FUNNY STORIES (BUKHTINA)***

 Fedor Sokolov (village Druzhinin Kharovsk District) came from the war wounded in many places and, for this reason, called himself " the Sieve." And when the collective farm (kolkhoz) returned to him a single calf taken during the collectivization, he explained it this way: "I decided to collectivize the kolkhoz."

 When he met an old man Barov, they seriously discussed how many nails in the coffin should be put, what time is better to die and whether it is worth it to escape from the other world if there is not to their liking.

 Comedians and buffoons, jealous of the storytellers, fooled listeners with buffoon jokes. Therefore, a funny story sometimes begins with action. Thus, Savvaty Petrov from the village of Timonikha, left temporarily by his wife, sat down one day to milk the cow. The cow ran away, and he began to feel with his hand on the bottom of the pail, searching allegedly had come off cow's udder. He's just for laughing sake imitated a rooster at a particular moment, cat's "scratching."

 Raisa Kapitonovna Pudova was a very realistic narrator, too, who was not averse to twisting a funny story, for example, a cow, which would lower the hind leg into the pail after milking after looking back, stirred milk with the foot.

 The bukhtina is a popular anecdote, a story joke, in which common sense turned inside out. Along with the limericks, it is still a living genre of oral folklore. Poet Nekrasov's character "grandfather Mazai" transported hares in a boat to dry places during flooding, but literature only slightly touched upon this aspect of people's verbal creativity.

 What is the difference between bukhtina from the fairy tales and "true stories"? Between them can be no genre differences: the tale in other cases like that of "true story" or "bukhtina." A "true story" often combines bukhtina and fairytale features.

 The fantasy of a bukhtina-teller has no limits. It reminds a clowning buffoon, free of all conventions and the apparent absurdity of holy fools. Unlike in "true stories," a fantastic element in bukhtina fades, losing its mystical colour.

 Fantastic in the true story", as in the literature (at least in Gogol's "Wii"), is reinforced by the merger with the reality of everyday life.
The fantastic earthiness in the mystical "true story" is frightening, making one shudder, even adult listeners. Dull and devoid of mysticism, a fantasy is laughable. Humorous effects are born on a stable junction of reality and something abstract and surreal. In contrast to modern urban jokes, a" bukhtina" does not always strive for a satirical focus. It also happens that it lives only for the sake of itself, not wanting to carry the ideological burden, allowing many interpretations. In other cases, the satirical or different meaning is hidden very smart; nothing jumps out of the surface. Direct ridiculing usually should not be in the story. Instead, an intelligent listener picks up the most distant allusions.

FAIRY TALE * *

 How much Pushkin loved Russian fairy tales! His genius was freed from infant slumber listening to stories of Arina Rodionovna (his nanny). His first youthful poem was ultimately based on fairytale images.

 People's philosophy, with national flavour, is better than anywhere else expressed in the fairy tale, where the provisions of this philosophy sounded once simple and straightforward, but now we often don't feel. Is it clear, for example, to a contemporary reader, the idea expressed in the tale of Ivan the Clay?

 The peculiarity of the folk genre is due to the characteristic of social life. A style dies together with the centuries-old way of life. Mastery of the storytellers disappears the same way as a professional skill disappears with the economic abolition of one or other occupations.

 The modern life of a fairy tale is almost entirely limited to the languishing in folklore texts. Even of such existence, integrity is continuously destroyed by the theatre, film, and television through the so-called "author" texts. Borrowing fantastic images and plots by modern playwrights and writers is very much smacks of plagiarism, using ready-made stories, characters and ideas. So should everyone who operates in his writings and folklore material be tried in criminal proceedings? This question sounds a bit radical. But it makes to think at least about the fact that Pushkin's Balda is one thing, and Balda, or Ivan the Fool today's inveterate TV people is quite another. Remember that even such great writers as Alexei Tolstoy did not confuse folklore material's literary writing (handling) with individual creativity.

 But let us leave on the conscience of literary critics a question of plagiarism and authentic creativity. Let's see what remains of the folk genre after "free-style borrowing," after the directors, writers and authors dragged off the folktale for the film screens, TV screens and on the scenes of children's puppet theatres.

