Ivan Bestalanny and Elena the Wise
There lived a peasant woman, a widow, in one village. She lived a long time and raised her son Ivan.
And now the time has come - Ivan has grown up. His mother is happy that he has become big, but it’s bad that he grew up with no talent. And it’s true: every business gets out of Ivan’s hands, not like people do; every matter is not in his favor and for the future, but everything is against him. It used to be that Ivan would go to plow, and his mother would say to him:
At the top, the earth has gone wrong, at the top it has been eaten up by bread, you, son, plow it a little deeper!
Ivan will plow the field deeper, reach right down to the clay and wrap the clay around it; Then he sows bread - nothing will be born, and the seeds will be destroyed. So it is in another matter: Ivan tries to do what is best, what is best, but he has no luck and little intelligence. But my mother has become old, the work is too much for her. How should they live? And they lived poorly, they had nothing.
They finished the last piece of bread, the very last one. The mother thinks about her son - how he will live, he is mediocre! It would be necessary to marry him: a reasonable wife, it seems, has an unemployed husband who works on the farm and does not eat bread for nothing. But who, however, will take her untalented son as a husband? Not only the red-haired maiden, but also the widow, I’m sure she won’t take it!
While his mother was spinning like this, Ivan sat on the rubble and did not grieve about anything.
He looks - an old man is walking, he is shabby, covered in moss, and the earth has eaten into his face, the wind has caught him.
Son,” the old man says, “feed me: I’ve grown thin for long journey, there is nothing left in the bag.
Ivan answered him:
And we, grandfather, don’t have a crumb of bread in our hut. If I had known that you were coming, I wouldn’t have eaten the last bit myself just now, I would have left it for you. Go, I’ll at least wash you and rinse your shirt.
Ivan heated the bathhouse, washed an old man passing by in the bathhouse, washed off all the dirt from him, steamed him with a broom and then rinsed his shirt and ports clean and put him to sleep in the hut.
So the old man rested, woke up and said:
I will remember your kindness. If you feel bad, go to the forest. You will reach the place where two roads part, you will see a gray stone lying there - push that stone with your shoulder and click: grandfather, they say, - I will be here. The old man said so and left. But Ivan and his mother felt very bad: they collected all the scraps from the chest and ate all the crumbs.
Wait for me, mother,” said Ivan. - Maybe I'll bring you some bread.
Yes, where are you! - answered the mother. - Where can you, mediocre, get bread? At least you can eat, but I’ll probably die without eating... If only I could find a bride somewhere, look, with a wife, if she turns out to be wise, you’ll always have bread.
Ivan sighed and went into the forest. He comes to the place where the roads part, touched the stone with his shoulder, the stone and moved. That grandfather came to Ivan.
What do you want? - speaks. - Has Al come to visit?
Grandfather took Ivan into the forest. Ivan sees rich huts in the forest. Grandfather takes Ivan to one of the huts - to know that he is the boss here.
The old man ordered the kitchen guy and the old cook to fry a lamb for the first task. The owner began to treat the guest.
Ivan has eaten and asks for more.
“Roast,” he says, “and give me another sheep and a piece of bread.”
The grandfather-owner ordered the kitchen guy to fry another sheep and serve it to the kovrig wheat bread.
If you please,” he says, “help yourself to the best of your ability.” Al not full?
“I’m full,” Ivan replies, “I thank you, but let your fellow take a piece of bread and a lamb to my mother, she lives without eating.”
The old owner ordered the kitchen guy to tear down two rugs for Ivan’s mother white bread and a whole ram. And then he says:
Why do you live with your mother without eating? Look, you've grown up big, look - when you get married, how will you feed your family?
Ivan answered him:
I don’t know how, grandpa! Yes, I don’t have a wife.
What a woe! - said the owner. - And I’ll give my daughter to you in marriage. She's a smart girl, she's enough intelligence for both of you.
The old man called to his daughter. Here a beautiful maiden appears in the upper room. No one had ever seen such beauty, and it was unknown that it existed in the world. Ivan looked at her, and his heart stopped.
The old father looked at his daughter with severity and said to her:
Here is your husband, and you are his wife. The beautiful daughter just lowered her gaze:
Your will, father. So they got married and began to live and live well. They live well-fed, richly, Ivan’s wife rules the house, and the old master is rarely at home: he walks around the world, looking for wisdom among the people, and when he finds it, he returns to the court and writes it down in a book. And one day the old man brought a magic round mirror. He brought it from afar, from a master wizard from the cold mountains - he brought it and hid it. Ivan’s mother now lived well-fed and contented, and she lived as before in her hut in the village. The son invited her to live with him, but her mother did not want to: she did not like life in the house of Ivan’s wife, with her daughter-in-law.
“I’m afraid, son,” mother said to Ivan. - Look, Elenushka, your wife, what a beauty she is, rich and noble, what did you do to deserve her? Your father and I lived in poverty, and you were born without a destiny at all.
And Ivan’s mother stayed to live in her old hut. But Ivan lives and thinks: mother speaks the truth; He seems to have enough of everything, and his wife is affectionate, she won’t say a word against him, but Ivan feels as if he is always cold. And he lives like this with his young wife, half-living, but not at all well. One day an old man comes to Ivan and says:
I will go farther, further than I went before, I will not return soon. Here, take the key from me. I used to carry it with me, but now I’m afraid of losing it: the road is long for me. Take care of the key and don’t open the barn with it. And if you go to the barn, don’t take your wife there. And if you can’t stand it and lead your wife away, then don’t give her a colored dress. Time will come, I’ll give it to her myself, and I’ll save it for her. Look, remember what I told you, otherwise you will lose your life in death!
The old man said and left. More time has passed. Ivan thinks:
“Why so! I’ll go to the barn and see what’s there, but I won’t take my wife!”
Ivan went to that barn that was always locked, opened it, looked - there was a lot of gold there, it lay in pieces, and the stones burned like heat, and there was also goodness, which Ivan did not know the name of. And in the corner of the barn there was also a closet or a secret place, and a door led there. Ivan had only opened the door to the closet and had not even had time to step into it when he accidentally shouted:
Elenushka, my wife, come here quickly!
In that closet there hung a semi-precious women's dress. It shone like a clear sky, and the light, like a living wind, moved across it. Ivan was glad to see such a dress; it will just fit his wife and she will like it.
Ivan remembered that the old man had not ordered him to give the dress to his wife, but what would happen to the dress if he just showed it! And Ivan loved his wife: where she smiles, there he will be happy.
My wife came. She saw this dress and clasped her hands.
“Oh,” he says, “what a good dress!”
So she asks Ivan:
Dress me in this dress and smooth it out so that it fits well.
But Ivan doesn’t tell her to wear a dress. Then she cries:
“You know,” he says, “you don’t love me: you regret such a good dress for your wife.” Let me at least put my hands through it, I’ll feel what the dress is like - maybe it’s not suitable. Ivan told her:
Pull it through, he says, and try how it will feel for you.
The wife put her hands into the sleeves and again to her husband:
Nothing in sight. They told me to put my head in the collar. Ivan ordered. She stuck her head in, and pulled the dress over herself, and wrapped herself all in it. She felt that there was a mirror in one pocket, took it out and looked.
“Look,” he says, “what a beauty, but she lives behind a mediocre husband!” If I could become a bird, I would fly far, far away from here!
She screamed in a high voice, clasped her hands, and lo and behold, she was gone. She turned into a dove and flew out of the barn far, far into the blue sky, wherever she wanted. You know, she put on a magical dress. Ivan was sunbathing here. Why grieve? He had no time. He put some bread in his knapsack and went to look for his wife.
“Oh,” he said, “what a villain, she disobeyed her father and left her parents’ yard without permission!” I’ll find her and teach her senses!
He said this, but remembered that he himself lived without talent, and began to cry.
Here he is walking the path, walking the road, walking the path, he feels bad, he grieves for his wife. Ivan sees a pike lying by the water, completely dying, but cannot get into the water.
“Look,” thinks Ivan, “I feel bad, but she’s even worse.” He picked up the pike and threw it into the water. The pike now dived into the depths and back up, stuck its head out and said:
I will not forget your kindness. If you feel bitter, just say: “Pike, pike, remember Ivan!” Ivan ate a piece of bread and moved on. He walks and walks, and it’s already nightfall.
Ivan looks and sees: the kite has caught a sparrow, holds it in its claws and wants to peck it.
“Eh,” Ivan looks, “I’m in trouble, but the sparrow is dead!”
Ivan scared the kite, which released the sparrow from its claws.
The sparrow sat on a branch and said to Ivan:
If you need to, call out to me: “Hey, sparrow, remember my goodness!”
Ivan spent the night under a tree, and the next morning he moved on. And he had already moved far from his home, he was all tired and his body had become skinny, so that he supported his clothes with his hand. But he had a long way to go, and Ivan still walked whole year and six months. He walked all over the earth, reached the sea, and had nowhere to go further.
He asks a resident:
Whose land is this, who is the king and queen here?
The resident answers Ivan:
Elena the Wise lives among our queens: she knows everything - she has a book where everything is written, and she sees everything - she has a mirror. She probably sees it now.
Indeed, Elena saw Ivan in her mirror. She had Daria, a servant. So Daria wiped the dust off the mirror with a towel, looked into it herself, first admired herself, and then saw a strange man in him.
No way, a stranger is coming! - said the servant to Helen the Wise. - Apparently, he’s coming from afar: he’s thin and all over the place, and he’s worn out his bast shoes.
Elena the Wise looked in the mirror.
And then,” he says, “a stranger!” It was my husband who appeared. Ivan approached the royal court. He sees that the yard is fenced with a fence. And in the tine there are stakes, and on the stakes are human dead heads; only one stake is empty, there is nothing.
Ivan asks a resident - what is this, they say?
And the resident told him:
And these, he says, are the suitors of our queen, Helen the Wise, who wooed her. Our queen - you have not seen her - is of indescribable beauty and a sorceress in mind. So suitors, noble and daring, woo her. And she needs a groom who will outwit her, that’s what it is! And whoever does not outwit her, she will execute them by death. Now there is only one stake left: this is for the one who will come to her as a husband.
Yes, I’m going to marry her! - said Ivan.
Therefore, the stake is empty for you,” answered the resident and went to where his hut stood.
Ivan came to Helen the Wise. And Elena is sitting in her royal chamber, and she is wearing her father’s dress, which she voluntarily put on in the barn.
What do you need? - asked Elena the Wise. - Why did you come?
