle-Peer had got out of the river, and where he had found such a fine flock of sheep. “It was a truly brotherly deed to throw me in,” Vesle-Peer replied. “I sank straight to the bottom like a stone, and you should have seen the flocks of sheep I found there! They roam about down there by the thousand, one flock finer than the next. And just look at these: there’s wool for you!” said Peer. “It’s a good thing you told me,” said Store-Peer. He hurried home to his wife, brought her down to the river, climbed into a sack, and told her to be quick about tying it shut and throwing him off the bridge. “I’m going down for a flock of sheep. But if I’m so long about it that you can tell I can’t manage the flock, you must jump in after me and help,” said Store-Peer. “Yes, only don’t be too long, for I’m longing for those sheep,” said his wife. She stood waiting a while, but then she thought to herself that her husband must be having trouble rounding up the flock, so she jumped in after him. And so Vesle-Peer was rid of them all. He inherited the farm and the land, the horses and the tools, and had money of his own to buy cattle with.