 Surprisingly, Ivan the Fool, Emelya, and other heroes of folk tales don't feel about those borrowings, neither heat nor cold. They are themselves, even when thousands of fake, self-proclaimed Emelyas and Ivans are on the screens and the scenes. Only with the appearance of genuine Shukshin's Ivanushka, a real Ivan raised his eyebrows in surprise, as he said: "He seems to be me." So he said and then disappeared again. Where is he hiding? Maybe on the library shelves? Hardly ...

 Whatever you say, the first blow to the Russian folktale was not done now. And it was struck by the library shelf. The folktale on the screen or on stage is not a fairy tale printed, and read this is also just a half of a fairy tale. The real fairytale lives only with a trinity: the narrator, listener and artistic tradition. All three of these values are equal, and each is equally indispensable. And if a listener of folktales can be collective, then a similarity ends with the audience in the theatre, the TV viewers. On the other hand, a collective narrator (theatre) or an anonymous-conditioned (radio, television) cannot be in the life of the tale. It is generally contrary to the fairy tale nature.

 Only after WWII did the artistic organization of a people's life begin to fade. It started to disappear with the destruction of thousands of villages and farmsteads, with the devastation in WWII most vital activities of the population.

 A few nights during the war in Timonikha slept over Victor-beggar, a ten-year-old boy. He was an orphan, but someone might be a distant relative installed in him: he must tell tales when sleeping in a stranger's house. One will not profit but can manage to be fed. So a small repertoire had the boy, just one story... But how hard he tried!

 A fairytale hero betrayed by his siblings, thrown into an abyss, enters the realm of the kingdom of Far Far Away. Being homesick, he wanders along the barren seashore. A terrible storm rises, toppling the mighty oak sits the fly-away nest from the Fantastic bird. A young man rescues from a storm her petite chicks, and in gratitude, that bird agrees to get him out of the kingdom of Far Far Away. He agrees with the condition that he would feed her during the journey. And they fly higher and higher... He throws it to pieces of bovine meat, but the food ends when the edge of his world becomes already visible. The fantastic bird, exhausted, is ready to collapse. He tears off his left hand and throws it, but that's not enough, and then he tears in pieces his body and feeds the bird to give her strength.

 Fairytale ends happily: The Fantastic bird "hark out" human flesh, and the body grows together, sprinkled first with dead, then living water.

 Could this happen in reality?

 Vic's shoulders were too fragile to withstand the immense weight of the entire genre. To Timonikha, like in thousands of other villages, not a man returned from the war, not one man ...

 Fairy poetry is a natural need of all domestic and moral order. The creativity of a narrator was necessary to the environment, audience, the whole world. Arkhangelsk fishermen, leaving on a long, dangerous voyage in the Northern Sea, often took an outstanding storyteller, who enjoyed all the rights of a member of the team. The same can be seen in many carpenters' brigades: the ability to tell gave a tacit compensation to an old or disabled carpenter. In the winter, when there is no need to rush anywhere, in the evenings to listen to and tell stories, people did it for the purpose and even set up tournaments of storytellers. Here could be gained popularity and fame, emerged individual talents: tried their luck beginners, became obvious tongue-tied and worthlessness of vulgarity.

 As well as the ability to talk acquired some kind of binding, although no one would blame you if you do not know how to talk smooth (as one can be blamed for the fact that they do not know how to make a handle, and only lightly ridiculed if you are short-spoken). But still, it was better to be able to talk well than not to be able to.

 The poor and needy, so the bread did not stick in the throat, were telling particularly many stories, although no one denied them the alms.

 Some tales combine the properties of anecdotes as well as "true stories." Reluctance to follow the canon leads the narrator to confuse the fairytale stories with anecdotes, legends, "true stories," all sorts of exciting incidents. Here's how it begins "Tale about the hunt," recorded in Nikolsky District, Vologda region. "I am a poor man. I have nothing to sell and came out with a plan where get the money to pay the tax." "I asked comrades to go into the woods for a hundred miles in Vetluzhsky county to catch birds and animals ... The time was autumn, in October the seventeenth day."

 Total factuality and specific details, combined with the incredible events, cause a particular emotional effect. The listener does not know what to do, either wonder or laugh. This folklore can in no way be put in scientific classification.

 At home, the fairy tale is already hovering over the head of a baby. It is heard (whether poorly or well is another issue) throughout childhood. The baby first hears tales from his grandfather and grandmother, mother and father, the elder sisters and brothers. When he hears them, as they say from professional performance, and one day left to look after a younger brother, he begins to tell by himself.