Look at you,” Ivan tells her, “I miss you.”
“They missed me too,” said Elena the Wise and pointed to the wall outside the window, where there were dead heads.
Then Ivan asked:
Are you not my wife anymore?
“I was your wife,” the queen tells him, “but now I’m not the same.” What kind of husband are you to me, a mediocre man! If you want me as your wife, earn me again! If you don’t deserve it, take your head off your shoulders! There's an empty stake sticking out in the tyne.
The empty stake doesn’t miss me,” said Ivan. - Make sure you don't miss me. Tell me: what do you want to do?
The queen answered him:
And do as I command! Hide from me wherever you want, even at the end of the world, so that I don’t find you, and if I did find you, I wouldn’t recognize you. Then you will be smarter than me, and I will become your wife. If you don’t know how to be secret, I’ll tell you, you’ll lose your head.
“Allow me,” Ivan asked, “to sleep on the straw until morning and eat your bread, and in the morning I will fulfill Your wish.
So in the evening the servant Daria laid out straw in the entryway and brought a crust of bread and a jug of kvass. Ivan lay down and thought: what will happen in the morning? And he sees that Daria came, sat down on the porch in the hallway, spread out the queen’s light dress and began to mend a hole in it. Daria darned and darned, sewed and sewed up the hole, and then she began to cry. Ivan asks her:
Why are you crying, Daria?
“How can I not cry,” Daria replies, “if tomorrow I die!” The queen told me to sew up a hole in my dress, but the needle does not sew it, but only rips it open: the dress is so delicate, the needle tears open. If I don’t sew it up, the queen will execute me the next morning.
“Let me try to sew,” says Ivan, “maybe I’ll sew it up, and you don’t have to die.”
How can I give you a dress like that? - Daria says. - The queen said: you are a mediocre man. However, try it a little and I’ll see.
Ivan sat down at the dress, took a needle and began to sew. He sees that, indeed, the needle is not sewing, but tearing: the dress is light, like air, and the needle cannot be accepted in it. Ivan threw down the needle and began to tie each thread with another thread with his hands. Daria saw it and got angry with Ivan:
You have no skill! How can you tie all the threads in the hole with your hands? There are thousands of them here!
And look, I will tie them up with desire and patience! - Ivan answered. - And you go and go to bed, by the morning, look, I’ll get off.
Ivan worked all night. The moon shone from the sky for him, and the dress glowed on its own, as if alive, and he saw every thread of it.
By the morning dawn, Ivan had managed. He looked at his work: there were no more holes, the dress was now whole everywhere. He lifted the dress into his hand and felt that it seemed to become heavy. He looked at the dress: in one pocket there was a book - in it the old man, Elena’s father, wrote down all the wisdom, and in the other pocket there was a round mirror that the old man brought from the master wizard from the cold mountains. Ivan looked in the mirror - he could see it, but dimly; He read the book but didn’t understand anything. Ivan thought then: “People say I’m untalented, and that’s true.”
The next morning Daria the servant came and took ready-made dress, examined him and said to Ivan:
Thank you. You saved me from death, and I will remember your goodness.
Now the sun has risen above the earth, it’s time for Ivan to go to a secret place where Queen Elena will not find him. He went out into the yard and saw a haystack standing there; He lay down in the hay, thought he had completely hidden himself, but the yard dogs barked at him, and Daria shouted from the porch:
What a mediocre one! I even see you, not just the queen! Get out of there, don’t muddy the hay with your bast shoes!
Ivan got out and thought: where should he go? I saw that the sea was close.
He went to the sea and remembered the pike.
Pike, he says, pike, remember Ivan!
The pike poked its head out of the water.
Go,” he says, “I’ll hide you at the bottom of the sea!”
Ivan threw himself into the sea. The pike dragged him to the bottom, buried him in the sand, and muddied the water with his tail. Elena the Wise took her round mirror and pointed it at the ground: Ivan was missing; pointed to the sky: Ivan is not there; I pointed out to the sea at the water: and Ivan was not to be seen there, only the water was muddy. “I’m cunning, I’m smart,” the queen thinks, “and he’s not simple, Ivan the Talentless!” She opened her father’s book of wisdom and read there: “The cunning of the mind is strong, and good is stronger than cunning, even the creature remembers good.” The queen read these words, first according to the written word, and then according to the unwritten one, and the book said to her: Ivan lies in the sand at the bottom of the sea; Click on the pike, tell it to get Ivan from the bottom, otherwise, they say, I’ll catch you, pike, and eat you for lunch.
The queen sent Darya the servant and told her to call a pike from the sea, and let the pike lead Ivan from the bottom.
Ivan appeared to Helen the Wise.
Execute me,” he says, “I don’t deserve you.” Elena the Wise came to her senses: she would always have time to execute, and she and Ivan were not strangers to each other, they lived in the same family.
She says to Ivan:
Go and cover yourself again. Whether you outwit me or not, then I will either execute you or have mercy. Ivan went to look for a secret place so that the queen would not find it. Where will you go? Queen Helena has a magic mirror: she sees everything in it, and what is not visible in the mirror, a wise book will tell her about it. Ivan called:
Hey sparrow, do you remember my goodness?
And the sparrow is already here.
Fall to the ground, he says, and become a grain!
Ivan fell to the ground, became a grain, and a sparrow pecked him.
And Elena the Wise pointed the mirror at the earth, at the sky, at the water - Ivan was not there. Everything is in the mirror, but what you need is not there. Got angry wise Elena, threw the mirror on the floor, and it broke. Then Daria the servant came to the upper room, collected the fragments from the mirror in the hem and took them to the black corner of the yard. Elena the Wise opened her father's book. And he reads there: “Ivan is in the grain, and the grain is in the sparrow, and the sparrow is sitting on the fence.”
Then Elena ordered Daria to call the sparrow from the fence: let the sparrow give up the grain, otherwise the kite will eat him.
Daria went to the sparrow. The sparrow heard Daria, got scared and threw the grain out of its beak. The grain fell to the ground and turned into Ivan. He became as he was.
Here Ivan appears again before Helen the Wise.
Execute me now,” he says, “it’s clear that I’m truly mediocre, and you’re wise.”
“I’ll execute you tomorrow,” the queen tells him. - Tomorrow I will hang your head on the remaining stake. Ivan lies in the hallway in the evening and thinks about what he should do when he has to die in the morning. He then remembered his mother. He remembered, and it became easy for him - he loved her so much.
He looks - Daria is coming and bringing him a pot of porridge.
Ivan ate porridge. Daria says to him:
Don't be afraid of our queen. She's not very evil. And Ivan to her:
A wife is not scary to her husband. I just wish I had time to teach her some sense.
“Don’t rush to execution tomorrow,” Daria tells him, “but tell him, you have something to do, you can’t die: you’re waiting for your mother to visit.”
The next morning Ivan says to Elena the Wise:
Let me live a little longer: I want to see my mother, maybe she will come to visit. The queen looked at him.
You can’t live for nothing,” he says. - And you hide from me for the third time. I won’t find you, live, so be it.
Ivan went to look for himself secret place, and Daria the servant meets him.
Wait,” she orders, “I’ll cover you.” I remember your kindness.
She blew into Ivan's face, and Ivan disappeared, he turned into the warm breath of a woman. Daria inhaled and pulled it into her chest. Then Daria went to the upper room, took the Tsarina’s book from the table, wiped the dust off it, opened it and blew into it: immediately her breath turned into a new capital letter of that book, and Ivan became a letter. Daria folded the book and went out. Soon Elena the Wise came, opened the book and looked at it: where is Ivan. But the book doesn't say anything. What he will say is not clear to the queen; Apparently there was no point in the book. The queen did not know that because of the new capitalization of the letter, all the words in the book had changed.
Elena the Wise slammed the book shut and hit it to the ground. All the letters scattered from the book, and the first, capital letter, both hit and turned into Ivan.
Ivan looks at Elena the Wise, his wife, and cannot take his eyes off. The queen also stared at Ivan, and after staring, she smiled at him. And she became even more beautiful than before.
“And I thought,” she says, “my husband is a mediocre man, and he magic mirror hid himself and outwitted the book of wisdom!
They began to live in peace and harmony and lived like that for the time being. Yes, one day the queen asks Ivan:
Why doesn’t your mother come to visit us? Ivan answers her:
And that's true! But your father has been gone for a long time! The next morning I’ll go get my mother and my father.
And the next morning, just before light, Mother Ivana and Father Elena the Wise came to visit their children. Elena’s father knew the closest route to her kingdom; They walked a short distance and did not get tired.
Ivan bowed to his mother, and fell at the old man’s feet.
It’s bad,” he says, “father! I did not comply with your ban. Forgive me, mediocre!
The old man hugged him and forgave him.
“Thank you,” he says, “son.” There was charm in the treasured dress, wisdom in the book, and all the appearance of the world in the mirror. I thought, I collected a dowry for my daughter, I just didn’t want to give it to her until the time came. I collected everything for her, but I didn’t include what was in you - the main talent. I followed him far away, but he turned out to be close. Apparently, it is not placed or given, but obtained by the person himself.
Here Elena the Wise began to cry, kissed Ivan, her husband, and asked him for forgiveness. Since then they began to live gloriously - both Elena and Ivan, and their parents - and they still live.
Fairy tale "Ivan the Talentless and Elena the Wise", read the text online on our website for free.
There lived a peasant woman, a widow, in one village. She lived a long time and raised her son Ivan.
And now the time has come - Ivan has grown up. His mother is happy that he has become big, but it’s bad that he grew up with no talent. And it’s true: every business gets out of Ivan’s hands, not like people do; every matter is not in his favor and for the future, but everything is against him. It used to be that Ivan would go to plow, and his mother would say to him:
At the top, the earth has gone wrong, at the top it has been eaten up by bread, you, son, plow it a little deeper!
Ivan will plow the field deeper, reach right down to the clay and wrap the clay around it; Then he sows bread - nothing will be born, and the seeds will be destroyed. So it is in another matter: Ivan tries to do what is best, what is best, but he has no luck and little intelligence. But my mother has become old, the work is too much for her. How should they live? And they lived poorly, they had nothing.
They finished the last piece of bread, the very last one. The mother thinks about her son - how he will live, he is mediocre! It would be necessary to marry him: a reasonable wife, it seems, has an unemployed husband who works on the farm and does not eat bread for nothing. But who, however, will take her untalented son as a husband? Not only the red-haired maiden, but also the widow, I’m sure she won’t take it!
