Morozko 🥶

Прослушайте онлайн русскую народную сказку «Морозко» на английском языке — «Morozko»

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Morozko

Once there lived an old man and an old woman. The old man had his own daughter and the old woman- her own. The old woman pampered her daughter, doted her and made the old man`s daughter do all the work, scold her for everything, abused her and didn`t give her enough food.

The girl consented to all work and did all she was ordered. She did everything awesome possum. People look at her and cannot praise sufficiently.  And about the old woman daughter they just say:
— Here she is- she cannot weave and spin. Here she is- idle and lazy!

The old woman became even angrier and more quarrelsome. She ate girls head off. And think of nothing else but just to kill her.

One day the old man went to town to the market. And an evil old woman colluded with her daughter:
— Now we  will do this hateful girl in!

The old woman called the girl and ordered her:

— Go to the wood and bring some brushwood!

— We have quite enough brushwood, -the girl answered.

The old woman started crying  and  stamping her feet, fell on the girl together with her daughter and pushed her of the hut.

The girl saw that there was nothing to be done and she went to the wood. The frost was crackling, the wind was howling, and there was a heavy snowstorm.

The old woman with her daughter were in the warm hut and said to each other:

— That hateful girl will not come back. She will freeze up the wood!

And the girl went into the forest, stayed under a thick fir tree and did not know- where to go and what to do…

Suddenly she heard the noise and crackles: it was Morozko riding through a fir grove, birch forest and skipping from tree to tree, crunching and clicking. He went down from the fir tree and said:
— How do you do, fairy maiden! Why have you come to my wood in such a severe cold?

Morozko have listened her and said:

— No, fairy maiden, you were not sent here for brushwood. Well, if you come to my wood, then show me what a mistress you are!

She was given a tow and a distaff:

— Spin threads out of this tow. Weave cloth and sew me а shirt out of that cloth!

Morozko said that and left. The girl did not think much and started to work at once.

Her fingers were frozen she would breath to warm them and worked on again.  And the whole night like that. She did not stop working. She thought just about one thing –how to sew the shirt.

In the morning she heard the noise and crack near the fir tree again: that` Morozko came. He looked at the shirt and praised :

— Well, Fairy maiden, you worked well!

Here brought Morozko a large forged trunk, put it in front of the girl, and said:

— Like work, like reward!

After that he put on a warm fur coat on the girl, tied a patterned kerchief round her head and led her to the road:

— Good bye, Fairy maiden! Here you will find good people to help you to get home.

He said that and disappeared as if he were not there.

At that time the old man came back home.

— Where is my daughter? – he asked.

— She went to the wood for brushwood and did not come back.

The old man was anxious, did not start  unharnessing the horse and drove to the wood. And as he glanced  – his daughter was standing near the road, well-dressed and merry.

The old man seated her in the sledge, put Morozko`s trunk with presents there in the sledge and took her home.

An evil old woman with her daughter were sitting at table, eating pies and said:

— Well, she will not come back home alive!  The old man is going to bring just her bones!

And the dog was barking near the stove:

— Bow-wow, bow-wow! The old man`s daughter is going to bring such expensive presents! And no one will marry old woman`s daughter!

The old woman gave pies to the dog and beated her with the poker.

— Shut up, nasty! Just say: «The old woman`s will be married and old man`s daughter will be brought dead!»

But the dog repeated all the time:

— The old man`s daughter will bring presents! And old woman`s daughter will not be married!

Here the gates squeaked, the door to the hut was opened and the girl came in well-dressed and rosy, and people brought a large trunk following her, decorated with frosty patterns.

The old woman and her daughter rushed to the trunk, started to take out and examine the costumes, and put them in the benches and question:

— Who gave you such an expensive present?

As far as the old woman knew that Morozko gave that present to the girl, they began to bustle , wrap up her daughter warmly, gave her the bundle with pies and told the old man to take her to the wood:

— She is going to bring two such trunks!