 The listener, becoming a storyteller, immediately frees his abilities, which may vary from very meagre to such powerful, what they were, for example, for Krivopolenova (a famous storyteller). A natural talent, rare storyteller performing properties include artistic memory, a kind of undercurrent, even unintelligible ownership of traditional poetic treasures. This creative memory is complemented by the ability to improvise.

 Seldom, very seldom, had a natural storyteller repeated himself. Usually, the same story was played differently, but rarely did he tell the same fairy tale. Like a professional handyman, for example, a wood-carver, the narrator could not exactly repeat himself; each meeting with the listener was original, distinctive, and peculiar as each cornice or casing of a good cutter.

 Another matter when a narrator was mediocre. He knew a small number of fairy tales and told them always the same way. He also kept the tradition, but in his presentation, traditional images and scenes become boring hackneyed, the custom became stale and then altogether disappeared. And then even mimicry or gestures did not help, or the ability to compose a story in the current way of life and link the plot to real places and names, i.e. all those techniques used by talented storytellers.

 Relationships between talented and untalented storytellers were definite and straightforward: the less skilled went silent when they began to talk a good storyteller. But, if faced off equally gifted people, it could be a contest, a veritable and rare feast for the audience.

 The tale, like clothing and food, was either everyday or festive. Living without a fairy tale is equivalent to living without food or clothing. Tales partially quenched the thirst of the people for beauty.

 Classification tales by genre is not as tricky as it is unnecessary. Yet among the thousands of stories, a group was formed: children's fairy tales, particularly the stories about animals. Of course, nowhere animals are represented as widespread as in the children's tales. But even a children's story can be told in different ways. Here, for example, the fairy tale "About the Spotted Hen" as said to adults by Elizabeth Panteleyevna Chistyakova from Pokrov, Punem parish Kirillov County.

 "There were once an old man and an old woman. They had a spotted hen. She laid an egg near Cat Cateevitch's place under the window on a fur-coat rag. Look, a mouse jumped out, wiggled the tail, blinking the eye, kicked her leg, and the egg is in pieces. The old man is crying, the old woman is crying, a broom plows, the handle dances, the pestles pound. Priest's daughters went to the well for water and were told that the egg was broken. The girls broke the buckets out of annoyance. The priest's wife was told about that, so she unconsciously put her pies under the stove. The priest was told and ran to the bell tower and began ringing the bells. Laypeople gathered: "What's up here?" Here they started to fight from anger."

 Infant perception is not yet ready for such ambiguity, and grandmother would tell this tale differently for the children.

 In turn, an adult fairy tale can be for children and adults at once, depending on the narrator's circumstances, intuition, and sensitivity. Same Natalya Samsonova obscenity, present in some tales, masked sound distortion or skipped them at all. Her brother Avtonom Ryabkov eagerly told stories "with pictures," but only for the adult male company. When children and women were in the audience, he switched to the standard variants.

* TALK *

 When the evil like a serpent creeps between two people, some stop talking, others begin to speak a roundabout way, insincere, and the third just curse. Consequently, cursing swearing is the same dialogue, only the evil one. But conversation assumes sincerity and kindness. It is elevated to a moral obligation. So that this duty was pleasant, the talk should be figurative, beautiful associated with the art.

 For example, sit two brothers-in-law visiting mother-in-law, eating the porridge.

 - Porridge with butter is better, - says one.

 - It is not true, without butter is much worse"- the other objects.

 - No, with butter is better.

 - Are you crazy? It is worse without butter, ask anybody.

 The art of speaking, equivalent to the art of communication, begins with the ability to think because the thought of an average person is always processed in words. One can not think without words. Dumb can be a feeling, not an idea. A meaningful sense becomes a figurative word.

 The idea of a man in solitude inevitably has the character of the monologue, but in prayer, it acquired the properties of the dialogue. Speech, prayer and conversation with any object of nature filled the consciousness if there were no people around. The need to sing or listen to (noise of forests and singing of birds) is also associated with loneliness. But when people turn out to be with somebody, the conversation moves aside everything else.

 No wonder why wives leave their short-spoken husbands.

 Lone elderly living in remote, neglected villages talk to animals (a cow, goat, etc.). While such talks are more like a monologue, some animals are quite aware of being scolded or shamed and praised and encouraged. And the animals express in their own way that understanding.

 Since the Novgorod republic, there has been the custom to greet strangers, not to mention friends and relatives in the Northern villages.

