Бесплатный фрагмент - Fairy Tales Kazochki

To my children — Egor and Stephanie

«Count Lev Tolstoy
loved children a lot…»
Daniel Harms

Plum stone

(A true story)

Mother bought a bucket of plums and wanted to give them to the children in the afternoon.

Mother never ate plums before in her life and smelt them constantly. And she liked them. She really wanted to eat them.

When there was no one else in the room, she would not resist herself and ate the whole bucket.

At dinner, father asked, «Children, did anyone eat the plums?»

The children answered, «No.»

Then father said, «If any of you ate them — that’s not good of course, but not a trouble. The trouble is that plums have stones, and if someone does not know how to eat them and swallows the stone, then this person will die. That’s what I’m afraid of.»

Everyone laughed, but mother began to cry.

And next morning father died.

Soldier

(A true story)

There was a house on fire. No one could enter it, and honestly, wouldn’t even want to.

A soldier came over and said: «I’ll go.»

He was told: «You will burn.»

The soldier said: «One can’t die twice, and can’t escape once…»

And he ran into the house…

In fact, he was an extraordinary youth.

You wouldn’t understand them, the Slavs.

The Lion and the dog

(A true story)

Once upon a time in London*, they showed wild animals and took dogs and cats instead of money for watching.

The dogs and cats were used as feed for the wild animals.

One man wanted to look at the animals, so he grabbed a little dog on the street and brought it to the show.

He was admitted to watch and the little dog he picked up was thrown into the lion cage to be devoured. The dog dropped its tail between its legs and clung to the corner of the cage.

The lion came over and sniffed her.

The doggie squealed.

The she lay on her back, lifted her feet and began waving her tail.

The lion touched her with his paw, and flipped her over.

The doggie squealed.

They got married…

The doggie squealed.

Next morning, the doggie croaked and the lion’s lymph nodes began to swell.

* London is the capital of Great Britain

Eagle

(A true story)

An eagle built a nest in a big tree, away from the sea and broughtforth little children-eagles.

Once, some people began to work beside the tree and the eagle flew up to the nest with a large fish in its talons.

The people saw a fish and surrounded the tree. They started shouting and throwing stones at the eagle.

The people were Georgians.

The eagle dropped the fish, and the Georgians picked it up, poured themselves some sweet wine and shouted a toast:

«Eagle fly very high in the sky. Fish swim at the bottom of deepest gorge. So let’s drink to that!»

Philip

(A true story)

There once was a boy named Philip. The time came for all the boys to go serve in the army. Philip did not want to go. But his mother said to him: «Philip, you’re not going to the army?»

«No.»

«For you to not go to the army, you must have a disabled wife.»

The boys went to serve in the army. Philip’s father went early in the morning to the forest for his daily work. And Philip went and got married. He married his wife, and said:

«So, dear wife, you do not want me to go to the army?»

«Of course I don’t want you to.»

«Then go and get your leg cut off by a train».

The wife went to the railway station and got not just one leg cut off by a train, but her second leg as well.

She came home and Philip asked:

«Well, how are you, dear?»

«As you see.»

«Very good,» said Philip, «Who taught you how to do that?»

His wife braved and said:

«I learned myself. I’m daring and I immediately understood. Oh, I’m very nifty.»

The Master and the Rooster

(A true story)

The master did not sleep all night. He drank, engaged in some unethical deeds with the mistress, and even carried sheaves of grain before midnight. Then he lay down to rest directly in the courtyard.

The rooster saw his master and thought, my master wants to hear me sing.

He got closer to the master and shouted in his ear:

«Soldier arise! Scrub the bloody muck out of your eyes. 45 seconds! Parade dress, assemble in the court!»

The master woke up and pushed the rooster who was not allowing him to sleep away. The rooster thought that the master wanted him to sing louder, so he crept closer and began to shout with all his might:

«Get up, son of a bitch! Get up and fight! Is this how you serve?»

The master grabbed a rake and hit the rooster in the head. The rooster saw blinking numbers.

How a Man Shared a Goose

(A fairy tale story)

One smelly man ended up with not a single loaf of bread to bring to his family. He decided to ask for some bread from his laird. Before going to the master, he caught a goose and roasted it in wine sauce with cognac.

The laird accepted the goose and quietly said to the smelly peasant: «I thank you, sweet man. You do your service well. I will eat a fried little goose to relieve my stomach pain. But look here, I don’t know how I will share your goose. I have a beautiful wife, Maria, two sons, and two more daughters to marry off.»

The man was thinking as the time was ticking.

The foul-smelling man finally said: «I know how we can share the goose.»

He took his knife, cut the goose’s head off and told his master: «You are the head of the household — the head is yours.»

He then cut off the tail and gave it to the laird’s wife: «You stay at home,» he said, «You look after the house — the rump is yours.»

