Ep. 874 - Thomas Berennikov - A Russian Folktale

Once upon a time there lived in a village a miserably poor peasant called Tommy Berennikov. Thomas’s tongue could wag right well, and in mother-wit he was no worse than his neighbours, but he was anything but handsome to look at, and for working in the fields he was not worth a button. One day he went into the field to plough. The work was heavy and his nag was a wretched hack, quite starved and scarce able to drag along the plough, so at last Tom quite gave way to woe, sat down on a little stone, and immediately whole swarms of blow-flies and gad-flies fell upon his poor knacker from every quarter and stuck fast. Thomas seized a bundle of dry twigs and thwacked his horse about the back with all his might; the horse never stirred from the spot, and the blow-flies and gad-flies fell off him in swarms. Thomas began to count how many he had killed, eight gad-flies, and there was no numbering the slain of the other flies. And Thomas Berennikov smiled. “That’s something like!” said he, “we’ve killed eight at a blow! And there’s no counting the smaller fry! What a warrior I am, what a hero! I won’t plough any more, I’ll fight. I’ll turn hero, and so seek my fortune!” And he took his crooked sickle from his shoulders, hung up his bast-basket by his girdle, placed in this basket his blunt scythe, and then he mounted his hack and wandered forth into the wide world.