“The Falcon Under the Hat." The falcon under the hat: Russian merry tales and fairy tales, Selected and translated by Guy Daniels, New York: Funk & Wagnalls; 1969, pp.15-20.

Tale Summary

There was once a poor old peasant woman who had two sons, one of whom had died, and the other had left for a long journey. When she was alone, a soldier came by, telling her that he was a soldier from the Great Beyond, and when she asked about him, said that he was bunkmates with her son. He told her that he worked there tending to birds and that his clothes were in rags, so the woman brought him forty yards of fabric and all the money she had left-ten rubles, and the man left. When her older son, Fedka, returned, he admonished her for her stupidity, and. He said he would be leaving, and if he was able to find someone who was a bigger fool than her, he would return and take care of her for the rest of her life. After some traveling, he found a big manor house with a barnyard. He saw some pigs, and made a low bow to one of them. The lady of the house saw and told her maid to ask why; Fedka said it was because the sow was his sister-in-law-to-be and he was inviting her and her children to the wedding, with the permission of the lady of the house. The lady was amused and had a carriage hitched with two horses, gave the pig a fur coat, and Fedka left with them. When the man of the house came home he was furious at his wife’s stupidity, and set off after Fedka to retrieve what his wife gave him. Fedka heard the barin coming, hid the pigs, and sat on the side of the road with his hat brim-side down next to him. He told him he had seen a man with pigs ride by a long time earlier, and that the way ahead was complex and the barin would surely get lost. The barin begged him to come along and show him the way, but Fedka replied that there was a valuable falcon under his hat and he would be in trouble if it got away. The man said that he could stay behind to make sure the bird was not lost while Fedka searched for the man with the pigs, and even gave him three hundred rubles to prove he would not break his promise. Fedka took the money, left on the barin’s horse, rounded up the pigs in their carriage, and went home to his mother. When the barin realized the trick, he had to return home and face his wife, while Fedka told his mother that she could remain with him because there were much bigger fools in the world than she.