While his mother was spinning like this, Ivan sat on the rubble and did not grieve about anything.
He looks - an old man is walking, he is shabby, covered in moss, and the earth has eaten into his face, the wind has caught him.
“Son,” the old man says, “feed me: I have grown thin during the long journey, and there is nothing left in my bag.”
Ivan answered him:
And we, grandfather, don’t have a crumb of bread in our hut. If I had known that you were coming, I wouldn’t have eaten the last bit myself just now, I would have left it for you. Go, I’ll at least wash you and rinse your shirt.
Ivan heated the bathhouse, washed an old man passing by in the bathhouse, washed off all the dirt from him, steamed him with a broom and then rinsed his shirt and ports clean and put him to sleep in the hut.
So the old man rested, woke up and said:
I will remember your kindness. If you feel bad, go to the forest. You will reach the place where two roads part, you will see a gray stone lying there - push that stone with your shoulder and click: grandfather, they say, - I will be here. The old man said so and left. But Ivan and his mother felt very bad: they collected all the scraps from the chest and ate all the crumbs.
Wait for me, mother,” said Ivan. - Maybe I'll bring you some bread.
Yes, where are you! - answered the mother. - Where can you, mediocre, get bread? At least you can eat, but I’ll probably die without eating... If only I could find a bride somewhere, look, with a wife, if she turns out to be wise, you’ll always have bread.
Ivan sighed and went into the forest. He comes to the place where the roads part, touched the stone with his shoulder, the stone and moved. That grandfather came to Ivan.
What do you want? - speaks. - Has Al come to visit?
Grandfather took Ivan into the forest. Ivan sees rich huts in the forest. Grandfather takes Ivan to one of the huts - to know that he is the boss here.
The old man ordered the kitchen guy and the old cook to fry a lamb for the first task. The owner began to treat the guest.
Ivan has eaten and asks for more.
“Roast,” he says, “and give me another sheep and a piece of bread.”
The grandfather-owner ordered the kitchen guy to fry another sheep and serve it with a loaf of wheat bread.
If you please,” he says, “help yourself to the best of your ability.” Al not full?
“I’m full,” Ivan replies, “I thank you, but let your fellow take a piece of bread and a lamb to my mother, she lives without eating.”
The old owner ordered the kitchen guy to bring two loaves of white bread and a whole lamb to Ivan’s mother. And then he says:
Why do you live with your mother without eating? Look, you've grown up big, look - when you get married, how will you feed your family?
Ivan answered him:
I don’t know how, grandpa! Yes, I don’t have a wife.
What a woe! - said the owner. - And I’ll give my daughter to you in marriage. She's a smart girl, she's enough intelligence for both of you.
The old man called to his daughter. Here a beautiful maiden appears in the upper room. No one had ever seen such beauty, and it was unknown that it existed in the world. Ivan looked at her, and his heart stopped.
The old father looked at his daughter with severity and said to her:
Here is your husband, and you are his wife. The beautiful daughter just lowered her gaze:
Your will, father. So they got married and began to live and live well. They live well-fed, richly, Ivan’s wife rules the house, and the old master is rarely at home: he walks around the world, looking for wisdom among the people, and when he finds it, he returns to the court and writes it down in a book. And one day the old man brought a magic round mirror. He brought it from afar, from a master wizard from the cold mountains - he brought it and hid it. Ivan’s mother now lived well-fed and contented, and she lived as before in her hut in the village. The son invited her to live with him, but her mother did not want to: she did not like life in the house of Ivan’s wife, with her daughter-in-law.
“I’m afraid, son,” mother said to Ivan. - Look, Elenushka, your wife, what a beauty she is, rich and noble, what did you do to deserve her? Your father and I lived in poverty, and you were born without a destiny at all.
And Ivan’s mother stayed to live in her old hut. But Ivan lives and thinks: mother speaks the truth; He seems to have enough of everything, and his wife is affectionate, she won’t say a word against him, but Ivan feels as if he is always cold. And he lives like this with his young wife, half-living, but not at all well. One day an old man comes to Ivan and says:
I will go farther, further than I went before, I will not return soon. Here, take the key from me. I used to carry it with me, but now I’m afraid of losing it: the road is long for me. Take care of the key and don’t open the barn with it. And if you go to the barn, don’t take your wife there. And if you can’t stand it and lead your wife away, then don’t give her a colored dress. The time will come, I will give it to her myself, and I will save it for her. Look, remember what I told you, otherwise you will lose your life in death!
The old man said and left. More time has passed. Ivan thinks:
“Why so! I’ll go to the barn and see what’s there, but I won’t take my wife!”
Ivan went to that barn that was always locked, opened it, looked - there was a lot of gold there, it lay in pieces, and the stones burned like heat, and there was also goodness, which Ivan did not know the name of. And in the corner of the barn there was also a closet or a secret place, and a door led there. Ivan had only opened the door to the closet and had not even had time to step into it when he accidentally shouted:
Elenushka, my wife, come here quickly!
In that closet there hung a semi-precious women's dress. It shone like a clear sky, and the light, like a living wind, moved across it. Ivan was glad to see such a dress; it will just fit his wife and she will like it.
Ivan remembered that the old man had not ordered him to give the dress to his wife, but what would happen to the dress if he just showed it! And Ivan loved his wife: where she smiles, there he will be happy.
My wife came. She saw this dress and clasped her hands.
“Oh,” he says, “what a good dress!”
So she asks Ivan:
Dress me in this dress and smooth it out so that it fits well.
But Ivan doesn’t tell her to wear a dress. Then she cries:
“You know,” he says, “you don’t love me: you regret such a good dress for your wife.” Let me at least put my hands through it, I’ll feel what the dress is like - maybe it’s not suitable. Ivan told her:
Pull it through, he says, and try how it will feel for you.
The wife put her hands into the sleeves and again to her husband:
Nothing in sight. They told me to put my head in the collar. Ivan ordered. She stuck her head in, and pulled the dress over herself, and wrapped herself all in it. She felt that there was a mirror in one pocket, took it out and looked.
“Look,” he says, “what a beauty, but she lives behind a mediocre husband!” If I could become a bird, I would fly far, far away from here!
She screamed in a high voice, clasped her hands, and lo and behold, she was gone. She turned into a dove and flew out of the barn far, far into the blue sky, wherever she wanted. You know, she put on a magical dress. Ivan was sunbathing here. Why grieve? He had no time. He put some bread in his knapsack and went to look for his wife.
“Oh,” he said, “what a villain, she disobeyed her father and left her parents’ yard without permission!” I’ll find her and teach her senses!
He said this, but remembered that he himself lived without talent, and began to cry.
Here he is walking the path, walking the road, walking the path, he feels bad, he grieves for his wife. Ivan sees a pike lying by the water, completely dying, but cannot get into the water.
“Look,” thinks Ivan, “I feel bad, but she’s even worse.” He picked up the pike and threw it into the water. The pike now dived into the depths and back up, stuck its head out and said:
I will not forget your kindness. If you feel bitter, just say: “Pike, pike, remember Ivan!” Ivan ate a piece of bread and moved on. He walks and walks, and it’s already nightfall.
Ivan looks and sees: the kite has caught a sparrow, holds it in its claws and wants to peck it.
“Eh,” Ivan looks, “I’m in trouble, but the sparrow is dead!”
Ivan scared the kite, which released the sparrow from its claws.
The sparrow sat on a branch and said to Ivan:
If you need to, call out to me: “Hey, sparrow, remember my goodness!”
Ivan spent the night under a tree, and the next morning he moved on. And he had already moved far from his home, he was all tired and his body had become skinny, so that he supported his clothes with his hand. But he had farther to go, and Ivan walked for another whole year and six months. He walked all over the earth, reached the sea, and had nowhere to go further.
He asks a resident:
Whose land is this, who is the king and queen here?
The resident answers Ivan:
Elena the Wise lives among our queens: she knows everything - she has a book where everything is written, and she sees everything - she has a mirror. She probably sees it now.
Indeed, Elena saw Ivan in her mirror. She had Daria, a servant. So Daria wiped the dust off the mirror with a towel, looked into it herself, first admired herself, and then saw a strange man in him.
No way, a stranger is coming! - said the servant to Helen the Wise. - Apparently, he’s coming from afar: he’s thin and all over the place, and he’s worn out his bast shoes.
Elena the Wise looked in the mirror.
And then,” he says, “a stranger!” It was my husband who appeared. Ivan approached the royal court. He sees that the yard is fenced with a fence. And in the tine there are stakes, and on the stakes are human dead heads; only one stake is empty, there is nothing.
Ivan asks a resident - what is this, they say?
And the resident told him:
And these, he says, are the suitors of our queen, Helen the Wise, who wooed her. Our queen - you have not seen her - is of indescribable beauty and a sorceress in mind. So suitors, noble and daring, woo her. And she needs a groom who will outwit her, that’s what it is! And whoever does not outwit her, she will execute them by death. Now there is only one stake left: this is for the one who will come to her as a husband.
Yes, I’m going to marry her! - said Ivan.
Therefore, the stake is empty for you,” answered the resident and went to where his hut stood.
Ivan came to Helen the Wise. And Elena is sitting in her royal chamber, and she is wearing her father’s dress, which she voluntarily put on in the barn.
What do you need? - asked Elena the Wise. - Why did you come?
Look at you,” Ivan tells her, “I miss you.”
“They missed me too,” said Elena the Wise and pointed to the wall outside the window, where there were dead heads.
Then Ivan asked:
Are you not my wife anymore?
“I was your wife,” the queen tells him, “but now I’m not the same.” What kind of husband are you to me, a mediocre man! If you want me as your wife, earn me again! If you don’t deserve it, take your head off your shoulders! There's an empty stake sticking out in the tyne.
The empty stake doesn’t miss me,” said Ivan. - Make sure you don't miss me. Tell me: what do you want to do?
The queen answered him:
And do as I command! Hide from me wherever you want, even at the end of the world, so that I don’t find you, and if I did find you, I wouldn’t recognize you. Then you will be smarter than me, and I will become your wife. If you don’t know how to be secret, I’ll tell you, you’ll lose your head.
“Allow me,” Ivan asked, “to sleep on the straw until morning and eat your bread, and in the morning I will fulfill your desire.”
So in the evening the servant Daria laid out straw in the entryway and brought a crust of bread and a jug of kvass. Ivan lay down and thought: what will happen in the morning? And he sees that Daria came, sat down on the porch in the hallway, spread out the queen’s light dress and began to mend a hole in it. Daria darned and darned, sewed and sewed up the hole, and then she began to cry. Ivan asks her:
Why are you crying, Daria?
