Atondido Stories
Betushka was worse frightened than before and she closed
her eyes tight. When the maiden repeated her question, Betush-
ka answered timidly:
“Forgive me, beautiful lady, for not dancing with you. If I
dance with you I cannot spin my stint and then my mother will
scold me. Today before the sun sets I must make up for what I
lost yesterday.”
“Come, child, and dance,” the maiden said. “Before the sun
sets we’ll find some way of getting that spinning done!”
She tucked up her skirt, put her arm about Betushka, the mu-
sicians in the treetops struck up, and off they whirled. The maid-
en danced more beautifully than ever. Betushka couldn’t take
her eyes from her. She forgot her goats, she forgot her spinning.
All she wanted to do was to dance on forever.
At sundown the maiden paused and the music stopped.
Then Betushka, clasping her hands to her head, where the
unspun flax was twined, burst into tears. The beautiful maiden
took the flax from her head, wound it round the stem of a slen-
der birch, grasped the spindle, and began to spin. The spindle
hummed along the ground and filled in no time. Before the sun
sank behind the woods all the flax was spun, even that which
was left over from the day before. The maiden handed Betushka
the full spindle and said:
“Remember my words:
“Reel and grum ble no t! Reel and grumble not!”
When she said this, she vanished as if the earth had swal-
lowed her.
Betushka was very happy now and she thought to herself on
her way home: “Since she is so good and kind, I’ll dance with
her again if she asks me. Oh, how I hope she does!”
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