Belarus — The Calvinist Fast · A Neighbourly Business · Tasty · Not Here, Then There
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Four Belarusian folk tales — Part 2 of this shelf — from Alexander Serzhputovsky's Tales of the Belarusians of Polesie (Skazki bielorusov-poleshchukov), published at Minsk in 1926. The tales were recorded in the villages of the Slutsk district, in the Belarusian Polesie, from the village storytellers of Chudzin, Velikiy Bor, and the villages round about. The English here is a fresh in-house translation of Serzhputovsky's published Russian text.
A lord goes hunting, loses his way in the deep forest, and learns — hungry at a poor man's table — what a Calvinist fast is. In a winter so hard the frost itself might be counted, one neighbour's hay becomes another neighbour's business. A thrifty householder who loves nothing so much as a tasty feast-day table sets out to eat as a man should. And Skinflint dries a whole cartload of fish, drives it to town, and haggles his way through the market — not here, then there.
Stories in this episode:
0:35 Introduction
1:36 The Calvinist Fast
5:58 A Neighbourly Business
12:44 Tasty
21:26 Not Here, Then There
Source: Alexander Serzhputovsky, Tales of the Belarusians of Polesie (Minsk, 1926) — public domain (author 1864–1940). Fresh in-house English translation. Narrated by Amos.
Music: "Spotlight After Midnight — Slow Pulse" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme; with a short excerpt between stories.
Left out of this part, by name, under the shelf's standing exclusions: The Dog and the Money and the six Christ-legends of the 1926 volume stand held for the owner's ruling, as entered in the shelf register. This shelf claims no completeness that its exclusions contradict.
Belarusian folk tales, Belarusian fairy tales, Serzhputovsky, Polesie folklore, Slavic folklore, world folk tales, free audiobook
