: The guy fell in love with the girl, but she drowned. The guy married unloved, endured betrayal of his wife with a neighbor-sorcerer. Once a guy saw a mermaid in the image of his beloved, he followed her and died, having fallen in the gorge.

The division of the retelling into chapters is conditional.

Ivan's childhood

Ivan from the Hutsul family Paliychukov was a strange child.

He cried, grew up poorly and looked at his mother “with such a deep, senile clever gaze” that she was frightened and considered her son a changeling. When she gave birth, she did not have time to defend herself, to perform the necessary rituals, and the cunning demon child replaced her demon.

Ivan grew up, put on his pants, but remained strange. He will stand in the middle of the hut and looks in front of himself, as if “he sees something far and unknown to anyone,” or screams for no reason. In such cases, the mother drove Ivan out of the hut, and he went into the forest, into the mountains.

By the age of seven, he already knew how to find medicinal plants and knew that hundreds of evil spirits inhabit the world, and gobies graze their cattle - deer, chamois, hares in the forest, and a cheerful and kind forest spirit wanders around, chugaistyr hunts, hunts for mermaid bargains and is ready to dance with the first comer.

The whole world was like a fairy tale, full of miracles, mysterious, attracting and terrible.

Growing up Ivan was sent to graze cows. Having driven the animals to the pasture, he took out a pipe and tried to play an obscure and elusive melody that lived in it, but could not catch it.

Once Ivan threw the cows, climbed to the top of the mountain and there he saw a devil who played the very melody on the pipe that was not given to the boy. Having lost his mind from fear, Ivan rushed away, and when he came to, tried to play that melody, and he succeeded - "so he found what he was looking for in the forest."

Blood feud, love of Ivan and Marichki

The Paliychuk family initially had twenty children, but five were left alive - the rest died in infancy. Ivan was considered the nineteenth child. When trouble happened in the Hutsul family, a trembita blew near the hut - a very long pipe. In memory of Ivan, the trembit blew twice - one brother was crushed by a fallen tree, the second "died in the battle with the enemy clan."

The Paliychuk clan had been at enmity with the Gutenyuk clan for so long that no one remembered how the feud had begun. Ivan wanted to avenge his brother. Once, returning from the fair, Paliychuki faced Gutenyuki, the battle began. Overwhelmed with malice, Ivan hit the little girl, but she did not give back, but shared a candy with the boy. While the adults fought, the children managed to make friends.

In that battle, Ivan's father died, and difficult times came for the family, gradually selling land and livestock. Despite the enmity, Ivan grazed sheep with Gutenyukova girl Marichka. They spent whole days together, in the mountains, in forest glades.

At thirteen, Ivan and Marichka became close. When Ivan turned into a slender lad, and Marichka into a beautiful girl, they could no longer graze cattle together. Now they met secretly, on holidays and weekends. Ivan played the pipe, Marichka sang.

Lovers break up, Ivan becomes a shepherd

Ivan wanted to marry Marichka, but Paliychuk's household completely collapsed, and the lad had to get a job. He went as a shepherd to the owner of the pasture, where the inhabitants of the surrounding villages brought cattle. The pasture was far away, in a forest glade, and Ivan and Marichka had to part for a while.

All summer Ivan grazed sheep under the supervision of a senior shepherd, who owned the pasture. The shepherds milked the sheep, and the senior shepherd made sheep’s cheese from milk, which was occasionally visited by livestock owners and told the village news.

Over the summer, Ivan saw everything. Once he saw in the fog how a white, tall man came out of a fir-tree that grew to a gigantic size and began to graze a herd of chamois and deer, and instead of dogs he had bears. Then the fog cleared and everything disappeared.

Ivan became friends with Mikola, who ran the shepherds' household.

In the evenings, he told tales of a god who knew everything but knew nothing, so he stole things he had invented from Satan and gave them to people.

All that is in the world - scholarship, all sorts of tricks - everything from him, from Satan. Where is there - a wagon, a horse, music, a mill or a hut - he invented everything ...