 Not saying hello when you met with even the most unpleasant man was just unthinkable, and after greeting him, you must stop even for a minute and exchange a few, often funny, words. But, of course, being busy or traffic conditions would excuse a full-scale dialogue or conversation. But not to talk under favourable circumstances was considered embarrassing, obscene, and binding to the following explanation.

 Art of conversation as a genre of oral tradition is expressed in the ability to naturally start a conversation, the skill of listening, the appropriateness of the replicas, and sincere interest. But the main thing lies in imagery, which implies humour and conciseness. Good-natured laugh at yourself, not passing into self-flagellation, always considered a sign of moral strength and integrity. People with self-irony often owned a talent for figurative speech. Those who are not born with such ability used previously established, and although the image by mediocre talker turned into a cliché, it was still better than nothing.
    Thus, the question: "How are you?" - A typical response was familiar to all: "It is white as soot." But a man with a sense of humour is bound to say something like: "Yes, I have it good, but for father's son, it is uneven."
 Allegories and proverbs, good joking, replaced everything else in a conversation between friends or good acquaintances, like those relatives who were arguing about mother-in-law porridge.

 Akindyn Fadeev from the village Lobanikha went to get water from the creek while doing a forest hay-making.

 - "What do you have in the pot, then, isn't it sour cream?" - asks his sweaty neighbour, who also mowed hay nearby.

 Akindyn stopped for a moment: - "No. I went for water. Almost spilled water, so scared.

 - Why?

 - Well, a bird flew out, nose to nose. Probably it was a sandpiper."

 And the men again began to mow. Nobody would have heard anything unusual in their very brief conversation if only Fadeev and his neighbour had not owned generic nicknames. Akindinov was called behind his back Sour Cream, and his neighbour was called Sandpiper.

 "What kind of man are you?" -is heard in the corridor of the State Farm dining room.

 - Why?

 - You received the ration, and now also going to have dinner.

 - But I am still hungry!

 - You have to have a conscience ..."

 In this very brief conversation, maybe there would be nothing special if a married womanizer was shamed, inclined to look in someone else's garden. However, the word "ration" applied in such an unexpected situation means a lot to the experienced person.

 The ability to speak figuratively, especially by women, is the cause of many ridiculous rumours. After several oral transmissions, any ordinary case overgrows with graphic details, getting the plot and compositional harmony. Banal, flat, documentary-accurate and dry news did not suit women in their conversations.

 In these cases, the acquired plot is always used to express the moral perfectionism of folk rumours.

**LEGEND **

 Not only a conversation could be colourful but life itself.
 Economic calculation, accuracy and orderliness of home in a family must take a symbolic, poetic form. Nevertheless, elements of fiction are not alien to traditional poetics. Signs and divinations, accurate and fantastic, alternated, succeeded each other during the days, weeks, and finally the year.
 Of course, nobody would necessarily firmly and irrevocably believe that a guest is coming if a piece of coal fell out of the burning stove. A magpie flying in the morning to the house, too, heralds the visit or the arrival of someone from the family. But even the most inveterate rationalist would have thought of the married daughter in a distant village or his son, taken to war. And suddenly, it happens sometimes just pies removed from the oven, as at the porch snorted a horse, creaked the sleigh runners.
    So, how not believe in omens after that! However, people do not trust them, but prophecies remain in people's everyday lives. And would be without them our experience them blander?
 A hen singing like a rooster is a terrible omen, which forebodes death in the house. Men seldom believe in such signs, but still, take the axe and chop the singing hen's head. On the surface of the action is ordinary rationalism (it is unnatural when hens sing). By the form, it is a fantastic image, almost a ritual (the death of the twisted hen substituted possible death of someone close). It may not necessarily be a person who sincerely believes in bad omens ...

 The poetry of everyday life is accompanied by rest, work, and conversations. For example, does one of the reasonable men, who came to the windmill, believe that the wind may be called in by soft whistling? But they whistle, even in jest.
    One cannot allow having the floor swiped around your feet when you sit on the bench; the sign is you will not be able to marry. In this charming stupidity, few believed but were still trying to put feet away.
 Examples of symbolic ritual may serve a somersault in the first thunder, wedding signs, firing the stove in the bathhouse ... Even ways to harness the horse and how it behaves during harnessing exhibit ritual, imaginative, poetic details.

 But out of such details builds a life.

