might. The imp had to give in; he could not keep up with the scythe, and, seeing it was a bad business, he scrambled into a bush. Iván swung the scythe, caught the bush, and cut off half the imp’s tail. Then he finished mowing the grass, told his sister to rake it up, and went himself to mow the rye. He went with the scythe, but the dock-tailed imp was there first, and entangled the rye so that the scythe was of no use. But Iván went home and got his sickle, and began to reap with that and he reaped the whole of the rye.
“Now it’s time,” said he, “to start on the oats.”
The dock-tailed imp heard this, and thought, “I couldn’t get the better of him on the rye, but I shall on the oats. Only wait till the morning.”
In the morning the imp hurried to the oat field, but the oats were already mowed down! Iván had mowed them by night, in order that less grain should shake out. The imp grew angry.
“He has cut me all over and tired me out—the fool. It is worse than war. The accursed fool never sleeps; one can’t keep up with him. I will get into his stacks now and rot them.”
So the imp entered the rye, and crept among the sheaves, and they began to rot. He heated them, grew warm himself, and fell asleep.
Iván harnessed the mare, and went with the lass to cart the rye. He came to the heaps, and began to pitch the rye into the cart. He tossed two sheaves and again thrust his fork—right into the imp’s back. He lifts the fork and sees on the prongs a live imp; dock-tailed, struggling, wriggling, and trying to jump.
“What, you nasty thing, are you here again?”
“I’m another,” said the imp. “The first was my brother. I’ve been with your brother Simon.”