The old man brought the old woman`s daughter to the wood and left her under a high fir tree. She is standing, looking around, scringing and scolding:

— Why that Morozko do not come for such a long time? Where has he, so-and-so, disappeared?

Here she heard noise and crackle: Morozko was riding through a  fir grove, birch forest, and skipping from tree to tree, crunching and clicking. He went down from the fir tree and asked:

— Why have you come to me, Fairy maiden?

— Don`t you know yourself? I have come for expensive presents!

Morozko smiled and said:

-Just show me first what a mistress you are – knit me the mittens!

He gave her knitting needle and a ball of wool and left.

The old woman`s daughter threw the knitting needles into the snow, pushed the ball of wool with her leg:

— Look at what that old one came up with? Who ever heard of such thing as to knit in such a severe cold? So I can get my fingers frostbitten!

In the morning it cracked and crunches, — Morozko came:

— Well, Fairy maiden, show me how you coped my work?

The old woman`s daughter rushed at him:

— What a work, old noodle? Ae you blind, you can`t see: I am chilled to the bones waiting for you here and I am more than half dead!

— Well, like work, like award! –Morozko said.

She shook with his beard – and snowstorm and blizzard began –all paths, all roads were covered. And Morozko disappeared, as if he were not there.

The old woman`s daughter dragged herself along without knowing the road and came to a deep ravine. There she was covered with snow…

In the morning the old woman shook the old man very early, woke him up and ordered him to go to the wood to take his daughter. He she herself started to bake pies. The dog was sitting under the bench and barking:

— Bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow! The old woman`s daughter is not going to come back from the wood!

The old woman threw pies to the dog and stroke her with the poker painfully:

— Shut up, nasty! Eat the pie and never say such things! Better say: «Old woman`s daughter is going to bring expensive gifts. And the old man`s daughter will not find a fiancй!».

The dog eats a pie and repeats again:

— Bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow! The old man`s daughter will marry and the old woman`s daughter will not come back from the wood!

The old woman was startled:

«What if something`s bad is going to happen with my daughter! What if they lose the expensive gifts on the road! I will run following the old man!»

She put on the fur coat and ran to the wood. The snowstorm was howling and whirling even stronger. The whole road was covered…

The evil woman lost her way and she was covered with snow…

The old man was looking for the old woman`s daughter for some time and could not find. She came back how –there were no old woman. He gathered neighbors. They all started to look for the old woman and her daughter. They looked for and looked for. They dug over all snowdrifts and still did not find them.

And the old man started to live together with his daughter. And when spring came – a fine young man, a smith from the smithy asked her in marriage.

They celebrated a merry wedding and lived in love and harmony. And so they live now.

Frost

Once upon a time there were an old man and an old woman. Now the old woman was the old man’s second wife. His first wife had died, and had left him with a little daughter: Martha she was called. Then he married again, and God gave him a cross wife, and with her two more daughters, and they were very different from the first.

The old woman loved her own daughters, and gave them red kisel jelly every day, and honey too, as much as they could put into their greedy little mouths. But poor little Martha, the eldest, she got only what the others left. When they were cross they threw away what they left, and then she got nothing at all.

The children grew older, and the stepmother made Martha do all the work of the house. She had to fetch the wood for the stove, and light it and keep it burning. She had to draw the water for her sisters to wash their hands in. She had to make the clothes, and wash them and mend them. She had to cook the dinner, and clean the dishes after the others had done before having a bite for herself.

For all that the stepmother was never satisfied, and was for ever shouting at her: «Look, the kettle is in the wrong place;» «There is dust on the floor;» «There is a spot on the tablecloth;» or, «The spoons are not clean, you stupid, ugly, idle hussy.» But Mar­tha was not idle. She worked all day long, and got up before the sun, while her sisters never stirred from their beds till it was time for dinner. And she was not stupid. She always had a song on her lips, except when her stepmother had beaten her. And as for being ugly, she was the prettiest little girl in the village.