“How can I not cry,” Daria replies, “if tomorrow I die!” The queen told me to sew up a hole in my dress, but the needle does not sew it, but only rips it open: the dress is so delicate, the needle tears open. If I don’t sew it up, the queen will execute me the next morning.
“Let me try to sew,” says Ivan, “maybe I’ll sew it up, and you don’t have to die.”
How can I give you a dress like that? - Daria says. - The queen said: you are a mediocre man. However, try it a little and I’ll see.
Ivan sat down at the dress, took a needle and began to sew. He sees that, indeed, the needle is not sewing, but tearing: the dress is light, like air, and the needle cannot be accepted in it. Ivan threw down the needle and began to tie each thread with another thread with his hands. Daria saw it and got angry with Ivan:
You have no skill! How can you tie all the threads in the hole with your hands? There are thousands of them here!
And look, I will tie them up with desire and patience! - Ivan answered. - And you go and go to bed, by the morning, look, I’ll get off.
Ivan worked all night. The moon shone from the sky for him, and the dress glowed on its own, as if alive, and he saw every thread of it.
By the morning dawn, Ivan had managed. He looked at his work: there were no more holes, the dress was now whole everywhere. He lifted the dress into his hand and felt that it seemed to become heavy. He looked at the dress: in one pocket there was a book - in it the old man, Elena’s father, wrote down all the wisdom, and in the other pocket there was a round mirror that the old man brought from the master wizard from the cold mountains. Ivan looked in the mirror - he could see it, but dimly; He read the book but didn’t understand anything. Ivan thought then: “People say I’m untalented, and that’s true.”
The next morning Daria the servant came, she took the finished dress, examined it and said to Ivan:
Thank you. You saved me from death, and I will remember your goodness.
Now the sun has risen above the earth, it’s time for Ivan to go to a secret place where Queen Elena will not find him. He went out into the yard and saw a haystack standing there; He lay down in the hay, thought he had completely hidden himself, but the yard dogs barked at him, and Daria shouted from the porch:
What a mediocre one! I even see you, not just the queen! Get out of there, don’t muddy the hay with your bast shoes!
Ivan got out and thought: where should he go? I saw that the sea was close.
He went to the sea and remembered the pike.
Pike, he says, pike, remember Ivan!
The pike poked its head out of the water.
Go,” he says, “I’ll hide you at the bottom of the sea!”
Ivan threw himself into the sea. The pike dragged him to the bottom, buried him in the sand, and muddied the water with his tail. Elena the Wise took her round mirror and pointed it at the ground: Ivan was missing; pointed to the sky: Ivan is not there; I pointed out to the sea at the water: and Ivan was not to be seen there, only the water was muddy. “I’m cunning, I’m smart,” the queen thinks, “and he’s not simple, Ivan the Talentless!” She opened her father’s book of wisdom and read there: “The cunning of the mind is strong, and good is stronger than cunning, even the creature remembers good.” The queen read these words, first according to the written word, and then according to the unwritten one, and the book said to her: Ivan lies in the sand at the bottom of the sea; Click on the pike, tell it to get Ivan from the bottom, otherwise, they say, I’ll catch you, pike, and eat you for lunch.
The queen sent Darya the servant and told her to call a pike from the sea, and let the pike lead Ivan from the bottom.
Ivan appeared to Helen the Wise.
Execute me,” he says, “I don’t deserve you.” Elena the Wise came to her senses: she would always have time to execute, and she and Ivan were not strangers to each other, they lived in the same family.
She says to Ivan:
Go and cover yourself again. Whether you outwit me or not, then I will either execute you or have mercy. Ivan went to look for a secret place so that the queen would not find it. Where will you go? Queen Helena has a magic mirror: she sees everything in it, and what is not visible in the mirror, a wise book will tell her about it. Ivan called:
Hey sparrow, do you remember my goodness?
And the sparrow is already here.
Fall to the ground, he says, and become a grain!
Ivan fell to the ground, became a grain, and a sparrow pecked him.
And Elena the Wise pointed the mirror at the earth, at the sky, at the water - Ivan was not there. Everything is in the mirror, but what you need is not there. The wise Elena got angry, threw the mirror on the floor, and it broke. Then Daria the servant came to the upper room, collected the fragments from the mirror in the hem and took them to the black corner of the yard. Elena the Wise opened her father's book. And he reads there: “Ivan is in the grain, and the grain is in the sparrow, and the sparrow is sitting on the fence.”
Then Elena ordered Daria to call the sparrow from the fence: let the sparrow give up the grain, otherwise the kite will eat him.
Daria went to the sparrow. The sparrow heard Daria, got scared and threw the grain out of its beak. The grain fell to the ground and turned into Ivan. He became as he was.
Here Ivan appears again before Helen the Wise.
Execute me now,” he says, “it’s clear that I’m truly mediocre, and you’re wise.”
“I’ll execute you tomorrow,” the queen tells him. - Tomorrow I will hang your head on the remaining stake. Ivan lies in the hallway in the evening and thinks about what he should do when he has to die in the morning. He then remembered his mother. He remembered, and it became easy for him - he loved her so much.
He looks - Daria is coming and bringing him a pot of porridge.
Ivan ate porridge. Daria says to him:
Don't be afraid of our queen. She's not very evil. And Ivan to her:
A wife is not scary to her husband. I just wish I had time to teach her some sense.
“Don’t rush to execution tomorrow,” Daria tells him, “but tell him, you have something to do, you can’t die: you’re waiting for your mother to visit.”
The next morning Ivan says to Elena the Wise:
Let me live a little longer: I want to see my mother, maybe she will come to visit. The queen looked at him.
You can’t live for nothing,” he says. - And you hide from me for the third time. I won’t find you, live, so be it.
Ivan went to look for a secret place, and Daria the servant met him.
Wait,” she orders, “I’ll cover you.” I remember your kindness.
She blew into Ivan's face, and Ivan disappeared, he turned into the warm breath of a woman. Daria inhaled and pulled it into her chest. Then Daria went to the upper room, took the Tsarina’s book from the table, wiped the dust off it, opened it and blew into it: immediately her breath turned into a new capital letter of that book, and Ivan became a letter. Daria folded the book and went out. Soon Elena the Wise came, opened the book and looked at it: where is Ivan. But the book doesn't say anything. What he will say is not clear to the queen; Apparently there was no point in the book. The queen did not know that because of the new capitalization of the letter, all the words in the book had changed.
Elena the Wise slammed the book shut and hit it to the ground. All the letters scattered from the book, and the first, capital letter, both hit and turned into Ivan.
Ivan looks at Elena the Wise, his wife, and cannot take his eyes off. The queen also stared at Ivan, and after staring, she smiled at him. And she became even more beautiful than before.
“And I thought,” she says, “my husband is a mediocre man, but he hid from the magic mirror and outwitted the book of wisdom!”
They began to live in peace and harmony and lived like that for the time being. Yes, one day the queen asks Ivan:
Why doesn’t your mother come to visit us? Ivan answers her:
And that's true! But your father has been gone for a long time! The next morning I’ll go get my mother and my father.
And the next morning, just before light, Mother Ivana and Father Elena the Wise came to visit their children. Elena’s father knew the closest route to her kingdom; They walked a short distance and did not get tired.
Ivan bowed to his mother, and fell at the old man’s feet.
It’s bad,” he says, “father! I did not comply with your ban. Forgive me, mediocre!
The old man hugged him and forgave him.
“Thank you,” he says, “son.” There was charm in the treasured dress, wisdom in the book, and all the appearance of the world in the mirror. I thought, I collected a dowry for my daughter, I just didn’t want to give it to her until the time came. I collected everything for her, but I didn’t include what was in you - the main talent. I followed him far away, but he turned out to be close. Apparently, it is not placed or given, but obtained by the person himself.
Here Elena the Wise began to cry, kissed Ivan, her husband, and asked him for forgiveness. Since then they began to live gloriously - both Elena and Ivan, and their parents - and they still live.
There lived a peasant woman, a widow, in one village. She lived a long time and raised her son Ivan. And now the time has come - Ivan has grown up. His mother is happy that he has become big, but it’s bad that he grew up with no talent. And it’s true: every business gets out of Ivan’s hands, not like people do; every matter is not in his favor and for the future, but everything is against him. It used to be that Ivan would go to plow, and his mother would say to him:
“The earth has gone wrong at the top, the top has been eaten up by bread, you, son, plow it a little deeper!” Ivan will plow the field deeper, reach right down to the clay and wrap the clay around it; Then he sows bread - nothing will be born, and the seeds will be destroyed. So it is in another matter: Ivan tries to do what is best, what is best, but he has no luck and little intelligence. But my mother has become old, the work is too much for her. How should they live? And they lived poorly, they had nothing.
They finished the last piece of bread, the very last one. The mother thinks about her son - how he will live, he is mediocre! It would be necessary to marry him: a reasonable wife, it seems, has an unemployed husband who works on the farm and does not eat bread for nothing. But who, however, will take her untalented son as a husband? Not only the red-haired maiden, but also the widow, I’m sure she won’t take it!
While his mother was spinning like this, Ivan sat on the rubble and did not grieve about anything.
He looks - an old man is walking, he is shabby, covered in moss, and the earth has eaten into his face, the wind has caught him.
“Son,” the old man says, “feed me: I’ve grown thin during the long journey, and there’s nothing left in my bag.”
Ivan answered him:
“And we, grandfather, don’t have a crumb of bread in our hut.” If I had known that you were coming, I wouldn’t have eaten the last bit myself just now, I would have left it for you. Go, I’ll at least wash you and rinse your shirt.
Ivan heated the bathhouse, washed an old man passing by in the bathhouse, washed off all the dirt from him, steamed him with a broom, and then rinsed his shirt and ports clean and put him to sleep in the hut.
So the old man rested, woke up and said:
- I will remember your kindness. If you feel bad, go to the forest. When you reach the place where two roads part, you will see a gray stone lying there - push that stone with your shoulder and click: grandfather, I’ll be here.
The old man said and left. But Ivan and his mother felt very bad: they collected all the scraps from the chest and ate all the crumbs.
“Wait for me, mother,” said Ivan. “Maybe I’ll bring you some bread.”
- Yes, where are you! - answered the mother. - Where can you, a talentless person, get bread? At least you can eat, but I’ll probably die without eating... If only I could find a bride somewhere, look, with a wife, if she turns out to be wise, you’ll always have bread.