The man snapped the legs off and offered them to the sons: «You are the legs, stomping your father’s path.» As for the daughters, he gave them the wings: «You will soon open your wings and fly away from your family home.«The man then announced, and the rest I will take for myself!»

And he took the remainder of the goose. The laird laughed to tears, gave the peasant a loaf of bread and some coins for him to drink to his health.

The smelly man got drunk on vodka and set fire to laird’s mansion.

And so Leo Tolstoy went in his old age to wander across Russia.

The poor fellow was found half-dead at some railway station by other foul-smelling men.

The Louse

(A true story)

There lived a brother and sister, Vasya and Katya, and they had lice. In the spring, the lice disappeared. The children searched everywhere, but could not find them.

Once they played beside the barn and heard over their heads thethin voice of someone screaming.

Vasya climbed the stairs under the roof of the barn and began looking. Katya stood at the bottom of ladder and asked many times: «Did you find it? Did you find it?»

Finally Vasya shouted back: «Found it! Our cat… and he has our lice! They’re so wonderful, look at how they’ve grown! Come up here now!»

Katya ran home, got milk, and brought it for the lice. But the lice had yet to finish eating the cat. There were five of the lice. When they grew a little and started to crawl out of the barn door, the children chose a grey louse with white paw sand brought it home.

Mother handed all the other lice to the neighbors and left one for the children. Vasya and Katya fed their louse with some fodder, played with her, and put her to bed together.

One time the children went to play on the big road and took the louse with them. The wind brought yellow leaves onto the road, while the louse played in the straw and the children rejoiced at her.

Then they found beside the road someone’s foot and forgot about the louse. Suddenly they heard someone shouting loudly, «Back! Come back!» and saw that a hunter on a horse was approaching them and had two dogs ahead of him.

The dogs saw the louse and ran to her. Instead of running, the louse crouched down to the ground, arched her six forelegs and looked at the dogs.

Katya was so scared the she screamed and ran away. And Vasya, in his spirit, set off to the louse. The hunter arrived and tried once more to drive his dogs away from the louse, but he barely survived and carried his legs away.

And Vasya brought the louse home and have never took her with to the meadow again.

The Geese and Peacock-Meacock

(A true story)

Peacock-Meacock, his tail spread open, was walking along the shore of the pond.

Two gosling were looking at him accusingly.

«Look,» one of them said, «what the ugly feet he has, and listen how incoherently he yells.»

A man overheard them and said:

«It is true that his feet are not good and he sings awkwardly, but your feet are even worse and you sing worse, yet you do not have such a tail.»

The gosling replied:

«Hey man! Oh, goodness! Man, oh, man! Have you ever seen your own legs in the mirror? Yes, and you have a bad diction. And you don’t have tail to speak of!

So why wouldn’t you go and fuck yourself…»

And Lenin went back home, touching the willow branches with his horns.

Peacock-Meacock and the Heron

(A true story, of course)

A heron had an argument with a peacock about who of them was more important.

Peacock-Meacock said:

«I am more beautiful than any bird-mird in the world. All the colours ofmy tail shimmer-glimmer. And you are grey and ugly.»

The heron replied:

«But I’m the most terrible beast on the ground and in the skies, while all you do is parade on a dung heap like a wild boar.»

Peacock-Meacock realized all his absurdity, and said:

«Well, we’ll see when you come to me in the winter for acorns!»

The Shark

(A true story)

One ship sailed around the world and was on its way home. The entire crew was on the deck.

Among the people, a large monkey was fooling around and amusing everyone as only she could. She jumped on a twelve-year old boy, the captain’s son, tore off his hat and briskly climbed the mast. Everyone laughed, and the boy began to cry. The boy wanted to catch the monkey, but she climbed to the top ofthe mast, took off the hat and began to tear it into small pieces with her claws and teeth.

«You won’t get away from me!» shouted the boy and ran to complain to his father. Someone in the crowd gasped in fear.

At this time, the ship’s captain came out of the cabin. He carried a rifle for shooting gulls. He saw the monkey on the mast and immediately took aim and shouted: «Jump! Jump into the water now! Or I shoot!»

The monkey staggered, but did not understand. «Jump or I shoot! One, two…» And as soon as the father shouted «Three!» the monkey swung her head down and jumped. Suddenly someone shouted from the deck «Shark!!!» and we all saw the back of the sea monster in the water.

«Come back! Come back! Shark!!!» cried the captain. But the monkey did not hear and was falling down faster than ever.

The captain, pale as a sheet, was motionless and stared at the monkey. The monkey at first did not hear what he shouted and did not see the shark, but once she saw it, we heard a piercing shriek. The squeal sound brought the captain back to reality. He jumped up and ran to the mortar gun. He loaded it, turned the trunk, lay the gun, aimed and took the wick.

All of us on the ship were like one, frozen with fear and waiting for what will happen next.