Oh: The Tsar of the Forest

His father gave him another drubbing and sent him to a blacksmith to learn smith’s work. But there too he did not remain long, but ran away home again, so what was that poor father to do? “I’ll tell thee what I’ll do with thee, thou son of a dog!” said he. “I’ll take thee, thou lazy lout, into another kingdom. There, perchance, they will be able to teach thee better than they can here, and it will be too far for thee to run home.” So he took him and set out on his journey.

They went on and on, they went a short way and they went a long way, and at last they came to a forest so dark that they could see neither earth nor sky. They went through this forest, but in a short time they grew very tired, and when they came to a path leading to a clearing full of large tree-stumps, the father said, “I am so tired out that I will rest here a little,” and with that he sat down on a tree-stump and cried, “Oh, how tired I am!” He had no sooner said these words than out of the tree-stump, nobody could say how, sprang such a little, little old man, all so wrinkled and puckered, and his beard was quite green and reached right down to his knee.––“What dost thou want of me, O man?” he asked.––The man was amazed at the strangeness of his coming to light, and said to him, “I did not call thee; begone!”––“How canst thou say that when thou didst call me?” asked the little old man.––“Who art thou, then?” asked the father.––“I am Oh, the Tsar of the Woods,” replied the old man; “why didst thou call me, I say?”––“Away with thee, I did not call thee,” said the man.––“What! thou didst not call me when thou saidst ‘Oh’?”––“I was tired, and therefore I said ‘Oh’!” replied the man.––“Whither art thou going?” asked Oh.––“The wide world lies before me,” sighed the man. “I am taking this sorry blockhead of mine to hire him out to somebody or other. Perchance other people may be able to knock more sense into him than we can at home; but send him whither we will, he always comes running home again!”––“Hire him out to me.