K67F. Kill the sheep that looks at you.

(.15.).16.28.29.31.32.

A fool or a rogue is instructed to slaughter the sheep (cow, bull) that looks at him, i.e. it doesn't matter which one. He slaughters them all, because they all looked.

(Italians: Tuscany), Germans (West Prussia), Russians (Tersky Coast, Arkhangelsk, Olonetskaya), Belarusians, Slovaks, Lusatians, Kalmyks, Lithuanians, Latvians, Udmurts, Mordvins, Bashkirs (Chuvash).

( Southern Europe. Italians (Tuscany) [Giucco sells cloth to a statue (it is silent); sends flour home, throwing it to the wind; washes a donkey with boiling water; plucks out the eyes of sheep, because they “gave eyes to the girls”; taking literally what he was told, removes the door from its hinges and carries it away; hides in a tree; robbers have settled under the tree; G. drops the door, the robbers run away, the money goes to G.]: D'Aronco 1953, no. 1006: 111).

Western Europe. Germans (West Prussia) [a peasant hires farm laborers on the following condition: whoever gets angry first will have his ears and nose cut off and will also give up a keg of gold; the contract lasts until the first cuckoo; each farm laborer is crippled and left with nothing; things went differently with Hans; to plow where the dog Petrushka runs; she jumped over the fence, but the oxen wouldn’t go; Hans killed them and threw them over the fence; the owner sent Hans to town to sell 12 pigs; he sold them, but cut off their tails; hid the money, stuck the tails in the peat: the pigs fell through; the owners went to church; the owner orders that in the meantime the sheep that looks at him be slaughtered; make dinner from the mutton and add parsley; wash the child, and whatever you can’t do, hang it on the fence; all the sheep looked except the oldest and barely alive; Hans slaughtered them; boiled the dog Petrushka; killed the child, washed it in the river, hung the body on the fence; to get rid of the farmhand, the owner smeared his wife with tar, rolled her in feathers, put her on a tree and told her to cuckoo; Hans shot an unusual bird; the owner got angry, Hans cut off his ears and nose, took the gold; if he didn’t die, then he’s still alive]: Treichel 1889, No. 3: 474-476.

