Oh: The Tsar of the Forest

Oh: The Tsar of the Forest

Once upon a time, when the forests seemed endless and people believed that a miracle could be hidden behind every old stump, there lived a man and a woman. They were not rich and had only one son.

The boy grew strong, but had little liking for work. If his mother asked him to fetch water, he put it off. If his father asked for help in the yard, the boy was already dozing on the warm stove.

His parents tried apprenticing him to a tailor, a shoemaker, and a blacksmith. He stayed a few days with each, then came home.

Finally, the father said:

“Son, I do not want to scold you for the rest of your life. Let's go look for a master who will teach you not only the craft, but also responsibility.”

They set off on a long journey.

They walked for a day, a second, a third. Finally, they reached a dark forest. The father sat down on an old stump to rest and sighed heavily:

“Oh…”

As soon as he said this, a little green old man with a long beard appeared from behind the stump.

“Who called me?”

“I didn’t call anyone,” the man said in surprise. “I was just tired and said ‘Oh.’”

“And I am Oh, the tsar of the forest,” the old man replied. “Where are you taking the boy?”

The father explained his son’s laziness.

Oh narrowed his green eyes.

“Leave him with me for a year. I will teach him to work. But let’s agree on this: in a year you will come and you must recognize your son among my charms. If you recognize him, you will take him away. If you don’t recognize him, he will stay for another year.”

The father hesitated, but the son himself said:

“I will try. Because I am already ashamed to come back with nothing every time.”

So the boy went with Oh.

Behind the old stumps, a path opened to another, green world. There stood a hut made of reeds, benches and tables were green, and strange forest creatures shimmered near the water.

On the first morning, Oh said:

“Chop wood and bring water.”

The boy took an ax, sat on a log… and fell asleep.

Oh woke him up with one touch of his magic wand.

“You won’t get away with sleeping instead of working here.”

Green light flared around the boy, swirling like fire without heat. He felt as though he had done a whole day’s hard work. His arms grew stronger, his mind clearer, and all his sleepiness vanished.

The next day, he tried to shirk again. Oh put him through another magical trial.

By the third time, the boy no longer waited to be reminded. He began work himself.

A year passed.

The father came to a familiar stump and said:

“Oh!”

The Forest Tsar appeared at once.

“You want your son back? Pick him out.”

Oh threw a handful of grain on the ground, and roosters ran to him from all sides, each one similar to the other. The father looked and looked, but could not choose.

“Another year,” Oh said.

The following year, his father saw a flock of identical rams. Again, he could not recognise his son.

The third year passed.

On the way to the forest, the man met an old woman. Having learned where he was going, she whispered:

“This time Oh will show you pigeons. They will all peck at the grain, and one will sit aside and clean his feathers. That will be your son.”

And so it happened.

Oh scattered the wheat, and dozens of white pigeons flew around. Almost all of them were pecking at the grain. Only one was sitting under a pear tree, sticking out his chest and calmly smoothing his feathers.

“This is my son,” said the father.

The pigeon touched the ground and became a young man, tall, strong, and not at all like the lazy man he used to be.

Oh frowned, but kept his word.

On the way home, the son said:

“Dad, I worked in the magical world for three years, but I didn’t earn any money. But I learned something that will help us in the future.”

Soon they saw gentlemen who were hunting with greyhounds.

“I’ll become a swift greyhound,” his son said. “Sell me for a good price, but keep the collar.”

He turned into a beautiful dog and easily overtook the other greyhounds. The gentlemen immediately wanted to buy him.

The father sold the dog, but kept the collar. As soon as the hunters left, the dog ran away into the forest and became a young man again.

Another time the son turned into a falcon.

“Sell me, but without the hood.”

The falcon flew so skilfully that someone bought him too. Free of the magic tether, he returned to his father.

So the family gradually got back on its feet.

But one day the son said:

“Now I will turn into a horse. They will give a lot for me. Just remember: do not sell the bridle.”

The horse turned out so beautiful that people stopped to look. Then an unfamiliar merchant came up, a little strange, with one eye squinted.

“Sell me the horse with its bridle,” the merchant urged.

“No. I’m keeping the bridle.”

The merchant offered more and more money. At last, the father thought, ‘What harm could one ordinary bridle do?’ and agreed.

Only when the buyer drove away did the man realize his mistake.

Because it was not a merchant.

It was Oh.

Oh brought the horse back to his green kingdom.

“Now you won’t run away,” he said.

The next morning, Oh led the horse to the river. The horse lowered his head to the water and instantly became a perch.

Oh turned into a pike and rushed after it.

“Perch, perch, come back, let’s talk!”

“I can hear you already!” answered the perch and swam even faster.

The pike caught up, and the perch slipped away. The pike darted in from the side, and the perch spread his spiny fins. They raced the whole length of the river.

A princess sat by the bank, whittling a slender twig.

The perch jumped out of the water and turned into a golden ring with a red stone. The princess picked it up.

“How beautiful!”

A few minutes later a respectable merchant came to the palace. Of course, it was Oh again.

“Your daughter found my precious ring,” he told the tsar. “Please return it.”

The princess felt that something was wrong here.

“If this ring is the cause of so many disputes, then let it be neither mine nor yours.”

And she threw it on the floor.

The ring crumbled into hundreds of millet grains.

Oh became a rooster at once and pecked up the millet: one grain, another, ten, a hundred…

But one tiny grain rolled under the princess’s shoe. Oh did not notice it. He pecked at everything else, flapped his wings and flew away.

Then the last grain turned into a young man.

“Thank you for not giving me away,” he said to the princess.

He told her everything: his parents, his laziness, his three years with Oh, the pigeons, the greyhound, the falcon, and the horse.

The princess laughed:

“So you can be a dog, a falcon, a horse, a fish, a ring, and a grain. But have you learned how to be a person?”

The young man thought for a moment and smiled.

“That was the hardest part. But I think I have.”

The tsar liked his cleverness and his honesty about past mistakes. In time, the young man and the princess married.

And he took his father and mother to live with him and never again allowed them to work hard alone.

They say that afterwards, whenever he passed the old forest and felt tired, he sighed very carefully.

Not "Oh!"

But something like:

“Ah… better keep going.”

It is best not to strike a second accidental bargain with a forest tsar.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