 The imagery of everyday life did not depend on the symbolism of the speech; instead, it is the opposite. In such circumstances, even dumb and tongue-tied enjoyed many images and augmented these riches. Therefore, what can I say about those who make up the majority, who have the greatest and happiest gift - the gift of speech?

 Poetic processing of actual events figurative exaggeration in the depiction of everyday occasions is already noticeable in the conversation. A saga, a legend, a tale are born out of an actual event. When passed through the mouths of thousands, this event becomes an image. A myth that lived more than one generation grows like a pearl in its shell, losing all the boring and random.

 One of the peculiarities of the legend genre is the free mixing of reality and fantasy, their excellent symbiosis.

 Legends, beginning with familial legends, perfectly illustrate the geography of the entire state. In each village, there is one legend, such as those associated with the "scary" places, with love stories, and a name's origin. Then, in parishes, and even around the county, are known legends about more global events associated with war, pestilence, or unique natural phenomena, such as the legend of the stone rain that has fallen under the Great Ustyug. Finally, these stories were related to the life of the entire state, for example, about the war of the city of Novgorod to the town of Ustyug.

 Novgorodians supposedly sailed to Ustyug and demanded a ransom not to be taken on a spear. Ustyug did not give up, and then Novgorodians started looting around the city. They took the icon from the Odigetria Posad church and wanted to sail away, but the boat with the icon could not budge no matter what. Then the old Novgorodian Lyapunov said:

 - A taken prisoner will not go unrestrained into someone else's land.

 They tied the icon with jute and only then pushed it off. Then, according to legend, many Novgorodians on the road began to writhe; some went blind. Finally, Novgorod's bishop commanded to return the icon and the loot, which was done.

 The famous legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh can also be classified as a nationwide one.

 The artistic strength of local legends often is no less than full-blooded. However, their themes are highly varied. These stories are often about true love and the punishment for treason, the stories about local bandits and foreign invaders. Thus, in almost every region of the vast Russian North are living legends about the Time of Troubles, the Lisowski gang, the miraculous deliverance of villages and hamlets of the murderous attacks of enemies.

 Fascinating legends were about famous people, such as Tsar Peter, sailing the tremendous Northern rivers - Sukhona and the Dvina.

 One can mention oral stories from the legends born relatively recently, such as the pilot Chkalov.
 Legends about the skill of artisans and trade people who described such an excellent writer as Pavel Bazhov exist everywhere, including in the North. Carpenter Nester, who threw his axe in the Onega, the blacksmith who forged iron legs to his brother wounded in the war, the blind lace-maker are all the characters of old and new stories.