Central Europe. Russians (Tersky Bereg) [a priest needs a worker; the priest's wife: just don't take Ivan; Ivan: everyone in the village is an Ivan; and in another too; in a third they had to take Ivan; the priest remains silent about the conditions; he orders the sheep that was looking at I. to be slaughtered; I. slaughtered them all: everyone was looking; I. became the priest's wife's lover; they ordered the calf that was looking at I. to be slaughtered; he slaughtered them all again; the priest: I. must be drowned; they arrived at the lake; I. drowned the priest, began to live with the priest's wife]: Balashov 1970, no. 34: 115-118; Russians (Arkhangelskaya, Onega uyezd, Pyantino village) [the mother sent Vanyushka to sell a canvas; he sees a stump, wraps the canvas around the stump – the stump is cold; then he asks the stump to sell the canvas, will come for the money on Friday; on Friday V. started to beat a stump, under it there was a cauldron with gold; mother went and brought it; V. told the priest about the money; then killed him - he would tell; same with the uncle; tells everyone; mother replaced the money with leaves, the killed uncle - with a goat; shows the killed goat and leaves; everyone understands - he is a fool; V. hired himself out to work for the priest; he orders to slaughter a bull that is looking at him; V. slaughtered everyone; the priest's wife orders to cook soup, add onions and pepper; V. killed the children Luka and Firs, cooked it; then V. brought the bear to the cowshed; the priest and the priest's wife try to escape; V. gets into a sack and drowns the priest in the river]: Onchukov 2008, No. 143: 292-294; Russian: Russians (Olonetskaya, Petrozavodsky uyezd, Ilemskaya Selga village) [a priest hires a worker: whoever gets angry will lose his nose and mug; three brothers, all Ivans; the eldest were left without noses; the youngest put the priest's children on stakes; sent into the forest to break arcs; bears ate the horses; Ivan drove the bears, put them in the barn; slaughter a cow that looks at you; they all looked, he slaughtered them all; sent to the devil for duty; Ivan twists a rope by the lake, tells the water spirit that he wants to dry him out; the devil: whoever throws the club higher; Ivan pretends that if he throws it, the devils will not see the club anymore; he dug a hole, the devils filled it with gold; the priest went to the church, orders someone to guard the door; I. broke down the door]: Onchukov 2008, #208: 373-374; Belarusians [two sons are smart, and the third is a fool; the eldest hired himself out to a priest and soon returned - he could not stand it; the same goes for the middle youngest - a fool; he put the priest's children on stakes; the priest and his wife are going to a holiday, they order that the sheep that looks at the worker be slaughtered before they return; they all looked, he slaughtered them all; he was ordered to put parsley in the soup; he cooked the dog Petrushka; the priest and his wife decided to run away; the boy got into a sack; they reached the river, he got out; they agreed to push him into the river during the night; when the priest and the priest's wife fell asleep, the boy quietly changed places with the priest's wife; the priest pushed his wife into the river]: Federowski 2003, #180: 89-91; Slovaks[two brothers are smart, the third is a fool; the eldest hired himself out as a farmhand on the condition that if he gets angry, the owner will cut off his nose; the owner doesn’t feed him, so he cuts off his nose; the same with the middle brother; the youngest, Adam, sells grain; the owner orders that the sheep that looks at him be slaughtered; they all looked, so A. slaughtered them; he boiled one, throwing into the cauldron not parsley, but a dog named Petrushka; on Christmas, the owner orders the house to be properly lit, so A. sets it on fire; he had to go away on a journey; the owner agreed with his wife to push the worker into the water at night; he changed places with his wife, the owner drowned his wife; he got angry, so A. cut off his nose]: Wratislaw 1890, no. 13: 89-91; Lusatian [a smart son hired himself out to a landowner; the agreement: whoever gets angry would have a piece of his meat cut off; the boy got angry because he was not fed, he came back; the stupid son went; he sold the sheep to the butcher, threw the tails into the abyss, said that a wolf had driven the sheep, they went into the ground; the owner ordered to cook the lamb that looked at the farm laborer; he slaughtered them all - they all looked; "And don't forget about the pepper"; the farm laborer threw the owner's favorite dog named Pepper into the cauldron; put a stone on the child so that he would not squeal; began to shine a light in the sheepfold, it burned down; the landowner had to pay wages]: Romanenko 1962: 122-124.

Caucasus - Asia Minor. Kalmyks [a khan hired a poor man to work on the condition that whoever of them gets angry will allow the other to cut the straps from his back; the khan orders the horse to be stroked so that it loses weight; the poor man pretends that he is going to disembowel it; the khan sends flour to the mill at night, gives ashes; the poor man strikes a fire, the devils are afraid of him, they give a cart of flour; the khan allows them to slaughter a sheep that looks at the poor man; he calls the sheep, they look, he slaughters them all; the khan sends for firewood on oxen; the young man gives the oxen to the bears, brings firewood on the bears; the khan orders the stallion to be broken in, it is he himself; the young man beats him, the next morning the khan is ill; the khan and the khan's wife take a chest of gold, run away; the poor man quietly gets into the chest; speaks from the chest, orders to take off clothes, run into the reeds; tells another khan that two evil spirits in the reeds are to blame for his daughter's illness; the army drove the fugitives out of the reeds, drove them into the dense forest; the khan's daughter recovered, the poor man married her]: Dzhimbinov 1962: 61-67.

