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Afanasyev — The Argumentative Wife
Description
An old woman who cannot hold her tongue hears from her husband that he has dug up a cauldron full of gold — and the only way he can keep the secret safe is to plant impossible proofs along the road home: a pike hanging on a tree, a hare caught in a fish-trap, and the sound of sheep, cows and wolves explained, again and again, as the devils tearing at their master, so that when she runs to that master with the whole true story, every true word sounds like raving. This episode reads all three of Afanasyev's tellings of the Argumentative Wife — the long telling of the cauldron of gold, the shorter telling of the pike swimming in the peas and the devil skinning the master, and the darkest telling, in which the money is taken on a lonely road and the proof the wife must carry is a whole sack of pears shaken down from a willow tree.
The tales «Жена-доказчица» (№№ 441–443) — from the collection of Alexander Afanasyev, in new English translations made for this show, read aloud over a gentle instrumental bed.
Afanasyev.
Intermission: "Convergence at Dusk 2" — instrumental.
KacheliTV — Russian classics, read aloud.