SUMMER

That's how the world is built: if you plow, then you must sow, and since it is planted, then it will come up. But if it comes up, it will grow and give fruits, and, like it or not, you will do what Providence intended. But why do you like it or not? Even the lazy one knows pleasure in plowing and sowing. So, seeing how force and life appear out of nothing is good.
 The great mystery of birth and decay annually accompanies the peasant from spring to fall. The burden of work, if you are strong and not ill, is also pleasant. You don't notice the strain. Labour itself does not exist apart. It is not noticeable in everyday life. Life is one with work. Labour and leisure, weekdays and holidays, cannot live without each other. They are so natural in their sequence that the burden of peasant labour is concealed.
 Moreover, people knew how to take care of themselves. People treat lazy people with irony and sometimes sympathy, morphing into pity. But those who did not spare work themselves and their loved ones, too, were ridiculed and considered to be wretched. God forbid straining yourself in the woods or during plowing! You are going to suffer, and the family will be broken. (Interestingly, the disabled man, all his life afterward, blamed himself, saying that he made a mistake and messed up things.) If the child strains himself, he will stunt his growth. A woman pulls herself; she likely will not have children. So, the physical strain was feared like fire.
Children were especially watched over, and the elderly were experienced. The burden of work built up gradually over the years. Adolescents who were too eager and bragged in front of their peers were cooled off and kept in check. Lazy ones were encouraged in many ways. The perceived need quickly became pleasant, natural, and transparent. The drudgery of labour was brightened by the diversity and rapid change of house and field tasks. Whatever but monotony in this labour was not present.
The feet are tired; tomorrow, they rest; the hands get tired. Despite the tradition and the apparent uniformity, everything was different. Plowmen stopped work to feed the horses, and mowers interrupted to break twigs for brooms or gather tree bark.
Summer is the year's peak; it's the time of excellent labour effort. "When the fall will come, it will make you responsible for everything," they say in the summer.
In June, white northern nights double daylight, greenery multiplies in the field and garden. If thousands of peasant tasks change in size and essence, every part of the body gets tired in most tasks: hands, feet, and every vein. (Of course, this primarily works with wood, plowing and mowing.) During these activities, rest should be taken seriously. Is working two or three hours before breakfast different from current fitness?
Breakfast is usually solid, with cabbage soup. The regime has to be strictly adhered to. It quickly becomes a habit. During the summer, lunch is eaten after teatime. "Have another cup, so you will eat more!" - the hostess persuades a woman who manages the entire house. After lunch, there is always rest for about two hours. Before dinner again, there is a significant work effort. As a result, the day turns out very productive. (Even when working as "boat-haulers," that is, during seasonal work with the contractor, a very rare boss forced people to work after dinner.)
Stub upland ("to hide") was the most demanding work in the woods; only the strongest men were involved. Ancient pre-Christian way of slash agriculture responds to our days only a distant echo: "to hide," hence stump up the burnt taiga, prepare land for sowing flax or barley. Initially, a large forest area was burned after cutting down timber. In the second year, they began to stump up. Massive charred logs and burnt stumps were uprooted. To get out of the earth, such as a tree stump, you must cut the roots, undermine it from all sides, and shake it with the lever. You can imagine how a man who spent a day or two in the burnt taiga looked! There were only white eyes and teeth. Stubbing up the land long since disappeared, leaving a legacy of the word "cinders." On burned areas in our region, many berries, mostly currants and raspberries, still grow. During the summer, everything in nature is rapidly changing. Hardly had time to sow, and barely any shoots showed up, but weeds are already here. So, it is necessary to weed out. At this point, grandmothers give kids baskets, and grandmothers get on the strip. Good, if the land had not yet hardened, milkweed, horsetail and other parasites are pulled out with the roots.
At the same time, one must quickly rebuild the fence around the garden beds and make a timber fence, forming a run and two or three forest pastures. The cattle grazed in the summer on the natural forest pastures. It was driven to the fields only in late autumn. Walking to the forest pasture was a favourite activity of many, especially young people. Imagine the first fresh summer when there is the smell of young leaves and pine needles when morels grow and the lilies of the valley blossom. A large crowd of young, the elderly, adolescents, women, and sometimes serious men go around a merry hill in the woods. All with hatchets, all brought food. They chop aspens, long thin birches, and dry fir trees and lay along the pasture's perimeter. Then they put down crosswise the spruce stakes and piled on them the new poles, which still have branches on them. This way, it will be a very sturdy barbed fence. A good fence is for the shepherd and half the battle.
Do not be lazy. Drum the drums and close the gates made of poles. Such a day creates a celebratory mood. At long rest breaks, you hear so much funny and scary, and so much happens until the evening, so going to the forest pasture will be remembered for a lifetime. Henceforth, the youth is looking forward to this day; although this exact day will never come again... the same festivity comes from silo work, which had not previously existed. This work has appeared in the village only with the collective farms. Communal nature makes it very similar to walking to the forest pasture. The main female forces mow young, juicy grass and deposit it in the stacks. (It is important not to let the grass fade or dry out.) Teens transport it in the carts to the grass silage pits and quickly push it down. When the pit is half full, it is pushed by a kind-hearted mare with an almost human-speaking voice.