Baltoscandia. Lithuanians [two brothers are smart, the third Jonas is a fool; after the death of their father, the eldest got a knapsack, the middle one - an axe, J. - a mallet; J. hired himself out to a master for a sieve of beans a year; the master orders to plow as much as the dog Petrushka can run; the dog crawls into a crack under the gate; J. chopped up the bulls and the plow, pushed them in pieces through the same crack; the master orders to slaughter the sheep that looks at J.; he slaughtered them all - they turned to him; the master left, orders to guard the door; J. took it off its hinges and carried it off to a party; the master and his wife decide to leave, J. hid in a sack; they agree to push him into the river at night; J. changed places with the lady, the master drowned his wife]: Lebite 1967: 326-329; Latvians[the fish tells the childless widow to boil it and eat it; the maid ate a piece, the offal - the mare; each gives birth to a son, the mare's son is the strongman Kurbad; all three go to free the house from evil spirits; on the first night K. killed a three-headed giant on the bridge, on the second - a six-headed one; on the third night - a nine-headed one, his heads grow back, he drives K. into the ground up to his knees, then up to his armpits; the brothers are sleeping, do not see that the water in the ladle has turned into blood; K. threw pastals (shoes) at them; the brothers came running, began to cauterize the severed heads; K. hears the bugs talking in the cracks: killed our husbands; let one wife become a bed, the second - a spring, the third - a man-eating snake; K. does not let him lie down, get a drink, chops down a bed, a spring; the king's three daughters disappeared while they were washing in the bathhouse; K. pinched the devil in the door there, he gave him a pipe (10 dwarfs would come out to do the job), said that there was a stone in the swamp, a hole under it, and the kidnapped ones were there; K. rolled the stone away, ordered the dwarfs to bring a rope; the brothers were afraid, K. went down, cut off the devil's head; the princesses were in the silver, gold, and diamond castles; they gave K. strong water, and the six-headed one drank weak water instead; the sisters rolled up their castles into diamond, gold, and silver eggs, and gave them to K.; K. sent the maidens up; the wife of the 9-headed giant cut the rope and covered the hole with a stone; K. comes to the old man, who tells him that the ogre sucked out his eyes and is beating the giant bird's children with hail; K. killed the ogre, smeared the old man's eyes with a potion, he regained his sight; covered the chicks from the hail; the bird promises to carry K. across the sea, orders to prepare meat; K. cut off the last piece from his own eggs; K. opens the eggs, lives with the youngest princess in a diamond castle; it is necessary to kill the wife of the 9-headed; K. came to the forge, where Debess Kaleis was forging a golden crown, a silver belt and a diamond ring for the daughter of the Sun; he forged a horse for K. to catch up with the witch, ordered not to look back; K. looked back, thunder and lightning, the horse was gone; K. fell asleep, the witch switched the vessels with strong and weak water, K. took a sip, lost his strength for a year; went to the devil as a worker, whoever gets angry will have three strips of meat cut from his back; 1) to graze hares, 2) cows; the dwarfs from the pipe gathered them all; K. beat off a leg from each cow; the devil is forced to answer that he is not angry; 3) horses (ditto; cut off their lips); 4) plow as much as a white bitch can run (beat the bitch, she lay down); 5) clean out the stable (the dwarfs cleaned it out); 6) bring firewood on a mare (the mare is the devil's mother, K. threatens to cut the straps from her sides, the mare carries it); 7) slaughter a sheep that is looking at you (everyone is looking, he slaughtered them all); 8) eat a pood of dumplings; K. puts the dumplings down his shirt, and the devil ate his pood, his stomach hurts; K. pretends to rip open his stomach, the dumplings fell out; 9) the devil takes K. to the forest to cut down an oak tree; K. brings a hare - his younger brother; the devil cannot catch him; they agree to carry the felled oak tree together; the devil carries, K. rides on the oak tree; he killed the devil's children; he gouged out the eyes of the mare; put a pot of sour cream in his place at night, the devil and his mother think that K. has broken.head; the devil and his mother run away to the witch, K. hid in her belongings, here again; at night they decided to drown K. in the river, K. changed places, the devil drowned his mother; K. killed the devil; his strength returned, K. killed the witches, threw the cannibal into the fire, killed the cannibal eagle; enemies attacked; the witch poured bile on K.; K. killed her and the cannibal, but he himself died]: Nierde 1952: 116-146.