Ivan sighed and went into the forest. He comes to the place where the roads part, touched the stone with his shoulder, the stone and moved. That grandfather came to Ivan.
- What do you want? - speaks. - Has Al come to visit?
Grandfather took Ivan into the forest. Ivan sees rich huts in the forest. Grandfather takes Ivan to one of the huts - to know that he is the boss here.
The old man ordered the kitchen guy and the grandmother cook to fry a lamb for the first task. The owner began to treat the guest. Ivan has eaten and asks for more.
“Roast,” he says, “give me another lamb and a piece of bread.”
The grandfather-owner ordered the kitchen guy to fry another sheep and serve it with a loaf of wheat bread.
“If you please,” he says, “help yourself as much as your heart desires.”
Al not full?
“I’m full,” Ivan replies, “I thank you, but let your fellow take a piece of bread and a lamb to my mother, she lives without eating.”
The old owner ordered the kitchen guy to bring two loaves of white bread and a whole lamb to Ivan’s mother. And then he says:
- Why do you live with your mother without eating? Look, you've grown up big, look, when you get married, how will you feed your family?
Ivan answered him:
- We don’t know how, grandfather! Yes, I don’t have a wife.
- What a disaster! - said the owner. “And I’ll give my daughter to you in marriage.” She's a smart girl, she's enough intelligence for both of you.
The old man called to his daughter. Here a beautiful maiden appears in the upper room. No one had ever seen such beauty, and it was unknown that it existed in the world. Ivan looked at her, and his heart stopped.
The old father looked at his daughter with severity and said to her:
- It is for you
...Here is an introductory fragment of the book.
Only part of the text is open for free reading (restriction of the copyright holder). If you liked the book, full text
can be obtained from our partner's website. Hello, young literary scholar! It’s good that you decided to read the fairy tale “Ivan the Talentless and Elena the Wise” in it you will find folk wisdom , which is edified by generations. The desire to convey a deep moral assessment of the actions of the main character, which encourages one to rethink oneself, was crowned with success. It is sweet and joyful to immerse yourself in a world in which love, nobility, morality and selflessness always prevail, with which the reader is edified. The entire surrounding space, depicted with vivid visual images, is permeated with kindness, friendship, loyalty and indescribable delight . Rivers, trees, animals, birds - everything comes to life, is filled with living colors, helps the heroes of the work in gratitude for their kindness and affection. Often in children's works, the central focus is hero, his resistance to evil, constantly trying to knock down the good fellow from the right path. A small amount of detail in the surrounding world makes the depicted world more rich and believable. The fairy tale “Ivan the Talentless and Elena the Wise” is definitely worth reading for free online, there is a lot of kindness, love and chastity in it, which is useful for raising a young person.
There lived in one village a peasant woman, a widow. She lived a long time and raised her son Ivan.
And now the time has come - Ivan has grown up. His mother is happy that he has become big, but it’s bad that he grew up with no talent. And it’s true: every business gets out of Ivan’s hands, not like people do; every matter is not in his favor and for the future, but everything is against him. It used to be that Ivan would go to plow, and his mother would say to him:
“The earth has gone wrong at the top, the top has been eaten up by bread, you, son, plow it a little deeper!”
Ivan will plow the field deeper, reach right down to the clay and wrap the clay around it; Then he sows bread - nothing will be born, and the seeds will be destroyed. So it is in another matter: Ivan tries to do what is best, what is best, but he has no luck and little intelligence. But my mother has become old, the work is too much for her. How should they live? And they lived poorly, they had nothing.
They finished the last piece of bread, the very last one. The mother thinks about her son - how he will live, he is mediocre! It would be necessary to marry him: a reasonable wife, it seems, has an unemployed husband who works on the farm and does not eat bread for nothing. But who, however, will take her untalented son as a husband? Not only the red-haired maiden, but also the widow, I’m sure she won’t take it!
While his mother was spinning like this, Ivan sat on the rubble and did not grieve about anything.
He looks - an old man is walking, he is shabby, covered in moss, and the earth has eaten into his face, the wind has caught him.
“Son,” the old man says, “feed me: I’ve grown thin during the long journey, and there’s nothing left in my bag.”
Ivan answered him:
“But, grandfather, we don’t have a crumb of bread in our hut.” If I had known that you were coming, I wouldn’t have eaten the last bit myself just now, I would have left it for you. Go, I’ll at least wash you and rinse your shirt.
Ivan heated the bathhouse, washed an old man passing by in the bathhouse, washed off all the dirt from him, steamed him with a broom and then rinsed his shirt and ports clean and put him to sleep in the hut.
So the old man rested, woke up and said:
- I will remember your kindness. If you feel bad, go to the forest. You will reach the place where two roads part, you will see a gray stone lying there - push that stone with your shoulder and click: grandfather, they say, - I will be here. The old man said so and left. But Ivan and his mother felt very bad: they collected all the scraps from the chest and ate all the crumbs.
“Wait for me, mother,” said Ivan. “Maybe I’ll bring you some bread.”
- Yes, where are you! - answered the mother. “Where can you, untalented man, get bread?” At least you can eat, but I’ll probably die without eating... I wish I could find a bride for myself somewhere - look, with a wife, if she turns out to be wise, you’ll always have bread.
Ivan sighed and went into the forest. He comes to the place where the roads part, touched the stone with his shoulder, the stone and moved. That grandfather came to Ivan.
- What do you want? - speaks. - Has Al come to visit?
Grandfather took Ivan into the forest. Ivan sees rich huts in the forest. Grandfather takes Ivan to one of the huts - to know that he is the boss here.
The old man ordered the kitchen guy and the old cook to fry a lamb for the first task. The owner began to treat the guest.
Ivan has eaten and asks for more.
“Roast,” he says, “give me another lamb and a piece of bread.”
The grandfather-owner ordered the kitchen guy to fry another sheep and serve it with a loaf of wheat bread.
“If you please,” he says, “help yourself as much as your heart desires.” Al not full?
“I’m full,” Ivan replies, “I thank you, but let your fellow take a piece of bread and a lamb to my mother, she lives without eating.”
The old owner ordered the kitchen guy to bring two loaves of white bread and a whole lamb to Ivan’s mother. And then he says:
- Why do you live with your mother without eating? Look, you've grown up big, look, when you get married, how will you feed your family?
Ivan answered him:
- We don’t know how, grandfather! Yes, I don’t have a wife.
- What a disaster! - said the owner. “And I’ll give my daughter to you in marriage.” She's a smart girl, she's enough intelligence for both of you.
The old man called to his daughter. Here a beautiful maiden appears in the upper room. No one had ever seen such beauty, and it was unknown that it existed in the world. Ivan looked at her, and his heart stopped.
The old father looked at his daughter with severity and said to her:
- Here is your husband, and you are his wife. The beautiful daughter just lowered her gaze:
- Your will, father. So they got married and began to live and live well. They live well-fed, richly, Ivan’s wife rules the house, and the old master is rarely at home: he walks around the world, looking for wisdom among the people, and when he finds it, he returns to the court and writes it down in a book. And one day the old man brought a magic round mirror. He brought it from afar, from a master wizard from the cold mountains - he brought it and hid it. Ivan’s mother now lived well-fed and contented, and she lived as before in her hut in the village. The son invited her to live with him, but her mother did not want to: she did not like life in the house of Ivan’s wife, with her daughter-in-law.
“I’m afraid, son,” mother said to Ivan. “Look, Elenushka, your wife, what a beauty she is, rich and noble, what did you do to deserve her?” Your father and I lived in poverty, and you were born without a destiny at all.
And Ivan’s mother stayed to live in her old hut. But Ivan lives and thinks: mother speaks the truth; He seems to have enough of everything, and his wife is affectionate, she won’t say a word against him, but Ivan feels as if he is always cold. And he lives like this with his young wife, half-living, but not at all well. One day an old man comes to Ivan and says:
“I’ll go farther, further than I went before, I won’t be back soon.” Here, take the key from me. I used to carry it with me, but now I’m afraid of losing it: the road is long for me. Take care of the key and don’t open the barn with it. And if you go to the barn, don’t take your wife there. And if you can’t stand it and lead your wife away, then don’t give her a colored dress. The time will come, I will give it to her myself, and I will save it for her. Look, remember what I told you, otherwise you will lose your life in death!
The old man said and left. More time has passed. Ivan thinks:
“Why so! I’ll go to the barn and see what’s there, but I won’t take my wife!”
Ivan went to that barn that was always locked, opened it, looked - there was a lot of gold there, it lay in pieces, and the stones burned like heat, and there was also goodness, which Ivan did not know the name of. And in the corner of the barn there was also a closet or a secret place, and a door led there. Ivan had only opened the door to the closet and had not even had time to step into it when he accidentally shouted:
- Elenushka, my wife, come here quickly!
In that closet there hung a semi-precious women's dress. It shone like a clear sky, and the light, like a living wind, moved across it. Ivan was glad to see such a dress; it will just fit his wife and she will like it.
Ivan remembered that the old man had not ordered him to give the dress to his wife, but what would happen to the dress if he just showed it! And Ivan loved his wife: where she smiles, there he will be happy.
My wife came. She saw this dress and clasped her hands.
“Ah,” he says, “what a good dress!”
So she asks Ivan:
- Dress me in this dress and smooth it out so that it fits well.
But Ivan doesn’t tell her to wear a dress. Then she cries:
“You,” he says, “know that you don’t love me: you regret such a good dress for your wife.” Let me at least put my hands through it, I’ll feel what the dress is like - maybe it’s not suitable. Ivan told her:
“Thread it,” he says, “try how it will feel for you.”
The wife put her hands into the sleeves and again to her husband:
- Can't see anything. They told me to put my head in the collar. Ivan ordered. She stuck her head in, and pulled the dress over herself, and wrapped herself all in it. She felt that there was a mirror in one pocket, took it out and looked.
“Look,” he says, “what a beauty, but she lives with a mediocre husband!” If I could become a bird, I would fly far, far away from here!
She screamed in a high voice, clasped her hands, and lo and behold, she was gone. She turned into a dove and flew out of the barn far, far into the blue sky, wherever she wanted. You know, she put on a magical dress. Ivan was sunbathing here. Why grieve? He had no time. He put some bread in his knapsack and went to look for his wife.
“Eh,” he said, “what a villain, she disobeyed her father and left her parents’ yard without permission!” I’ll find her and teach her senses!
