Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar/A Hoax
A HOAX.
A good many years ago there came to the hut of an old peasant a soldier, who asked for a night's lodging.
"Come in, soldier, and welcome! Only you must tell me some stories all through the night, for you have been all over the world, I suppose, and have seen a great number of things and know so much."
"What am I to tell you, fiction or fact?"
"Something that has happened to yourself."
So the soldier began telling the peasant where he had been, how he had lived, and what he had seen and, after talking away for a long time he came to a stop, saying that he had nothing more of interest to tell. But the peasant was not satisfied, and declared that he would not sleep unless the soldier told him more tales.
The soldier thought and thought, and then it suddenly struck him that it would be rather fun to try and deceive the peasant somehow or another as he was rather good at that.
"Master, master!" he cried, "do you know what it is that is lying in the loft by your side?"
"Why, a soldier to be sure. What else?"
"No, you have not guessed right; feel with your hand! The peasant did so, and it felt as if a wolf were lying by his side. He was greatly alarmed.
"Don't be afraid of me," said the soldier; "feel yourself, and you will find that you are very much the same sort of animal!"
The peasant obeyed, and felt the thick fur of a bear all round him.
"Now listen, master," said the soldier; "we have no business to lie in the loft now; besides, when the people see us they will take us for real animals, and that would never do, we should be in great danger and that is just what we must avoid. Let us be off now so that no one may see us."
So they got up and ran out of the hut into the fields and far away. Suddenly they came across an old horse which belonged to the peasant.
"Come, let us eat up that horse, for I am hungry!" said the wolf.
"No, please don't, it is my horse!"
"Well, and what of that? Better let us eat it than starve."
So they ate it and ran on farther. It was quite daylight when they came into another field, where they saw an old woman, the peasant's wife, coming along.
"Come, my friend!" said the wolf, "let us eat up this old woman!"
"But she is my wife!" replied the bear.
"Your wife, indeed! What next?"
And they finished off the old woman also.
In this way the wolf and bear passed the whole summer, eating people or animals, whichever came first. When the winter arrived, the wolf said to his companion,—
"Come, let us find a bear's den in the forest yonder; you can get into it first and hide, while I keep watch at the opening, so that should any hunters happen to see us, they would shoot me first. But mind, as soon as you see that they have killed me and begin stripping off my skin, you must at once run out of the den and jump over my skin. The moment you do that you will be changed into yourself—a man—again."
They found a very suitable den in the forest, into which the bear went, while the wolf lay at the mouth.
They lay there for some time without anything happening to them. At last some hunters came riding along. When they saw the wolf they at once shot him, and then commenced tearing off his skin. At that moment the bear rushed out of his den, and with one leap tumbled right over the wolf's skin and ran off as hard as ever he could, anddown came the peasant, head-over-heels, from his loft in his own hut.
"Oh dear! oh dear!" he cried; "I have broken my back!"
"What is the matter with you, old man?" asked his wife from the top of the stove. "What made you fall off the loft just as if you had been drinking?"
"Oh, you don't understand anything!" began the peasant. "You see the soldier and I changed into wild beasts; he into a wolf, I into a bear, and so we ran about all through the summer and winter. We ate up our old horse, and we even ate you up also, old woman."
The woman was greatly astonished, and thought her husband was going mad, while the soldier burst out into a hearty laugh.
"What!" cried the peasant, stupefied with amazement; "what, soldier! do you mean to say that you are lying in the loft?"
"Of course, where else should I be? Do you really suppose that the hunters killed me? Oh, what a joke! Why, you old donkey, it was nothing but a hoax; I wanted to have a little fun out of you. While you were half-asleep I told the story, and you actually thought that it really was taking place. I have often done this sort of thing and am always greatly amused at the result."