Her father saw all this, but he could not do any- ‘] thing, for the old woman was mistress at home, and he was terribly afraid of her. And as for the daugh­ters, they saw how their mother treated Martha, and they did the same. They were always complaining and getting her into trouble. It was a pleasure to them to see the tears on her pretty cheeks.

Well, time went on, and the little girl grew up, and the daughters of the stepmother were as ugly as could be. Their eyes were always cross, and their mouths were always complaining. Their mother saw that no one would want to marry either of them while there was Martha about the house, with her bright eyes and her songs and her kind­ness to everybody.

So she thought of a way to get rid of her step­daughter, and a cruel way it was.

«See here, old man,» says she, «it is high time Martha was married, and I have a bridegroom in mind for her. To-morrow morning you must harness the old mare to the sledge, and put a bit of food together and be ready to start early, as I’d like to see you back before night.»

To Martha she said: «To-morrow you must pack your things in a box, and put on your best dress to show yourself to your betrothed.»

«Who is he?» asked Martha with red cheeks.

«You will know when you see him,» said the step­mother.

All that night Martha hardly slept. She could hardly believe that she was really going to escape from the old woman at last, and have a hut of her own, where there would be no one to scold her. She wondered who the young man was. She hoped he was Fedor Ivanovitch, who had such kind eyes, and such nimble fingers on the balalaika, and such a merry way of flinging out his heels when he danced the Russian dance. But although he always smiled at her when they met, she felt she hardly dared to hope that it was he. Early in the morning she got up and said her prayers to God, put the whole hut in order, and packed her things into a lit-l’e box. That was easy, because she had such few things. It was the other daughters who had new dresses. Any old thing was good enough for Mar­tha. But she put on her best blue dress, and there she was, as pretty a little maid as ever walked under the birch trees in spring.

The old man harnessed the mare to the sledge and brought it to the door. The snow was very deep and fro­zen hard, and the wind peeled the skin from his ears before he covered them with the flaps of his fur hat.

«Sit down at the table and have a bite before you go,» says the old woman.

The old man sat down, and his daughter with him, and drank a glass of tea and ate some black bread. And the old woman put some cabbage soup, left from the day before, in a saucer, and said to Martha, «Eat this, my little pigeon, and get ready fori the road.» But when she said «my little pigeon,» she did not smile with her eyes, but only with her cruel  mouth,  and  Martha was  afraid.  The  old] woman whispered to the old man: «1 have a word for you, old fellow. You will take Martha to herj betrothed, and I’ll tell you the way. You go straight] along, and then take the road to the right into the! forest . . . you know . . . straight to the big fir treq that stands on a hillock, and there you will give] Martha to her betrothed and leave her. He will be waiting for her, and his name is Frost.»

The old man stared, opened his mouth, andj stopped eating. The little maid, who had heard thej last words, began to cry.

«Now, what are you whimpering about?» screamed the old woman. «Frost is a rich bridegroom and a hand­some one. See how much he owns. All the pines and firs are his, and the birch trees. Any one would envy his possessions, and he himself is a very bogatir,* a man of strength and power.»

The old man trembled, and said nothing in reply. And Martha went on crying quietly, though she tried to stop her tears. The old man packed up what was left of the black bread, told Martha to put on her sheepskin coat, set her in the sledge and climbed in, and drove off along the white, frozen road.

The road was long and the country open, and the wind grew colder and colder, while the frozen snow blew up from under the hoofs of the mare and spat­tered the sledge with white patches. The tale is soon told, but it takes time to happen, and the sledge was white all over long before they turned off into the forest.

They came in the end deep into the forest, and left the road, and over the deep snow through the trees to the great fir. There the old man stopped, told his daughter to get out of the sledge, set her lit­tle box under the fir, and said, «Wait here for your bridegroom, and when he comes be sure to receive him with kind words.» Then he turned the mare found and drove home, with the tears running from his eyes and freezing on his cheeks before they had had time to reach his beard.

