Estonia
Once a poor cottager lived with his wife in a lonely hut outside the village. The man's name was Loppi, and the woman's name was Lappi. It seems as though both of them had been born into misfortune, for nothing went well for them. In the earlier years of their marriage God had given them children, but none of them were still alive to support the parents in their old age.
Every evening husband and wife sat next to the stove like two dried-up tree stumps, and often, for no reason at all, their bitterness spilled over, and they quarreled. As everyone knows, unfortunate people usually try to push their own guilt onto others, and even if they are not willfully evil, they blame others for their own bad luck.
Thus Loppi often angrily said, "If only I had had the good luck to marry a better woman, I would have lacked nothing. Today I could have been a wealthy man."
Lappi had an even quicker tongue, and for every one of her husband's words, she came back with a dozen of her own. "Just look at you, you stupid lout! Of course it is partially my fault that in my child-like simplicity I did not know enough to choose a better husband, but there must have been witchcraft involved to make me turn to you. Only the devil knows what you secretly put into my food or drink. I had plenty of suitors, and if I had not settled for you, you miserable creature, today I could be a lady seated at a full table. It is your fault, you worthless man, that I'll be suffering from hunger and sorrow until I die. And it is also your fault that all our children have died, because you did not know how to take care of a wife and children."
This stream of words gushed forth, not ceasing until the husband stopped her mouth with his fist.
One evening the couple were again quarrelling in their hut when a stately woman dressed in clothes of German cut stepped inside. Her appearance brought the wife's tongue to a standstill, and caused the husband to lower his raised arm.
After a friendly greeting, the strange woman said, "You are poor wretches and until now have suffered much. However, three days from now your misery will suddenly end. Therefore keep peace in your house, and decide what destiny you would best choose for yourselves. I am not a human, as I appear to you, but rather a higher being who, through God's power, can cause wishes to be fulfilled. You have three days' time for consideration, and then you may state three wishes that you desire. Say your wishes aloud, and in the same instant they will come true through magic power. But be careful not to wish for unnecessary things."
Following these words, the stately woman greeting them once again, then disappeared out the door in a flash.
Loppi and Lappi, who had now forgotten their quarrel, stared speechlessly out the door through which the miraculous vision had entered and disappeared. Finally the husband said, "Let's go to bed now. We have three days to think about this. We want to use these wishes wisely, so we can get the best luck for ourselves."
Although they had three days for consideration, they spent more than half the night burdened with thoughts of which wish would be the very best. Oh, what precious freedom ruled in the hut without interruption for the next three days! Loppi and Lappi had become different people. They spoke together friendlily, and looked after one another's needs. They spent the greatest part of each day sitting quietly in the corner thinking about what they should wish for.
On the third day Loppi went into the village, where that morning a swine had been slaughtered, and the sausage kettle must just now be standing on the fire. He took with him the butter pot, with its lid, wanting to ask his neighbor's wife for sausage water to cook his cabbage in that evening. Loppi felt that they would be able to think better if their stomachs were filled with good food. Arriving home he put the cabbage on the fire so their meal would be ready at the right time.
Evening arrived, and with it the time when they could make their wishes. The pot of cabbage soup was steaming on the table, and husband and wife sat down to eat. Now they could have their wishes fulfilled. They had already eaten several spoonfuls of the tasty soup when Lappi said, contentedly, "Thanks be to God for this good soup. It will fill us up nicely, but it would taste even better if we only had a sausage to go with it!"
Bang! A large sausage fell from above onto the middle of the table. For a while husband and wife were so startled that it did not occur to them to eat the sausage. Loppi remarked that with the sausage their first wish had been fulfilled, and that so angered him that he shouted, "May the Evil One grab you and stick this sausage onto your nose! If...."
But the poor man was too frightened to continue speaking, for the sausage was already hanging from Lappi's nose, not like a normal sausage, but like a piece of flesh growing out of the nose. What could they do now? Two wishes had already been wasted, and the second one had so misshapen the woman that she would not dare to be seen by other people. They still had one wish that had not been stated, and with this one they could set everything right. At this moment poor Lappi had no other desire than to free herself from the long sausage, so she said this wish aloud, and the sausage disappeared.
Now all three wishes were gone, and Loppi and Lappi had to continue living poorly in their hut. For some time afterward they expected the beautiful woman to return, but the stranger never appeared again. Whoever fails to take immediate advantage of unexpected luck will lose it forever.
- Source: Friedrich Kreutzwald, "Loppi und Lappi," Estnische
Märchen, vol. 2 (Dorpat: Verlag von C. Mattiesen, 1881),
no.
4, pp. 23-26.
- Translated from Estonian into German by F. Löwe. Translated from German into English by D. L. Ashliman. © 2008.
Posted by: |