 So, a proud six-year-old silo-rammer rides on her all day in the pit. Half the working day is entered in his name for this deed to his father's playbook. Horse manure is thrown out with the pitchforks; the mare is given water by sending down a bucket of water on the rope. When the pit fills and rammed, the grass smells delicious acidity, inside already begun fermentation. The hole is covered with soil and closed with clay - it will be kept until winter. If the weather is hot, there are gadflies. Then you have to carry the grass at night because, with any, even the most good-natured mare cannot deal because of gadflies. The night workers are bugged by midges - the smallest flies at night. They get in everywhere. (Mice, also called gnats, if they are many.) Manure was transported in the North at night because of the many gadflies. Manure was thrown on the cart with a pitchfork. The seams are torn off with incredible difficulty. The driver carries a cart in the field to the strips and, at regular intervals, pulls down a piece with a crooked pitchfork. That manure is spread out on the strips in the morning, and it is time to plow. After the plow goes either an old man or boy, he pushes manure into the furrow to bury it underground with the whip. Often, mowing is still ongoing, but the harvest time has already arrived, and it is about the same time to sow the winter wheat and pull flax. The weather never allows for relaxing or getting bored.
When beautiful, fragrant hay is on the pitchfork, but in the distance rumbles the distant thunderstorm, the hands themselves go faster, and the rakes only glimpse in motion. And if the storm is about to become on the field, it begins to run even very clumsily. But the main thing, of course, is that the stacks of hay were made ahead of neighbours, grain was put under the roof and threshed before anybody, and the flax was not pulled among the village's last.
The age-old desire of the Russian peasant not to be the last, not to become a byword, was smartly used in the first years of the collective farms. The Stakhanovism movement was based precisely on this quality of character. A parable of a man who was dying gave his young son a warning: "Eat your bread with honey; do not say hello first." Only hardworking sons learned the real taste of bread (like honey), and one who works in the field, such as a mower, only answered with a nod to the greetings of passersby. It turns out those fans of sleep are always greeted first...
Harvest time is not less exciting than haymaking time. Bread, which is the crown of all aspirations, has already been felt real and weighty, not only in thoughts. Even a small handful of cut stalks of Rye with a sickle is a good piece of a bread loaf, and how many such parts are in the sheaf?
"Zazhinok," one of the significant number of labour rituals, was particularly pleasing, joyful and holy. The best female reaper in the family took a sickle and cut the first handful. High as a man, a thick sheaf personified abundance. The winter grain in the North was mowed with the scythe little and rarely. Cut with a sickle, Rye was not lost in the field, even a single spike, so nothing was left for mice or birds. Nine sheaves were set up leaning towards each other, forming a hut called the "suslon." On the top, like a hat, put on the tenth sheaf. Children have always wanted to get under this warm straw-grain shelter. Every good suslon fed the average family for three to four weeks; it produced around 33 pounds and even more grain. As they say, Rye ripened a few days in suslones while sitting down, then transported to the threshing floors.
Not everybody could adequately put the sheaves on the carriage. A man must know how to "stand on the cart" (because the dry sheaves slide, crawl, and one or two are out, and then the whole bound thing falls down). Initially, filled the inside of the wagon with shafts along the brim, then put them in rows across, inside the ears. Some on the left, some on the right, in the middle, put along a few pieces to not sink. Up to the top rows were slightly narrowed, but the very top, very narrow, placed them back and forth. The cart was tied afterward with the fastener - spruce pole. Even more difficult was to lay down on the pudgy cart barley or oat sheaves. Oats and barley in the North, too, were mowed with the sickle; the sheaves were placed in piles, in pairs.
 Peas can only be mowed with the scythe because they "run," clinging from the stem to the stem. So large pieces of sheaves (or ("whales") were taken to the threshing floor, and wooden tri-corn pitchforks were raised to the hitch, that is, under the roof of the barn. Because the horse at the barn entrance turns somewhere to the side to ease the burden, it would have to be able to enter without touching a gate-riser, not breaking the wheel or the cart's axis.
Everything had to be mastered! Sheaves were put accurately in the threshing floor holders and kept there until threshing. If there were no rye seeds from the previous year for planting winter crops, fresh seeds were threshed immediately and produced new grain. (Sowing had to be done necessarily in August, during the three-day summer of winged ants.) With bread on the threshing floor, you can count that the crop has been harvested and saved under a roof. This is a great joy and happiness for the whole family. The main thing is to grow and get into the threshing floor, but to thresh, anyone can do...
Summer is also a carpenter's time: building a house in the rain or out in the cold is unpleasant. Unfinished log cabins sometimes stood as a reproach or a reminder for several years. A trying time is a summer, what to say, but there were many holidays. Time is to work, brew beer, and pay visits. Who has not had time was an object of jokes.

