Russian Folk Tale - The Hunter and his Wife (Part-2)

   This is an interesting Russian Folk tale. The first part already published before, here is the last part of this story.

The Hunter

   The Hunter and his Wife - Part 2

   Early in the morning the hunter was awakened by the noise of the dog pushing through the twigs on its way back. He heard how the dogs addressed each other.

   "Well and how are you, brother?" said the first dog.

   "Finely," said the second dog; "and what about you?"

   "Fine too. Did the night pass well?” , asked the first dog.

   The second dog said, "Well enough, thanks to the God. But with you, brother? How was it at home?"

   "Oh brother, it was so badly. I ran home, and the mistress, when she sees me, soughed out, 'What the devil are you doing here without your master? Well, there is your supper;' and she threw me a crust of bread, burnt like a black coal. I snuffed it and snuffed it, but I could not eat that. No dog alive could have made a meal of it, and with that she started to beat me with a stick. But at night, later on—just as I thought—thieves came into the yard, and were going to clear out the barn and the storeroom. But I let loose such a howl, and leapt upon them so cruel and angry, that they had little thought to leave off from other people's goods, and had all they could do to get away whole themselves. This way, I spent the night."

   The hunter heard all that the dogs said, and kept it in his mind. "Wait a bit, my good lady," he said to himself, "and see what I have to say to you when I get home."

   That morning his luck was good and he came home with a couple of rabbits and three wild-cocks.

   "Good-day, mistress," said the hunter to his wife, when he was standing in the doorway.

   "Good-day, master," replied the hunter’s wife.

   "Last night one of the dogs came home?", asked the hunter.

   "Yes, it did," she answered.

   "And how did you feed it?", asked the hunter.

   "Feed it, my love? I gave it a whole bowl of milk and crumbled a loaf of bread for the dog.", she answered.

   "You lie to me, you old witch," said the hunter; "you gave it nothing but a burnt crust, and you beat it with the stick."

   The old woman was so astonished that how her husband knew all the truth before it comes from her mouth. She asks to her husband, "How did you know all that?"

   "I will not tell you," said the hunter.

   "Tell me, tell me," begged the old woman.

   "I can not tell you," said the hunter; "it is prohibited me to tell others."

   "Tell me, dear one," she requested.

   "Truly, I can't.", answered he.

   "Tell me, my little pigeon.", again she requested to her husband.

   "If I tell you I shall die the death.", he told. 

   "Rubbish, my dearest; only tell me.", she tried to force him.

   "But I shall die." the hunter replied.

   "Just tell me that one little thing. You will not die for that.", again she forced him.

   That is the way, she bothered him and bothered him. Then the hunter thought, "There is nothing to be done if a woman sets her mind on a thing. I have better to die and get it over at once."
 

   So he put on a clean white shirt and lay down on a bench in the corner, under the sacred images, and made all ready for his death. Then he was just going to tell his wife the whole truth about the snake and the wood-pile and how he knew the language of all living things. But just then there was a great clucking in the yard and he saw some of the hens ran into his cottage, and after them came the cock; scolding the first one and then another, and it was biting them continuously one after another.
 

   "That is the way to deal with you," said the cock to those hens. 

   The hunter was lying there in his white shirt, ready to die,  heard and understood every word of the cock. 

   "Yes," said the cock, as he drove the hens about the room, "you see I am not such a fool as our master here, who does not know how to keep a single wife in control. Why, I have thirty of you and more, and the whole lot hear from me sharp enough if they do not do as I say."

   As soon as the hunter heard this he made up his mind to be a fool no longer. He jumped up from the bench, and took his whip and gave his wife such a beating that she never asked him another question to this day. From then, she had never asked any unnecessary questions to him and he knew what she did in the hut while he was away in the forest.

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