The little maid sat and trembled. Her sheepskin coat was worn through, and in her blue bridal dress she sat, while fits of shivering shook her whole body. She wanted to run away; but she had not strength to move, or even to keep her little white teeth from chattering between her frozen lips.

Suddenly, not far away, she heard Frost crackling among the fir trees. He was leaping from tree to tree, crackling as he came.

He leapt at last into the great fir tree, under which the little maid was sitting. He crackled in the top of the tree, and then called down out of the top­most branches,— «Are you warm, little maid?» «Warm, warm, little Father Frost.» Frost laughed, and came a little lower in the tree and crackled and crackled louder than before. Then he asked,—

«Are you still warm, little maid? Are you warm, little red cheeks?»

The little maid could hardly speak. She was nearly dead, but she answered,—

«Warm, dear Frost; warm, little father.»

Frost climbed lower in the tree, and crackled louder than ever, and asked,—

«Are you still warm, little maid? Are you warm little red cheeks? Are you warm, little paws?»

The little maid was benumbed all over, but she whispered so that Frost could just hear her,—

«Warm, little pigeon, warm, dear Frost.»

And Frost was sorry for her, leapt down with a tremendous crackle and a scattering of frozen snow, wrapped the little maid up in rich furs, and covered her with warm blankets.

In the morning the old woman said to her husband, «Drive off now to the forest, and wake the young couple.»

The old man wept when he thought of his little daughter, for he was sure that he would find her dead. He harnessed the mare, and drove off through the snow. He came to the tree, and heard his little daughter sing­ing merrily, while Frost crackled and laughed. There she was, alive and warm, with a good fur cloak about her shoulders, a rich veil, costly blankets round her feet, and a box full of splendid presents.

The old man did not say a word. He was too sur­prised. He just sat in the sledge staring, while the little maid lifted her box and the box of presents, set them in the sledge, climbed in, and sat down beside him.

They came home, and the little maid, Martha, fell at the feet of her stepmother. The old woman nearly went off her head with rage when she saw her alive, with her fur cloak and rich veil, and the °ox of splendid presents fit for the daughter of a Prince.

«Ah, you chit,» she cried, «you won’t get round me like that!»

And she would not say another word to the little maid, but went about all day long biting her nails and thinking what to do.

At night she said to the old man,—

«You must take my daughters, too, to that bride­groom in the forest. He will give them better gifts than these.»

Things take time to happen, but the tale is quickly told. Early next morning the old woman woke her daughters, fed them with good food, dressed them like brides, hustled the old man, made him put clean hay in the sledge and warm blankets, and sent them off to the forest.

The old man did as he was bid —drove to the big fir tree, set the boxes under the tree, lifted out the stepdaughters and set them on the boxes side by side, and drove back home.

They were warmly dressed, these two, and well fed, and at first, as they sat there, they did not think about the cold.

«I can’t think what put it into mother’s head to marry us both at once,» said the first, «and to send us here to be married. As if there were not enough young men in the village. Who can tell what sort of fellows we shall meet here!»

Then they began to quarrel.

«Well,» says one of them, «I’m beginning to get the cold shivers. If our fated ones do not come soon, we shall perish of cold.»

«It’s a flat lie to say that bridegrooms get ready early. It’s already dinner-time.»

«What if only one comes?»

«You’ll have to come another time.»

«You think he’ll look at you?»

«Well, he won’t take you, anyhow.»

«Of course he’ll take me.»

«Take you first! It’s enough to make any one laugh!»

They began to fight and scratch each other, so that their cloaks fell open and the cold entered their bosoms.

Frost, crackling among the trees, laughing to himself, froze the hands of the two quarrelling girls, and they hid their hands in the sleeves of their fur coats and shivered, and went on scolding and jeer­ing at each other.

«Oh, you ugly mug, dirty nose! What sort of a housekeeper will you make?»

«And what about you, boasting one? You know nothing but how to gad about and lick your own face. We’ll soon see which of us he’ll take.»

