In a certain country there lived a villager who was wretchedly poor. One day the barine [a lord, a gentleman who clambers upon his serf’s daughters] sent for him, and said: ‘Listen, moujik [peasant]! you pay no rent, and you have nothing to seize; to pay your debts, you must serve me three years.’ The peasant passed one year, then two, then three in the service of the barine, and the latter saw that the moujik would soon be free, and said to himself: ‘what pretext can I find to keep this serf in my service another three years?’ He called the moujik, and spoke to him in these words: ‘Listen, moujik: here are ten hares. Take them out to pasture in the country, but have a care not to lose one, for if you do, you will remain three years more in my service.’ The moujik had no sooner let loose the hares in the field than they ran away in all directions. ‘What is to be done?’ he thought. ‘Now I am really lost,’ and he sat down and began to cry.
Suddenly an old man appeared before him: ‘Why are you weeping, moujik?’ he asked, ‘Why should I not weep, old man? My master charged me to pasture some hares, and they have all run away, and now I am a ruined man.’ The old man gave him a whistle, and said: ‘You have but to play on this instrument, and you will see them all run up to you.’ The peasant thanked him, took the whistle, and had no sooner begun to play than all the hares ran towards him. He took them all back to his master, who counted them, and satisfied himself there was not one missing. ‘Well, what is to be done?’ said the barine to his wife. ‘How can we catch this moujik napping?’—‘I have an idea, my friend. Tomorrow while he is feeding his hares, I will come to him in a disguise and buy one.’—‘Very good: that will do.’
The next morning the moujik left the village with the hares, and the moment he approached the wood, they all ran away—some one way, some another. As to the moujik, he sat down on the ground, and began to plait some bark shoes. Soon there came a lady in a carriage, which stopped. The lady alighted, and came to the peasant. ‘What are you doing here, moujik?’—‘I am pasturing cattle.’—‘What cattle?’ He took his whistle, and as soon as he began to use it all the hares gathered round him. ‘Ah, moujik,’ said the lady, ‘sell me a little hare!’—‘That is quite impossible, they belong to my master, and he is very severe. He would be capable of killing and eating me.’ The barinia [a Russian lady, who sometimes seeks consolation in the robustness of the domestics] persisted. ‘Let me have one, I beg.’ Seeing how much she desired a hare, the moujik replied ‘I have made a vow, madam’.—‘What vow?’—‘To give a hare to the person who would let me futter her.’—‘Take money instead of that, moujik.’—‘No, I will not accept any other terms.’ Tired of discussing the matter, she reluctantly consented to this condition; the moujik rogered her, and gave her a hare: ‘Only, madam,’ he said, ‘be sure and hold it gently, or you will strangle it.’
She took the hare, stepped into her carriage, and prepared to return home; but the moujik had only to sound a few notes on his whistle, and the animal escaped out of the hands of the barinia and returned to him. when the lady arrived at home, her husband asked her: ‘Well, did you buy a hare?’—‘Certainly I bought one, but at the first sound of the moujik’s whistle, the hare jumped out of the carriage, and I never saw it again.’
The next day, the lady donned a different disguise and again went to the peasant, and the same scene was enacted as on the previous day. ‘What are you doing, moujik?’—‘I am plaiting bark shoes and minding my master’s herd.’—‘Where is this herd?’ The moujik played on his whistle, and the hares immediately ran to him. The lady expressed a wish to buy one of the hares. ‘I have made a vow,’ he replied. ‘What is it?’—‘Let me futter.’ The lady consented, and in return received a hare, but, as soon as the sound of the whistle was heard, the animal ran away from her.
The third day the barine himself arrived in a carriage. ‘What are you doing, moujik?’—‘Minding cattle while they graze.’—‘But where are your cattle?’ The moujik sounded his whistle, and the hares ran to him. ‘Sell me one.’—‘Not for money: I have made a vow.’—‘What vow?’—‘To anyone who will futter a mare, I will give a hare.’ So the lord committed an unnatural offense with a mare. The moujik gave him a hare, and said: ‘Hold it gently, barine, or you may strangle it.’ The barine took the hare, but when he was driving away in his carriage, the peasant began to blow his whistle: the call was heard by the animal, which jumped out of the carriage and returned to its place amongst the others. The lord, finding all his plans failed, gave the peasant his liberty.