Ep. 873 - The Woman-Accuser - A Russian Folktale

There was once upon a time an old man and an old woman. The old woman was not a bad old woman, but there was this one bad thing about her—she did not know how to hold her tongue. Whatever she might hear from her husband, or whatever might happen at home, she was sure to spread it over the whole village; she even doubled everything in the telling, and so things were told which never happened at all. Not unfrequently the old man had to chastise the old woman, and her back paid for the faults of her tongue.

One day the old man went into the forest for wood. He had just got to the border of the forest, when his foot, in treading on a certain place, sank right into the ground. “Why, what’s this?” thought the old man. “Come, now, I’ll dig a bit here; maybe I shall be lucky enough to dig out something.” He dug several times, and saw, buried in the ground, a little cauldron quite full of silver and gold. “Look, now, what good luck has befallen me! But what am I to do with it? I cannot hide it from that good wife of mine at home, and she will be sure to blab to all the world about my lucky find, and thou wilt repent the day thou didst ever see it.”

For a long time the old man sat brooding over his treasure, and at last he made up his mind what to do.