When Mikola fell ill, Ivan ran a farm in his place. Once the pasture was shrouded in fog, and Ivan heard the voice of Marichka, who called him. The lad rushed to the call, barely stopped at the edge of a bottomless abyss and realized that his name was not his girlfriend, but an appearance (evil spirit).

Marichka dies, Ivan marries the rich Palagna

Finally, the pasture was empty, Ivan returned home and found out that Marichka was dead - a fast mountain river dragged her and dumped her into a waterfall. Ivan did not believe for a long time, he thought that Gutenyuki hid the girl from him, looked for the body and found - "some kind of wet sack, blue bloody mass, crushed by river stones, like in a mill."

Ivan yearned, wandered through the forest, eating berries, then disappeared, and people composed songs about his love. Ivan returned six years later, black, thin, aged, but calmed down. He said that he was a shepherd "on the Hungarian side."

A year later, Ivan married a divine Palagna from a wealthy family.

A good dowry was given beyond the Palagna, and Ivan's barns were filled with cattle. He treated cattle as a mother to his child, guarded him from a wild beast and an evil eye. There was someone to guard: Ivan’s neighbor was a witch, and Jura’s neighbor was a sorcerer.

Ivan was pleased. Concern for the household occupied all his time. He only occasionally recalled Marichka and disappeared for several days. Guilty came back and again set to work.

Did he love the palagna? Such a thought never crossed his mind. He is the master, she is the mistress. And although they did not have children, but there was a beast - what more?

Palagna becomes a warlock's mistress

Time passed. Ivan got rich, Palagna got fat. The spouses did not have children. At church holidays, after drinking a few cups, they allowed themselves to have fun - “Ivan hugged young men. The palagna was kissed by alien husbands. ”

Spouses carefully performed rituals that bring happiness and wealth, Ivan - at Christmas, Palagna - on the first day of spring. One early in the morning, the Palagna stripped naked and went into the field to perform a rite that gives the earth fertility. Yura saw her, grabbed her arm. The palagna escaped, disappeared into the hut, but since then the memories of the black, burning eyes of the sorcerer have not given her rest. Only pride did not allow her to become his mistress.

And Ivan suddenly began to yearn, grow old rapidly, weaken, became thin, became indifferent. Apparently, these were tricks of the sorcerer Jura, who did not take his eyes off Paragna.

Once Paragna had a dream, "foreshadowing the cattle unkind." She went to a mountain pasture to see the cows. There a storm caught her, and Palagna saw how Yura fought with a huge cloud and managed to divert the hail from the peasant fields. Immediately after this, Palagna became his mistress.

Lovers did not hide, kissing with everyone, but Ivan did not care. Only once did he fight with Yura, and that was only because "it was supposed to." The fight did not help. The palagna still disappeared at Yura, and Ivan completely dried up and weakened, lost his taste for food. Vorozheya could not cure him - apparently, the sorcerer was stronger.

The death of Ivan

Having once looked at how Yura teaches Palagna to conjure on an clay doll, Ivan finally became convinced that the sorcerer and his wife decided to lime him.Deadly indifference seized him. The legs themselves brought him to the place where Marichka drowned.

Then Marichka, and now he ... His star is barely hanging in the sky, ready to slide. After all, what is our life? A flash in the sky, the color of cherries ... fragile and short ...

Ivan sat by the river all day, forgot, and when he woke up, he saw Marichka, who was calling for him. He went after her, although he understood that this was not Marichka, but an appearance who took on her appearance.

The appearance took Ivan far into the forest and there, in a clearing, disappeared - she was frightened off by a chugister (forest grandfather). So that the navyavka-Marichka managed to escape, Ivan agreed to the offer of the chugister to dance and danced with him to exhaustion.

When the chugister danced and left, Ivan began to call Marichka, heard her voice, went to him and fell into a deep abyss. The next day, half-dead Ivan was found by shepherds.

Soon a trembite blew at Ivan's hut. Long commemoration began. When all the rituals were observed, the commemoration turned into a fun holiday with indiscreet games and kisses. Everyone forgot about the dead man, only "trembits mourned mournfully under the windows."

The retelling is based on the translation of N. Ushakov.