Volga - Perm. Udmurts [three brothers take turns hiring themselves out to work for a priest; he sets a condition: whoever gets angry, the other will cut off his nose; the eldest Mikal chops wood, gets no food, gets angry, and is left without a nose; the middle one Tepan - the same; the youngest Ivan is not angry and does not work himself; sells cows to a merchant for next to nothing, having cut off five or six tails; hangs them on trees, the last one brings them to the priest, says that the cows ran away, he tried to hold them back; the priest believes that this is the work of the forest owner; I. ​​sells pigs, sticks their tails into a quagmire; the priest orders the bread to be dissolved, I. pours all the flour into a well; the priest goes to the market, orders to do the same as the people; I. sees how someone is covering the roof with straw; he tears off the iron from the priest's roof to lay straw; the priest orders to slaughter a sheep that is looking at I.; everyone is looking, he killed them all; I. got together with the priest's daughter, the priest is forced to endure; he decides to run away with the priest's wife, taking valuables, and setting fire to the house; I. hides in a chest, the priest carries it, thinking that there are provisions in it; in the evening the priest and his wife agree to push I. into the river; at night I. pushes the priest, the priest thinks it is his wife, together they throw the priest's wife into the water, and the priest thinks that I. cut off the priest's nose, married the priest's daughter]: Kralina 1960, No. 72: 206-219; Mordvins (Moksha) [brothers Peter, Yegor and Foka; priest Prokofiy hires a worker; Peter went; received bread and a ham, but must return it without starting; to plow, following a dog; after three days he became exhausted and angry; the priest was going to cut off his nose, but Peter ran away; the same with Yegor; Foka stopped plowing and started eating; beat the dog; killed the pigs that he was supposed to feed; the priest orders that the sheep that looks at F. be slaughtered; everyone is watching, he slaughtered them all; the priest orders that the door not be left open; F. takes it off its hinges and carries it; the priest pays money just so that F. leaves; F. returns; the priest's wife says that the priest has died; F.: needs to be washed; F. poured boiling water on him, then cut off his nose and left]: Maskaev 1966: 315-319; Mari : Kecskeméti, Paunonen 1974, no. 883A: 238; Bashkirs [dying, the father orders his sons not to hire themselves out to a man named Usak-Kusyak; the eldest brother Gadel is coming; UK comes out to meet them three times, dressed more and more richly each time; says that they are all called UK; US sets a condition: hiring for a year, whoever gets angry, his ears will be cut off; does not feed the worker, cut off his ears; the younger brother Gazim is hired; asks which sheep to slaughter for Eid al-Adha; which one looks at you; slaughtered them all; the child whines, asks to go out into the yard; G. takes him out twice, but does not let him relieve himself; when the son whines for the third time, the father says in his heart: may he sit on a stake with a ripped-open belly; G. puts the child on a stake; US: where a dog can go, so can a horse; the dog crossed a marshy stream; G. cut the horse into pieces, threw it across the stream; sold the millet that he was sent to reap; UK pretended to be dead, G. poured boiling water on him; cut off his ears, took his earnings]: Barag 1992, No. 1: 20-23; (cf. Chuvash(Malo-Yalchikovskiy district, 1926) [Ivan has a magic club, he is hired to work for a priest; the priest orders him to guard the door, I. took all the doors off their hinges, began to guard; the priest ordered him to slaughter two sheep - I. slaughtered 12; to bring a cart of sand from the hell; I.'s club beats the little devils, they load the sand; on the way back the wolf ate the horse; I. set the club on him, harnessed him instead of the horse; locked him in the priest's stable, the wolf ate the foal; the priest and the priest's wife decided to secretly leave, I. hid in a sack of crackers; at night all three lay down by the river; the priest's wife is going to push I. into the river; he changes places with the priest, the priest's wife pushes her husband; in the morning I. and drowned her]: Chuvash Tales 1937: 53-57).