He said this, but remembered that he himself lived without talent, and began to cry.
Here he is walking the path, walking the road, walking the path, he feels bad, he grieves for his wife. Ivan sees a pike lying by the water, completely dying, but cannot get into the water.
“Look,” thinks Ivan, “I feel bad, but she’s even worse.” He picked up the pike and threw it into the water. The pike now dived into the depths and back up, stuck its head out and said:
- I will not forget your kindness. If you feel bitter, just say: “Pike, pike, remember Ivan!” Ivan ate a piece of bread and moved on. He walks and walks, and it’s already nightfall.
Ivan looks and sees: the kite has caught a sparrow, holds it in its claws and wants to peck it.
“Eh,” Ivan looks, “I’m in trouble, but the sparrow is dead!”
Ivan scared the kite, which released the sparrow from its claws.
The sparrow sat on a branch and said to Ivan:
- If you need to call me: “Hey, sparrow, remember my goodness!”
Ivan spent the night under a tree, and the next morning he moved on. And he had already moved far from his home, he was all tired and his body had become skinny, so that he supported his clothes with his hand. But he had farther to go, and Ivan walked for another whole year and six months. He walked all over the earth, reached the sea, and had nowhere to go further.
He asks a resident:
- Whose land is this, who is the king and queen here?
The resident answers Ivan:
- Elena the Wise lives among our queens: she knows everything - she has a book where everything is written, and she sees everything - she has a mirror. She probably sees it now.
Indeed, Elena saw Ivan in her mirror. She had Daria, a servant. So Daria wiped the dust off the mirror with a towel, looked into it herself, first admired herself, and then saw a strange man in him.
- No way, a stranger is coming! - said the servant to Helen the Wise. “He’s apparently coming from afar: he’s thin and all over the place, and he’s worn out his bast shoes.”
Elena the Wise looked in the mirror.
“And then,” he says, “a stranger!” It was my husband who appeared. Ivan approached the royal court. He sees that the yard is fenced with a fence. And in the tine there are stakes, and on the stakes are human dead heads; only one stake is empty, there is nothing.
Ivan asks a resident - what is this, they say?
And the resident told him:
“And these,” he says, “are the suitors of our queen, Helen the Wise, who wooed her.” Our queen - you have not seen her - is of indescribable beauty and a sorceress in mind. So suitors, noble and daring, woo her. And she needs a groom who will outwit her, that’s what it is! And whoever does not outwit her, she will execute them by death. Now there is only one stake left: this is for the one who will come to her as a husband.
- Yes, I’m going to marry her! - said Ivan.
“So the stake is empty for you,” answered the resident and went to where his hut stood.
Ivan came to Helen the Wise. And Elena is sitting in her royal chamber, and she is wearing her father’s dress, which she voluntarily put on in the barn.
- What do you need? - asked Elena the Wise. -Why did you come?
“Look at you,” Ivan tells her, “I miss you.”
“They missed me too,” said Elena the Wise and pointed to the wall outside the window, where there were death’s heads.
Then Ivan asked:
- Are you not my wife anymore?
“I was your wife,” the queen tells him, “but now I’m not the same.” What kind of husband are you to me, a mediocre man! If you want me as your wife, earn me again! If you don’t deserve it, take your head off your shoulders! There's an empty stake sticking out in the tyne.
“The empty stake doesn’t miss me,” said Ivan. - Make sure you don't miss me. Tell me: what do you want to do?
The queen answered him:
- Do as I command! Hide from me wherever you want, even at the end of the world, so that I don’t find you, and even if I did find you, I wouldn’t recognize you. Then you will be smarter than me, and I will become your wife. If you don’t know how to be secret, I’ll tell you, you’ll lose your head.
“Allow me,” Ivan asked, “to sleep on the straw until morning and eat your bread, and in the morning I will fulfill your desire.”
So in the evening the servant Daria laid out straw in the entryway and brought a crust of bread and a jug of kvass. Ivan lay down and thought: what will happen in the morning? And he sees that Daria came, sat down on the porch in the hallway, spread out the queen’s light dress and began to mend a hole in it. Daria darned and darned, sewed and sewed up the hole, and then she began to cry. Ivan asks her:
- Why are you crying, Daria?
“How can I not cry,” Daria replies, “if tomorrow I die!” The queen told me to sew up a hole in my dress, but the needle does not sew it, but only rips it open: the dress is so delicate, the needle tears open. If I don’t sew it up, the queen will execute me the next morning.
“Let me try to sew,” says Ivan, “maybe I’ll sew it up, and you don’t have to die.”
- How can I give you a dress like this? - Daria says. - The queen said: you are a mediocre man. However, try it a little and I’ll see.
Ivan sat down at the dress, took a needle and began to sew. He sees - and it’s true that the needle is not sewing, but tearing: the dress is light, like air, the needle cannot be accepted in it. Ivan threw down the needle and began to tie each thread with another thread with his hands. Daria saw it and got angry with Ivan:
- You have no skill! How can you tie all the threads in the hole with your hands? There are thousands of them here!
- And I will tie them up with desire and patience! - Ivan answered. - And you go and go to bed, by the morning, look, I’ll get off.
Ivan worked all night. The moon shone from the sky for him, and the dress glowed on its own, as if alive, and he saw every thread of it.
By the morning dawn, Ivan had managed. He looked at his work: there were no more holes, the dress was now whole everywhere. He lifted the dress into his hand and felt that it seemed to have become heavy. He looked at the dress: in one pocket there was a book - in it the old man, Elena’s father, wrote down all the wisdom, and in the other pocket there was a round mirror that the old man brought from the master wizard from the cold mountains. Ivan looked in the mirror - he could see it, but dimly; He read the book but didn’t understand anything. Ivan thought then: “People say I’m untalented, and that’s true.”
The next morning Daria the servant came, she took the finished dress, examined it and said to Ivan:
- Thank you. You saved me from death, and I will remember your goodness.
Now the sun has risen above the earth, it’s time for Ivan to go to a secret place where Queen Elena will not find him. He went out into the yard and saw a stack of hay standing there; He lay down in the hay, thought he had completely hidden himself, but the yard dogs barked at him, and Daria shouted from the porch:
- What a mediocre one! I even see you, not just the queen! Get out of there, don’t muddy the hay with your bast shoes!
Ivan got out and thought: where should he go? I saw that the sea was close.
He went to the sea and remembered the pike.
“Pike,” he says, “pike, remember Ivan!”
The pike poked its head out of the water.
“Go,” he says, “I’ll hide you at the bottom of the sea!”
Ivan threw himself into the sea. The pike dragged him to the bottom, buried him in the sand, and muddied the water with his tail. Elena the Wise took her round mirror and pointed it at the ground: Ivan was missing; pointed to the sky: Ivan is not there; I pointed out to the sea at the water: and Ivan was not to be seen there, only the water was muddy. “I’m cunning, I’m smart,” the queen thinks, “and he’s not simple, Ivan the Talentless!” She opened her father’s book of wisdom and read there: “The cunning of the mind is strong, and good is stronger than cunning, even the creature remembers good.” The queen read these words, first according to the written word, and then according to the unwritten one, and the book said to her: Ivan lies in the sand at the bottom of the sea; Click on the pike, tell it to get Ivan from the bottom, otherwise, they say, I’ll catch you, pike, and eat you for lunch.
The queen sent Darya the servant and told her to call a pike from the sea, and let the pike lead Ivan from the bottom.
Ivan appeared to Helen the Wise.
“Execute me,” he says, “I don’t deserve you.” Elena the Wise came to her senses: she would always have time to execute, and she and Ivan were not strangers to each other, they lived in the same family.
She says to Ivan:
- Go and cover yourself again. Whether you outwit me or not, then I will either execute you or have mercy. Ivan went to look for a secret place so that the queen would not find it. Where will you go? Queen Helena has a magic mirror: she sees everything in it, and what is not visible in the mirror, a wise book will tell her about it. Ivan called:
- Hey, sparrow, do you remember my goodness?
And the sparrow is already here.
“Fall to the ground,” he says, “become a grain!”
Ivan fell to the ground, became a grain, and a sparrow pecked him.
And Elena the Wise pointed the mirror at the earth, at the sky, at the water - Ivan was missing. Everything is in the mirror, but what you need is not there. The wise Elena got angry, threw the mirror on the floor, and it broke. Then Daria the servant came to the upper room, collected the fragments from the mirror in the hem and took them to the black corner of the yard. Elena the Wise opened her father's book. And he reads there: “Ivan is in the grain, and the grain is in the sparrow, and the sparrow is sitting on the fence.”
Then Elena ordered Daria to call the sparrow from the fence: let the sparrow give up the grain, otherwise the kite will eat him.
Daria went to the sparrow. The sparrow heard Daria, got scared and threw the grain out of its beak. The grain fell to the ground and turned into Ivan. He became as he was.
Here Ivan appears again before Helen the Wise.
“Execute me now,” he says, “it’s clear that I’m truly untalented, and you’re wise.”
“I’ll execute you tomorrow,” the queen tells him. - Tomorrow I will hang your head on the remaining stake. Ivan lies in the hallway in the evening and thinks about what he should do when he has to die in the morning. He then remembered his mother. He remembered, and he felt at ease - he loved her so much.
He looks - Daria is coming and bringing him a pot of porridge.
Ivan ate porridge. Daria says to him:
- Don’t be afraid of our queen. She's not very evil. And Ivan to her:
“A wife is not scary to her husband. I just wish I had time to teach her sense.”
“Don’t rush to execution tomorrow,” Daria tells him, “but tell him, you have something to do, you can’t die: you’re waiting for your mother to visit.”
The next morning Ivan says to Elena the Wise:
- Let me live a little longer: I want to see my mother, maybe she will come to visit. The queen looked at him.
“You can’t live for nothing,” he says. - And you hide from me for the third time. I won’t find you, live, so be it.
Ivan went to look for a secret place, and Daria the servant met him.
“Wait,” she orders, “I’ll cover you.” I remember your kindness.
She blew into Ivan's face, and Ivan disappeared, he turned into the warm breath of a woman. Daria inhaled and pulled it into her chest. Then Daria went to the upper room, took the Tsarina’s book from the table, wiped the dust off it, opened it and blew into it: immediately her breath turned into a new capital letter of that book, and Ivan became a letter. Daria folded the book and went out. Soon Elena the Wise came, opened the book and looked at it: where is Ivan. But the book doesn't say anything. What he will say is not clear to the queen; Apparently there was no point in the book. The queen did not know that because of the new capitalization of the letter, all the words in the book had changed.
