Tales of Folk and Fairies
Copyright© 2024 by Katharine Pyle
Oh!
A Cossack Story
There was once a man who had one son, and he was so lazy that he would not work at all. The father apprenticed him to a tailor, but the lad went to sleep between the stitches. He apprenticed him to a cobbler and the lad only sat and yawned instead of driving pegs. What to do with him the man did not know.
“Come,” said the father one day, “we will go out into the wide world. It may be that somewhere or other we will find a master who can make you work.”
The lad was very good-natured. “Very well,” said he, “I am willing”; and he arose and stretched himself and yawned, and then he was ready to set out.
The father put on his cap and took a staff in his hand, and then he was ready, too.
The two of them journeyed along together, in step and out of step, and after a while they came to a deep wood. When they were well into it, the father grew so weary that he had to sit down and rest.
“Oh! what have I done that I should have such a lazy son!” he cried.
At once a little old, wrinkled, weazened man, all dressed in green, with a green face, green hair, and a green beard stood before them.
“Why did you call me,” said he, “and what do you want?”
“I did not call you,” answered the man.
“But you did call me, for I heard you. Did not you call ‘Oh’? And that is my name.”
“I said, ‘Oh, what have I done to have such a lazy son,’” replied the man, “but I did not call you, for I did not know that was your name.”
The Green one looked closely at the lad. “Is he so lazy?” he asked. “He looks a stout, healthy fellow.”
“That is the worst of it,” answered the father. “He is so stout and healthy that he eats me out of house and home, and not one stroke will he do to pay for it. I have tried to apprentice him to different masters, but they soon weary of him and drive him out.”
“Very well; I will take him as an apprentice myself,” answered the little man. “Leave him here with me for a year. Come back at the end of that time, and if you know him again and are able to choose him out from among my other apprentices, then you shall take him home with you, but if not, then he shall serve with me a year longer.”
Very well, the father was willing to agree to that. It would only be for a year, for of course he would recognize his own son anywhere. So he left the lad with Oh and went on home again.
Oh took the lad down into the country that lies beneath this earth, and the way was not long. There everything was green. Oh’s house was made of green rushes. His wife was green and his daughters were green and his dog was green, and when they gave the lad food to eat, it was green also.
The oldest daughter would have been a beauty if she had not been green all over—eyes, hair, and all. As soon as she saw the lad she loved him and would have been glad to have him for a husband, but he had no fancy for her.
“When I marry,” said he, “it shall be some girl who is good red and white flesh and blood like myself.”
“Never mind,” said Oh. “After you have lived here for a while you will be glad enough to have her for a wife.”
The lad lived down in the under country for a year, and Oh taught him much magic, and he was very useful to the old Green One.
But at the end of the year the father came back in search of his son. He stopped at the very same spot in the forest where he had stopped before and cried out in a loud voice, “Oh! Oh! I would like to see my son.”
At once Oh appeared before him. “Come with me,” he said, “but remember our bargain. If you know your son when you see him he is yours again, but if you do not know him, then he must stay with me and serve me still another year.”
The man was very willing to agree, for it would be a strange thing if he did not know his own son when he saw him.
Oh led him down the short way to the land that is under this, and when he got there the man stared about him in wonder. Never had he seen so many green things in all his life before.
Oh took a handful of corn and scattered it about, calling as he did so. Then a great number of cocks that were pecking about the place came running and began to pick up the corn.
“Tell me now, which of these is your son?” asked Oh, “for one of them is he.”
The man stared and scratched his head and stared again, but he could not tell, for one cock was just like another. He had to own that he could not tell which was his son.
“Very well,” said Oh. “Then you will have to go home without him. Come back at the end of another year, and then if you know him from his mates you shall take him home with you, but if not then he shall stay with me a twelvemonth longer.”
That did not suit the man at all, but he could not say no, for that was what the bargain had been.
At the end of the year the man came back to the forest again and called upon Oh, and Oh was quickly before him.
“Come along,” said Oh. “You surely ought to know your son when you see him. If you do he shall go home with you, and I shall not say no to it, but if not then he shall stay with me a year longer.”
When the man heard this he was troubled, for he feared the Green One meant to play some trick on him as he had before, and he wanted his son home again, lazy or not. Moreover the lad’s mother was grieving for him.