ART OF SPOKEN WORD ***

 Even in the recent past, approximately the 40-s of the XX century, tales, songs, lamentations in the life of the Russian North were organic and, therefore, a subconscious part of the people's cultures.
 Authentic folklore lived quite independently of the scientific incarnation. It was not interested in a pale reflection of that flickering in the book of folklore texts and gathering. A spoken word, despite all attempts to "restrain" it by "affection and punishment," to make it manageable, dependent on regular education, the spoken word never fits into the framework of book culture. It was not afraid of the books but did not trust them. The spoken word placed in the book almost immediately languished and faded. (Maybe only Boris V. Shergin - this truly original talent - has managed so well, so naturally married the spoken word with the book.)


 Powerful music and oral culture, created by the Russians, included many genres many kinds of expressions. Among this set, separate styles do not aspire to isolation. Each of them was just one of the stones in the monolith of popular culture, part of the whole vast ocean, and the elements of verbal creativity, inevitably, in turn, with other kinds of the invention.
 What did the word mean to people's lives at all? This question is even scarier to ask, not just respond to it. The fact is that our ancestors equated the word to the experience itself. The word gave rise to and explained life; it was the farmer's keeper of memory and the key to the infinite future. But, at the same time (and perhaps for that very reason), it comforted, helped, motivated to adventure, stood up, cured, inspired. And all this happened naturally as the flow of river water or as a succession of days and seasons.
 You will find not surprising the appearance of worship of the word that exists in the villages still in our time?
 To some extent, the ability to well, that is, with imagination, wit and tact, speak was even a measure of social position in society, the cause of respect and deference. But, for petty and evil people, such skills are the reason for envy.
 The word, whether said, sung, whether expressed in the signs of deaf-mute with his hands and just if not shown but only felt - every word has always endeavoured to his figurative perfection.
   Of course, the goal is one thing; its achievement is another. But, of course, not everyone knew how to speak so vividly, like the late Maria Tsvetkova and Raisa Pudova from the collective farm "Rodina" Kharovsk region Vologda region. But almost all sought such imagery, like everyone wanted to have the right clothes and a great, beautiful house, just as everyone was not opposed to having the glory, for example, the best carpenter.

   Competition is an old quality that came out of paganism of the public (community) life was present not only in labour. It lived in the home, observance of religious traditions and ethics; it is pretty vividly manifested in the sphere of language, literary and musical creativity.
 A beautiful, figurative speech cannot be incoherent speech. The ability to speak well does not equal saying much, but dense short-spoken people who were not in favour were laughed at. Intentional silence was considered a sign of cunning and malice, with all this implies. So, saying "word is silver, silence is gold" is not always appropriate at any moment and in every place.

**SHROVETUDE***

The family rites are naturally blended with communal rituals. For example, the funeral was attended not only by relatives but by the whole village. The wedding was also a public event. The rite of seeing off the recruit to the army did not fit into the framework of one family; the aid work inherently could not be confined to the family, the Yuletide was attended by all.

Shrovetide, like the Yuletide, was one of the links in an unbroken chain, composed of public and family rituals. In the annual cycle, Shrovetide took a definite and specific place. It also was in some way the continuation of the family ceremonies, such as the wedding. At the Shrovetide week, husband and wife always visited the wife's relatives. A trip to his mother-in-law for a pancakes party was accompanied by several social conventions. In this week, finally were established kinship between the newlyweds and their relatives.

But played (experienced) the Shrovetide not only newlyweds and their parents but all -young and old. It was celebrated with especially abundant food, pancakes.

Not for nothing, the Shrovetide week was called the "Wide" Shrovetide from Thursday till the end.

Going out for horse-riding was the main thing at the Shrovetide. The outing showed off horses and harnesses; also, there was a sport-playing sense.

The carriage and the harness in the Russia North were regarded as art functions. A painted arc with bells, sleigh, copper and even silver plaques on the breeching, collar, saddle, tasselled harness decorated the outing that had been waited for a year after the last Shrovetide.

All the young people were skating on the snow and ice.

Sledding was a favourite childhood activity and not only during Shrovetide. From the thick wide boards were made special children sleighs. You couldn't fall or turn over from such sleds. Small kids dragged them on a rope. A sleigh with the gazebo called "the box." If on the bottom of the sleigh pour water and freeze it, such sled particularly fast rushed down the slope.

Fun for the unmarried and married young people were wooden boards, on which rode standing in pairs, holding each other. A long, well-hon board was put on top of the slope, wallowed in snow and poured water on. The whole Shrovetide week, people skated on the boards, screaming and falling, screaming and hooting, speeding down with songs. The couple who stayed on their feet rolled away across the river or away from the village.

At the end of the week solemnly was burned the Shrovetide (straw, set in the middle of the village scarecrow).

Spring was just around the corner.

Sequentially shifting labour weekdays and holidays formed a harmonious whole year's cycle.

Years lived evolved for people of different ages, quite unlike each other, but deriving as naturally and consistently as episodes of a classic drama.