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the forest animals would have come running down and in the stampede they would have killed him!” Ivan realized then how lucky he had been to have used the right magic words to stop the breads from piling up. He decided to try again to make sure he knew what to do next time. He opened the little egg again and said, "Little egg, little egg, give me five pears!” And one, two, three, four, five golden plump pears appeared on the ground in a beautiful bowl. And as the fifth one was appearing Ivan closed the magic egg and hurriedly said, “Oh! Thank you! Thank you! Little egg.” And as the magic egg stopped, Ivan was so happy that he hurried home as if he had wings. Everyone rejoiced at his return, but they rejoiced even more when he opened the magic egg and called for all the good foods and drinks they loved. There was red borshch and there were potato varenyky and baked pirogies and plum dumplings and breads of all sorts. When the table was covered with all these goodies, Ivan decided that his good fortune should be shared, so he called all the neighbors. And the neighbors told the other neighbors and soon the whole village was running to Ivan’s house. His rich brother, Bohdan, also heard about the bounty of food and he too came running with his wife. But when he saw the rich foods and drinks, he became curious to know how his poor brother had been able to provide the entire village with such a lavish feast. He told his wife to go and find Ivan’s wife and ask how Ivan had made all this happen. When she came back and said, “All I could find out from Maria is that Ivan was blessed with a gift,” Bohdan became even more curious and now he was also envious. His curiosity was unbearable and he was becoming more envious by the minute of Ivan’s good fortune. Finally, he went to Ivan and asked him about the gift. Ivan trusted his brother and told him about the long road, the forest, the old man, the gift of understanding the language of the animals, the ravens, and the magic egg. When Bohdan learned about the magic egg, he immediately wanted to see it. But as soon as he saw the little egg, he decided that he must have it for himself. He looked at his brother and said, "Last year's harvest, as you remember, was terrible and I loaned you and your family wheat so that you would not starve. Brother, you have not repaid me for this, but I will forget the loan if you give me this magic egg.” Ivan realized that he had been too trusting with his brother, but he also admitted to himself that what Bohdan said was true. He did owe his brother some grain, so he brought the magic egg and said, "You are right and so I will give you the magic egg. You can have anything you wish. Just say, ‘Little egg, little egg give me some...’ But Bohdan was so excited about his good fortune, he did not give Ivan a chance to finish talking. He grabbed the magic egg from Ivan’s hands and ran home with it as quickly as he could. At his home, Bohdan could not wait to try the magic egg. His wife had prepared a lot of food and the only thing missing to make it perfect was salt. All the salt cellars in the village had been empty for days. So Bohdan sat down and ordered the magic little egg to give him salt. “Little egg, little egg, give me plenty of salt!” And a rain of salt began to pour out of nowhere. Soon, the whole garden was full of it. Then it covered the roof of the house and began to filling the rooms of the house through the open windows. "Stop, stop!” cried Bohdan. But the rain of salt did not stop, because Bohdan did not know the ipagic words to make it stop. He had left his brother Ivan before he could learn them. He had been too impatient. Now Bohdan was frightened. He jumped out of the window and started running over the mounting dunes of salt. At each step he became more terrified. He ran and ran across the meadows and the fields and the steppes. He ran so far that he came to the edge of a big cliff. At the bottom of the cliff, black waves were raging. Bohdan was so scared and so frustrated not to be able to stop the magic egg that he threw it into the waters. And so the two pieces of the little carved wooden egg disappeared into the waters. Waves came rolling to the cliffs but the magic egg was nowhere to be seen. It had sunk beneath the waves never to be found again And because it was open and magically making salt when it fell, to this day, it continues to deliver salt at the bottom of the big Black Sea. Retold by Helene N. Turkewicz-Sanko, Ph.D. Copyright Helene N. Turkewicz-Sanko, Ph.D. Department of Classical and Modem languages and Cultures, John Carroll University, August 2003. “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, СІЧЕНЬ 2004 23
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