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Main > Ukrainian folktales > Fairy tale "The Story of the Wind"

The Story of the Wind

“Dost hear, fellow!” cried they; “get up, it is time to go home. Dost thou not see the morning light?” The man sat up and scratched the back of his head, for he was loath to go. But what was he to do? So he shouldered the sack that was hanging on the peg, and went off home.

When he got to his house, he cried, “Open the door, wife!” Then his wife opened the door, and he went in and hung his sack on the peg and said, “Sit down at the table, dear wife, and you children sit down there too. Now, thank God! we shall have enough to eat and drink, and to spare.” The wife looked at her husband and smiled. She thought he was mad, but down she sat, and her children sat down all round her, and she waited to see what her husband would do next. Then the man said, “Sack, sack, give to us meat and drink!” But the sack was silent. Then he said again, “Sack, sack, give my children something to eat!” And still the sack was silent. Then the man fell into a violent rage. “Thou didst give me something at the tavern,” cried he; “and now I may call in vain. Thou givest nothing, and thou hearest nothing”––and, leaping from his seat, he took up a club and began beating the sack till he had knocked a hole in the wall, and beaten the sack to bits. Then he set off to seek the Wind again. But his wife stayed at home and put everything to rights again, railing and scolding at her husband as a madman.

But the man went to the Wind and said, “Hail to thee, O Wind!”––“Good health to thee, O man!” replied the Wind. Then the Wind asked, “Wherefore hast thou come hither, O man? Did I not give thee a sack? What more dost thou want?”––“A pretty sack indeed!” replied the man; “that sack of thine has been the cause of much mischief to me and mine.”––“What mischief has it done thee?”––“Why, look now, old father, I’ll tell thee what it has done. It wouldn’t give me anything to eat and drink, so I began beating it, and beat the wall in. Now what shall I do to repair my crazy hut? Give me something, old father.

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