About 20 years ago, I lived with my children with my father-in-law and mother-in-law in a small village not far from Abakan. They had a large farm: a cow, geese, chickens, pigs. All living creatures calmly walked the streets. You could often see the following picture: a pig is lying in a puddle in the middle of the road, and around it there are about ten piglets. Chickens, geese also roam freely. In general, a rural idyll.
My children loved it all. They loved to run into the chicken coop, feed the birds, and collect eggs. The mother-in-law had about 25 chickens and four large roosters.
Baba Grunya lived next to us, she was about seventy years old. She also had chickens, geese and ducks. She looked like a kind woman, loved to talk, to advise something about the house. Our courtyards were separated by a small fence with a gate.
One morning, while everyone was still asleep, I went to the chicken coop to get some eggs for breakfast. I took five of them from the nest and carry them in my hands. I looked, the gate opened to the neighboring courtyard and Baba Grunya was walking towards me. Almost running. He comes up and says in an orderly tone:
- Give me the testicles!
At first I was taken aback, did not understand anything, I ask:
- What for? You have your own chickens, more than we do. And there are many eggs, but they themselves said that you do not have time to pull them out.
And she again:
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- Give it back, I told you!
She looks at me, her face is angry, and she is already shaking all over. As in a fog, I gave the old woman all five eggs.
I didn't say anything to my mother-in-law. A couple of days passed. One morning, the children run into the house, their eyes are large, frightened:
- Mom, mom, go quickly to the chicken coop, look what's going on there!
I - run there. I look - in the barn all the hens and roosters are sitting ruffled. A thick, cloudy liquid oozes from the beaks. And they make sounds like people are moaning.
The mother-in-law was not at home at that time. But I knew where her holy water and church candles were. I grabbed it all - and ran to the chicken coop. Here I began to read all the prayers that I knew and sprinkle the birds with holy water. I lit a candle and walked around the whole chicken coop.
The mother-in-law came, I told her everything. She ran to the vet. He gave the mother-in-law pills, ordered them to crush them, dilute them in water and water the bird from a syringe. We did just that. And the next day I went to the city, bought antibiotics and vitamins. Soon the chickens recovered.
Some time after this incident, Baba Grunya came to visit us and asked for some apples. The mother-in-law took the basket and went into the garden. And I saw - Baba Grunya crept up to the pen where we had chickens.
She stands beside them, her eyes closed and whispers something. The mother-in-law saw it too. Baba Grunya left. And the next morning we look - the chickens are dead in the pen. All 30 pieces, already large, well-fed - and perished in a day.
The mother-in-law had previously avoided Granny Grunya, and after these two cases she generally tried not to deal with her. But close proximity obliged at least to say hello and from time to time to exchange a few words.
"Look," he said, "beware of the witch, take care of your bird."
And, as it turned out, not in vain.
Baba Grunya died a long time ago, but I am still curious where she got her terrible ability to kill the bird of neighbors with just a few words.
Galina TERSKOVA, x. Krasny Luch, Rostov Region