And the two girls went on wrangling and wran­gling till they began to freeze in good earnest. Suddenly they cried out together,—

«Devil take these bridegrooms for being so long in coming! You have turned blue all over.»

And together they replied, shivering,—

«No bluer than yourself, tooth-chatterer.»

And Frost, not so far away, crackled and laughed, and leapt from fir tree to fir tree, crackling as he came.

The girls heard that some one was coming through the forest.

«Listen! there’s some one coming. Yes, and with bells on his sledge!»

«Shut up, you chit! I can’t hear, and the frost is taking the skin off me.»

They began blowing on their fingers.

And Frost came nearer and nearer, crackling, laughing, talking to himself. Nearer and nearer he came, leaping from tree-top to tree-top, till at last he leapt into the great fir under which the two girls were sitting and quarrelling.

He leant down, looking through the branches, and asked,—

«Are you warm, maidens? Are you warm, little red cheeks? Are you warm, little pigeons?»

«Ugh, Frost, the cold is hurting us. We are frozen. We are waiting for our bridegrooms, but the cursed fellows have not turned up.»

Frost came a little lower in the tree, and crackled louder and swifter

«Are you warm, maidens? Are you warm, my little red cheeks?»

«Go to the devil!» they cried out. «Are you blind? Our hands and feet are frozen!»

Frost came still lower in the branches, and cracked and crackled louder than ever.

«Are you warm, maidens?» he asked.

«Into the pit with you, with all the fiends,» the girls screamed at him, «you ugly, wretched fellow!» . . . And as they were cursing at him their bad words died on their lips, for the two girls, the cross children of the cruel stepmother, were frozen stiff where they sat.

Frost hung from the lowest branches of the tree, swaying and crackling while he looked at the anger frozen on their faces. Then he climbed swiftly up again, and crackling and cracking, chuckling to himself, he went off, leaping from fir tree to fir tree, this way and that through the white, frozen forest.

In the morning the old woman says to her husband,—

«Now then, old man, harness the mare to the sledge, and put new hay in the sledge to be warm for my little ones, and lay fresh rushes on the hay to be soft for them; and take warm rugs with you, for maybe they will be cold, even in their furs. And look sharp about it, and don’t keep them waiting. The frost is hard this morning, and it was harder in the night.»

The old man had not time to eat even a mouthful of black bread before she had driven him out into the snow. He put hay and rushes and soft blankets in the sledge, and harnessed the mare, and went off to the forest. He came to the great fir, and found the two girls sitting under it dead, with their anger still to be seen on their frozen, ugly faces.

He picked them up, first one and then the other, and put them in the rushes and the warm hay, covered them with the blankets, and drove home.

The old woman saw him coming, far away, over the  shining  snow.   She  ran  to  meet  him,  and shouted out,— «Where are the little ones?» «In the sledge.»

She snatched off the blankets and pulled aside the rushes, and found the bodies of her two cross daughters.

Instantly she flew at the old man in a storm of rage. «What have you done to my children, my little red cherries, my little pigeons? I will kill you with the oven fork! I will break your head with the poker!»

The old man listened till she was out of breath and could not say another word. That is the only w’se thing to do when somebody is in a scolding rage. And as soon as she had no breath left with which to answer him, he said,—

«My little daughter got riches for soft words, but yours were always rough of the tongue. And it’s not my fault, anyhow, for you yourself sent them into the forest.»

Well, at last the old woman got her breath again, and scolded away till she was tired out. But in the end she made her peace with the old man, and they lived together as quietly as could be expected.

As for Martha, Fedor Ivanovitch sought her in marriage, as he had meant to do all along—yes, and married her; and pretty she looked in the furs that Frost had given her. And she had the prettiest children that ever were seen—yes, and the best behaved. For if ever they thought of being naughty, the old grandfather told them the story of crackling Frost, and how kind words won kindness, and cross words cold treatment.

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