THE
WOMAN AND THE DEVIL
BOBA
IR VELNIAS
Translated
from Lithuanian by Gloria O’Brien
Buvo kitąsyk toks žmogus. Jis vedė, ir pasitaikė labai nedora
žmona ......
Once
there was a man, who happened to marry a very unpleasant woman who made his
life a misery. She was difficult to live
with and impossible to please. She would
invent all sorts of unreasonable jobs for him, and he was never able to
complete them, no matter how he tried.
And so this poor fellow passed his time cursing each day of his
life. And they say that he who curses
while living in this world, sinks into Hell upon his death.
And
so it happened to this man: when he died, devils carried his soul off to
Hell. Once a soul has entered Hell,
certainly the devils will not greet them with kisses, and they began to apply
all kinds of tortures. But, the more
they tormented him, the more he laughed at them. Amazed by his behavior, they asked:
“What
are you laughing at? Everyone who ends
up here screams and weeps uncontrollably, and you just laugh!”
He
answered, “While among the living, I suffered far more from my wife’s
treatment, than anything you have attempted here. I am well accustomed to torture, and this is
nothing.”
One
devil thought a bit about this, and then told him, “Well, now, I will have to
go and see this woman for myself.” He
changed himself into a handsome young man, and finding her at home, approached
her saying: “I have heard that you are a
widow, how about marrying me?”
The
woman, pleased to have such a handsome fellow at hand, jumped at the chance and
they were immediately married. One or
two days passed quietly, but then her character asserted itself, and she began
to load her young husband down with work and other torments. Now, our friend the devil was strong and
agile enough, but still, he couldn’t complete all the jobs she gave him.
Life
with the woman was tough, and when the devil had had enough, he dropped
everything and took off running. The
woman, seeing that he was leaving her, ran right after him. She was closing in on him, when, spying an
old man raking hay, he asked: “Old man,
if you will hide me someplace in this hay, I will repay you well.” The man covered him with a big haystack.
The
woman ran up and questioned the old farmer:
“Did you see a fellow just running past here?” “I haven’t seen anyone”, he answered. The woman looked all around, saw nothing, and
turned, muttering to herself: “Guess
it’s no good trying to find that Satan”.
The
devil, hearing his name spoken, actually began to tremble in fear of being
found. But the woman, after a lot of
cursing, turned around and went home.
The devil, safe now, came out from under the haystack and ran into the
woods, where he dug out a black kettle from under a tree. He gave the kettle, full of gold pieces, to
the farmer and returned to the safety of Hell.
Once
there, he spoke to the man: “I don’t know how you were able to live with that
woman for so many years, as I couldn’t stand it for less than a year. So, go wherever you want, away from Hell, as
we all know that you have done your penance on earth.”
And
the devils let him leave Hell, but where he went from there, I surely do not
know.
Source:
From “Lietuviškos Pasakos” -
“Lithuanian Fairy-tales”
Compiled by Dr. Jonas Balys
Published in 1951 by the Lithuanian Book Club,
© English Translation - Gloria O’Brien 2005
This
article was printed in Bridges Sept 2005