Elena the Wise slammed the book shut and hit it to the ground. All the letters scattered from the book, and the first, capital letter, both hit and turned into Ivan.
Ivan looks at Elena the Wise, his wife, and cannot take his eyes off. The queen also stared at Ivan, and after staring, she smiled at him. And she became even more beautiful than before.
“And I thought,” she says, “my husband is a mediocre man, but he hid from the magic mirror and outsmarted the book of wisdom!”
They began to live in peace and harmony and lived like that for the time being. Yes, one day the queen asks Ivan:
- Why doesn’t your mother come to visit us? Ivan answers her:
- And that’s true! But your father has been gone for a long time! The next morning I’ll go get my mother and my father.
And the next morning, just before light, Mother Ivana and Father Elena the Wise came to visit their children. Elena’s father knew the closest route to her kingdom; They walked a short distance and did not get tired.
There lived a peasant woman, a widow, in one village. She lived a long time and raised her son Ivan.
And now the time has come - Ivan has grown up. His mother is happy that he has become big, but it’s bad that he grew up with no talent. And it’s true: every business gets out of Ivan’s hands, not like people do; every matter is not in his favor and for the future, but everything is against him. It used to be that Ivan would go to plow, and his mother would say to him:
- The earth has made a mistake from above, from above it has been eaten up by bread, you, son, plow it a little deeper!
Ivan will plow the field deeper, reach right down to the clay and wrap the clay around it; Then he sows bread - nothing will be born, and the seeds will be destroyed. So it is in another matter: Ivan tries to do what is best, what is best, but he has no luck and little intelligence. But my mother has become old, the work is too much for her. How should they live? And they lived poorly, they had nothing.
They finished the last piece of bread, the very last one. The mother thinks about her son: how will he live, untalented? It would be necessary to marry him: a reasonable wife, it seems, has an unemployed husband who works on the farm and does not eat bread for nothing. But who, however, will take her untalented son as a husband? Not only the red-haired maiden, but also the widow, I’m sure she won’t take it!
While his mother was spinning like this, Ivan sat on the rubble and did not grieve about anything.
He looks - an old man is walking, he is shabby, covered in moss, and the earth has eaten into his face, the wind has caught him.
“Son,” the old man says, “feed me: I’ve grown thin during the long journey, and there’s nothing left in my bag.”
Ivan answered him:
- And we, grandfather, don’t have a crumb of bread in our hut. If I had known that you were coming, I wouldn’t have eaten the last bit myself just now, I would have left it for you. Go, I’ll at least wash you and rinse your shirt.
Ivan heated the bathhouse, washed an old man passing by in the bathhouse, washed off all the dirt from him, steamed him with a broom, and then rinsed his shirt and ports clean and put him to sleep in the hut.
So the old man rested, woke up and said:
- I will remember your kindness. If you feel bad, go to the forest. When you reach the place where two roads part, you will see a gray stone lying there - push that stone with your shoulder and click: grandfather, they say! I'll be here.
The old man said so and left. But Ivan and his mother felt very bad: they collected all the scraps from the chest and ate all the crumbs.
“Wait for me, mother,” said Ivan. - Maybe I'll bring you some bread.
- Yes, where are you! - answered the mother. - Where can you, mediocre, get bread? At least you can eat, but I’ll probably die without eating... If only I could find a bride somewhere, look, with a wife, if she turns out to be wise, you’ll always have bread.
Ivan sighed and went into the forest. He comes to the place where the roads part, touched the stone with his shoulder, the stone and moved. That grandfather came to Ivan.
- What do you want? - speaks. - Has Al come to visit?
Grandfather took Ivan into the forest. Ivan sees rich huts in the forest. Grandfather takes Ivan to one of the huts - to know that he is the boss here.
The old man ordered the kitchen guy and the old cook to fry a lamb for the first task. The owner began to treat the guest. Ivan has eaten and asks for more.
“Roast,” he says, “give another lamb and a piece of bread.”
The grandfather-owner ordered the kitchen guy to fry another sheep and serve it with a loaf of wheat bread.
“If you please,” he says, “help yourself as much as your soul accepts.” Al not full?
“I’m full,” Ivan replies, “I thank you, but let your fellow take a piece of bread and a lamb to my mother, she lives without eating.”
The old owner ordered the kitchen guy to bring two loaves of white bread and a whole lamb to Ivan’s mother. And then he says:
- Why do you and your mother live without eating? Look, you've grown up big, look - when you get married, how will you feed your family?
Ivan answered him:
- I don’t know how, grandfather! Yes, I don’t have a wife.
- What a woe! - said the owner. - And I’ll give my daughter to you in marriage. She's a smart girl, she's enough intelligence for both of you.
The old man called to his daughter. Here a beautiful maiden appears in the upper room. No one had ever seen such beauty, and it was unknown that it existed in the world. Ivan looked at her, and his heart stopped.
The old father looked at his daughter with severity and said to her.
- Here is your husband, and you are his wife.
The beautiful daughter just lowered her gaze:
- Your will, father.
So they got married and began to live and live well. They live well-fed, richly, Ivan’s wife rules the house, and the old master is rarely at home: he walks around the world, looking for wisdom among the people, and when he finds it, he returns to the court and writes it down in a book.
And one day the old man brought a magic round mirror. He brought it from afar, from a master wizard from the cold mountains - he brought it and hid it.
Ivan’s mother now lived well-fed and contented, and she lived as before in her hut in the village. The son invited her to live with him, but her mother did not want to: she did not like life in the house of Ivan’s wife, with her daughter-in-law.
“I’m afraid, son,” mother said to Ivan. - Look, Elenushka, your wife, what a beauty she is, rich and noble, what did you do to deserve her! Your father and I lived in poverty, and you were born without a destiny at all.
And Ivan’s mother stayed to live in her old hut. But Ivan lives and thinks: mother speaks the truth; He seems to have enough of everything, and his wife is affectionate, she won’t say a word against him, but Ivan feels as if he is always cold. And he lives like this with his young wife, half-living, but not at all well.
One day an old man comes to Ivan and says:
- I will go farther, further than I went before, I will not return soon. Here, take the key from me; I used to carry it with me, but now I’m afraid of losing it: the road is long for me. Take care of the key and don’t open the barn with it. And if you go to the barn, don’t take your wife there. And if you can’t stand it and lead your wife away, then don’t give her a colored dress. The time will come, I will give it to her myself, and I will save it for her. Look, remember what I told you, otherwise you will lose your life in death!
The old man said and left.
More time has passed. Ivan thinks:
“Why so! I’ll go to the barn and see what’s there, but I won’t take my wife!”
Ivan went to that barn that was always locked, opened it, looked - there was a lot of gold there, it lay in pieces, and the stones burned like heat, and there was also goodness, which Ivan did not know the name of. And in the corner of the barn there was also a closet or a secret place, and a door led there. Ivan had only opened the door to the closet and had not even had time to step into it when he accidentally shouted:
- Elenushka, my wife, come here quickly!
In that closet hung a semi-precious women's dress; it shone like a clear sky, and the light, like a living wind, flowed through it. Ivan was glad that he saw such a dress: it would just fit his wife and she would like it.
Ivan remembered that the old man had not ordered him to give the dress to his wife, but what would happen to the dress if he just showed it! And Ivan loved his wife: where she smiles, there he will be happy.
- The wife came. She saw this dress and clasped her hands.
“Ah,” he says, “what a good dress!”
So she asks Ivan:
- Dress me in this dress and smooth it out so that it fits well.
But Ivan doesn’t tell her to wear a dress. She then cries.
“You,” he says, “know, you don’t love me: you regret such a good dress for your wife.” Let me at least put my hands through it, I’ll feel what the dress is like - maybe it’s not suitable.
Ivan ordered her.
“Put it on,” he says, “try how it will feel for you.”
The wife put her hands into the sleeves and again to her husband:
- Can't see anything. They told me to put my head in the collar.
Ivan ordered. She stuck her head in, and pulled the dress over herself, and wrapped herself all in it. She felt that there was a mirror in one pocket, took it out and looked at it.
“Look,” he says, “what a beauty, but she lives behind a mediocre husband!” If I could become a bird, I would fly far, far away from here!
She screamed in a high voice, clasped her hands, and lo and behold, she was gone. She turned into a dove and flew out of the barn far, far into the blue sky, wherever she wanted. You know, she put on a magical dress.
Ivan was sunbathing here. Why grieve? He had no time. He put some bread in his knapsack and went to look for his wife.
“Oh,” he said, “what a villain, she disobeyed her father, left her parents’ yard without asking!” I’ll find her and teach her senses!
He said this, but remembered that he himself lived without talent, and began to cry.
Here he is walking the path, walking the road, walking the path; He feels bad, he grieves for his wife. Ivan sees a pike lying by the water, completely dying, but cannot get into the water.
“Look,” Ivan thinks, “I feel bad, and she’s even worse.”
He picked up the pike and threw it into the water. The pike now dived into the depths and back up, stuck its head out and said:
- I am good I won't forget yours. You will feel bitter - just say: “Pike, pike, remember Ivan!”
Ivan ate a piece of bread and moved on. He walks and walks, and it’s already nightfall. Ivan looks and sees: the kite has caught a sparrow, holds it in its claws and wants to peck it.
“Eh,” Ivan looks, “I’m in trouble, but the sparrow is dead!”
Ivan scared the kite, which released the sparrow from its claws.
The sparrow sat on a branch and said to Ivan:
- If you need to call me: “Hey, sparrow, remember my goodness!”
Ivan spent the night under a tree, and the next morning he moved on. And he had already gone far from his home, he was all tired and his body had become skinny, so that he even supported his clothes with his hand. But he had farther to go, and Ivan walked for another whole year and six months. He walked all over the earth, reached the sea, and had nowhere to go further.
He asks a resident:
- Whose land is this, who is the king and queen here?
The resident answers Ivan:
- Elena the Wise lives among our queens: she knows everything - she has a book where everything is written, and she sees everything - she has a mirror. She probably sees you now too.
Indeed, Elena saw Ivan in her mirror. She had Daria, a servant. So Daria wiped the dust off the mirror with a towel, looked into it herself, first admired herself, and then saw a strange man in him.
- No way, a stranger is coming! - said the servant to Helen the Wise. - Apparently, he’s coming from afar: he’s thin and all over the place and has worn out his sandals.