Oh led the man down to the underworld and over to a field where a flock of rams was grazing.
“All these are my servants,” said Oh, “and one of them is your son. Look well and tell me which is he, for unless you can choose him out he must stay here with me.”
The man looked and looked, but he could not tell which of the rams was his son, for they all looked alike to him, so he had to go home without him.
When the lad’s mother heard of this second trick the Green One had played on her husband she wept bitterly. “If we cannot find some way to get round him, we will never have the lad back again,” she said.
“That is true,” said the man; “but if our son looks like a cock, how can I tell him from other cocks; and if he looks like a ram, how can I tell him from other rams?”
Well, time slipped by, and the man and his wife grew poorer and poorer, for they were growing old, and they needed a young body in the house to work for them.
When it was about time for the man to set out for Oh’s house his wife said to him, “See now! we have nothing left in the house but a small loaf and a bit of honeycomb. But we can do better than fill our stomach with them. Do you take them to the old Wise Woman who lives over beyond the hill. Tell her they are a gift, and then ask her what we can do to meet the tricks of the little old Green One.”
The man did as his wife bade him, though he was hungry and would have been glad of a bit of the bread himself.
The Wise Woman was pleased with the gift, and thanked the man kindly. Then the man told her all his troubles and asked her how he was to get his son back again from Oh.
“Listen!” said the old woman. “Oh would gladly keep your son with him as a husband for his daughter, and if you do not bring the lad away with you this time, you will never have him back. This time Oh will show you a flock of doves, and one of them will be your son. Look closely at them, and the one that has tears in its eyes is he, for only a human soul can weep.”
The father thanked the old woman and hurried back home again, and very soon after it was time to set out for Oh’s house.
The man travelled along till he came to the wood and the place where he had come twice already, and he stood there and cried, “Oh! Oh!”
Then Oh appeared before him. “Here I am,” said Oh, “ready and waiting for you. This time, as before, I tell you that if you know your son when you see him you shall take him away with you, but if, this time, you do not know him, then he is mine forever.”
“Very well,” said the man, “that is a bargain.”
Then Oh took him down to the underworld. He called to a flock of doves that was perched on the roof and scattered a handful of peas on the ground for them. The doves flew down all about them and began to peck up the peas; but one dove would not eat but sat mournfully on a low bough and looked at them, and its eyes were full of tears.
“This one is my son,” cried the man, pointing to the dove that wept.
As soon as he said this the dove changed its shape and became a young man, and this was the son, though he had become so fine and tall and handsome in these three years that his father could scarcely recognize him.
Then Oh was in a fine rage. He danced with fury and tore his beard.
“Very well,” he cried, “he is yours now, but you shall not keep him long, and when I once get him back again he is mine forever.”
But the lad paid no heed to his threats. He and his father were soon on the upper earth again, and they set out for home, one foot before the other.
On the way the father told the lad how badly it had gone with him and the mother in the past years; of how poor they were, and of how their hut was tumbling to pieces, and how their cow had died.
“Never mind,” said the lad. “I learned quite a bit of magic from the Green One, and that should help us out now. Do you hear the huntsmen winding their horns farther on in the open?”
Yes, the father heard them.
“I will turn myself into a greyhound,” said the lad. “The hunt is coming this way, and when the huntsmen see me they will want to buy me. Ask them three hundred dollars for me; no more, no less, but when they take me do not leave the leash on me, whatever you do. Take it off and put it in your pocket, and then all will be well with me. Fail to do this, and misfortune will surely overtake me.”
The father promised to do as the son said, and then the lad turned himself into a greyhound, and he was so sleek and handsome that the man could not admire him enough; but about his neck was an old, worn leash that did not look as though it were worth a penny. It seemed a pity to leave it on the neck of such a handsome dog.
The man went on a little further and then he came to where a grand nobleman and his friends were hunting a hare. They had a pack of dogs with them but the hare had outrun them.
When the nobleman saw the man and the greyhound he stopped his horse.
“That is a fine greyhound you have there.”
“Yes, it is,” answered the man.
“Do you think it could course down the hare we are chasing?”
Yes, the man was sure it could.
“Then let me have it and I will pay you a good price for it.”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.