Elena the Wise looked in the mirror.
“And then,” he says, “a stranger!” It was my husband who appeared.
Ivan approached the royal court. He sees that the yard is fenced with a fence. And in the tine there are stakes, and on the stakes are human dead heads; only one stake is empty, there is nothing.
Ivan asks a resident: what is this, they say?
And the resident told him:
“And these,” he says, “are the suitors of our queen, Helen the Wise, who wooed her.” Our queen - you have not seen her - is of indescribable beauty and a sorceress in mind. So suitors, noble and daring, woo her. And she needs a groom who will outwit her, that’s what it is! And whoever does not outwit her, she will execute them by death. Now there is only one stake left: this is for the one who will come to her as a husband.
- Yes, I’m going to marry her! - said Ivan.
“So the stake is empty for you,” answered the resident and went to where his hut stood.
Ivan came to Helen the Wise. And Elena is sitting in her royal chamber, and she is wearing her father’s dress, which she voluntarily put on in the barn.
- What do you want? - asked Elena the Wise. - Why did you come?
“Look at you,” Ivan tells her, “I miss you.”
“They missed me too,” said Elena the Wise and pointed to the wall outside the window, where there were dead heads.
Then Ivan asked:
- Are you not my wife anymore?
“I was your wife,” the queen tells him, “but now I’m not the same.” What kind of husband are you to me, a mediocre man! If you want me as your wife, earn me again! If you don’t deserve it, take your head off your shoulders! There's an empty stake sticking out in the tyne.
“The empty stake doesn’t miss me,” said Ivan. - Make sure you don't miss me. Tell me: what do you want to do?
The queen answered him:
- Do as I command! Hide from me wherever you want, even at the end of the world, so that I don’t find you, and if I did find you, I wouldn’t recognize you. Then you will be smarter than me, and I will become your wife. If you don’t know how to be secret, I’ll tell you, you’ll lose your head.
“Allow me,” Ivan asked, “to sleep on the straw until morning and eat your bread, and in the morning I will fulfill your desire.”
So in the evening the servant Daria laid out straw in the entryway and brought a crust of bread and a jug of kvass. Ivan lay down and thought: what will happen in the morning?
And he sees that Daria came, sat down on the porch in the hallway, spread out the queen’s light dress and began to mend a hole in it. Daria darned and darned, sewed and sewed up the hole, and then she began to cry.
Ivan asks her:
-Why are you crying, Daria?
“How can I not cry,” Daria replies, “if tomorrow I die!” The queen told me to sew up a hole in my dress, but the needle does not sew it, but only rips it open: the dress is so delicate, the needle tears open. If I don’t sew it up, the queen will execute me the next morning.
“Let me try to sew,” says Ivan, “maybe I’ll sew it up, and you don’t have to die.”
- How can I give you such a dress! - Daria says. - The queen said: you are a mediocre man. However, try it a little and I’ll see.
Ivan sat down at the dress, took a needle and began to sew. He sees that, indeed, the needle is not sewing, but tearing: the dress is light, like air, and the needle cannot be accepted in it. Ivan threw the needle and began to tie each thread with another thread with his hands.
Daria saw it and got angry with Ivan:
-You have no skill! How can you tie all the threads in the hole with your hands? There are thousands of them here!
- And I will tie them up with desire and patience! - Ivan answered. - And you go and go to bed, by the morning, look, I’ll get off.
Ivan worked all night. The moon shone from the sky for him, and the dress itself glowed, as if alive, and he saw every thread of it.
By the morning dawn, Ivan had managed. He looked at his work: there were no more holes, the dress was now whole everywhere. He lifted the dress into his hand and felt that it seemed to become heavy. He looked at the dress: in one pocket there was a book - in it the old man, Elena’s father, wrote down all the wisdom, and in the other pocket there was a round mirror that the old man brought from a master wizard from the cold mountains. Ivan looked in the mirror - he could see it, but dimly; He read the book but didn’t understand anything. Ivan thought then: “People say I’m untalented, and that’s true.”
The next morning Daria the servant came, she took the finished dress, examined it and said to Ivan:
- Thank you. You saved me from death, and I will remember your goodness.
Now the sun has risen above the earth, it’s time for Ivan to go to a secret place where Queen Elena will not find him. He went out into the yard and saw a haystack standing there; He lay down in the hay, thought he had completely hidden himself, but the yard dogs barked at him, and Daria shouted from the porch:
- What a mediocre guy. I even see you, not just the queen! Get out of there, don’t muddy the hay with your bast shoes!
Ivan got out and thought: where should he go? I saw that the sea was close. He went to the sea and remembered the pike.
“Pike,” he says, “pike, remember Ivan!”
The pike poked its head out of the water.
“Go,” he says, “I’ll hide you at the bottom of the sea!”
Ivan threw himself into the sea. The pike dragged him to the bottom, buried him in the sand, and muddied the water with his tail.
Elena the Wise took her round mirror and pointed it at the ground: Ivan was missing; pointed to the sky: Ivan is not there; pointed to the sea, to the water: and Ivan was not visible there, only the water was muddy. “I’m cunning, I’m smart,” the queen thinks, “and he’s not simple, Ivan the Talentless!”
She opened her father’s book of wisdom and read there: “The cunning of the mind is strong, and good is stronger than cunning, even the creature remembers good.” The queen read these words, first according to the written word, and then according to the unwritten one, and the book said to her: Ivan lies in the sand at the bottom of the sea; Click on the pike, tell it to get Ivan from the bottom, otherwise, they say, I’ll catch you, pike, and eat you for lunch.
The queen sent Darya the servant and told her to call a pike from the sea, and let the pike lead Ivan from the bottom.
Ivan appeared to Helen the Wise.
“Execute me,” he says, “I don’t deserve you.”
Elena the Wise came to her senses: she would always have time to execute, and she and Ivan were not strangers to each other, they lived in the same family.
She says to Ivan:
-Go and cover yourself again. Whether you outwit me or not, then I will either execute you or have mercy.
Ivan went to look for a secret place so that the queen would not find it. Where will you go? Queen Helena has a magic mirror: she sees everything in it, and what is not visible in the mirror, a wise book will tell her about it.
Ivan called:
- Hey, sparrow, do you remember my goodness?
And the sparrow is already here.
“Fall to the ground,” he says, “become a grain!”
Ivan fell to the ground, became a grain, and a sparrow pecked him.
And Elena the Wise pointed the mirror at the earth, at the sky, at the water - Ivan was not there. Everything is in the mirror, but what you need is not there. The wise Elena got angry, threw the mirror on the floor, and it broke. Then Daria the servant came to the upper room, collected the fragments from the mirror in the hem and took them to the black corner of the yard.
Elena the Wise opened her father's book. And he reads there: “Ivan is in the grain, and the grain is in the sparrow, and the sparrow is sitting on the fence.”
Then Elena ordered Daria to call the sparrow from the fence: let the sparrow give up the grain, otherwise the kite will eat him.
Daria approached the sparrow. The sparrow heard Daria, got scared and threw the grain out of its beak. The grain fell to the ground and turned into Ivan. He became as he was.
Here Ivan appears again before Helen the Wise.
“Execute me now,” he says, “it’s clear that I’m truly mediocre, and you’re wise.”
“I’ll execute you tomorrow,” the queen tells him. - Tomorrow I will hang your head on the remaining stake.
Ivan lies in the hallway in the evening and thinks about what he should do when he has to die in the morning. He then remembered his mother. He remembered, and it became easy for him - he loved her so much.
He looks - Daria is coming and bringing him a pot of porridge.
Ivan ate porridge. Daria says to him:
-Don’t be afraid of our queen. She's not very evil.
And Ivan to her:
- The wife is not afraid of the husband. I just wish I had time to teach her sense.
“Don’t rush to execution tomorrow,” Daria tells him, “but tell him, you have something to do, you can’t die: you’re waiting for your mother to visit.”
The next morning Ivan says to Elena the Wise:
- Let me live a little longer: I want to see my mother, maybe she will come to visit.
The queen looked at him.
“You can’t live for nothing,” he says. - And you hide from me for the third time. I won’t find you, live, so be it.
Ivan went to look for a secret place, and Daria the servant met him.
“Wait,” she orders, “I’ll cover you.” I remember your kindness.
She blew into Ivan's face, and Ivan disappeared, he turned into the warm breath of a woman. Daria inhaled and pulled it into her chest. Then Daria went to the upper room, took the Tsarina’s book from the table, wiped the dust off it, opened it and blew into it: immediately her breath turned into a new capital letter of that book, and Ivan became a letter. Daria folded the book and went out.
Soon Elena the Wise came, opened the book and looked at it: where is Ivan? But the book doesn't say anything. What he will say is not clear to the queen; disappeared, apparently, washed away in the book. The queen did not know that because of the new capital letter, all the words in the book had changed.
Elena the Wise slammed the book shut and hit it to the ground.
All the letters scattered from the book, and the first, capital letter both hit and turned into Ivan.
Ivan looks at Elena the Wise, his wife, and cannot take his eyes off. The queen also stared at Ivan, and after staring, she smiled at him. And she became even more beautiful than before.
“And I thought,” she says, “my husband is a mediocre man, but he hid from the magic mirror and outsmarted the book of wisdom!”
They began to live in peace and harmony and lived like that for the time being. Yes, one day the queen asks Ivan:
- Why doesn’t your mother come to visit us?
Ivan answers her:
- And that’s true! But your father has been gone for a long time! The next morning I’ll go get my mother and my father.
And the next morning, just before light, Mother Ivana and Father Elena the Wise came to visit their children. Elena’s father knew the closest route to her kingdom; They walked a short distance and did not get tired.
Ivan bowed to his mother, and she fell at the old man’s feet.
“It’s bad,” he says, “father!” I did not comply with your ban. Forgive me, mediocre!
The old man hugged him and forgave him.
“Thank you,” he says, “son.” There was charm in the treasured dress, wisdom in the book, and all the appearance of the world in the mirror. I thought, I collected a dowry for my daughter, I just didn’t want to give it to her until the time came. I collected everything for her, but I didn’t include what was in you - the main talent. I followed him far away, but he turned out to be close. Apparently, it is not placed or given, but obtained by the person himself.
Here Elena the Wise began to cry, kissed Ivan, her husband, and asked him for forgiveness.
Since then they began to live gloriously - both Elena and Ivan, and their parents - and they still live.
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Russian folk tales. Text of the fairy tale “Ivan
Talentless and Elena the Wise." Read for free online
