There was a poor man in the world: his name was Cunning Jancsi. He was called Cunning Jancsi, because he was always thinking about cunning. His wife once said to Hansel:
- You'd be better off working, and not always thinking of naughty things!
Well, it is true that they were as poor as the church mouse. When they ate, when they didn't.
Jancsi had a rusty rifle, threw it over his shoulder and went out into the woods to hunt. As he walks, he sees a rabbit in the woods, he points the gun at it, aims, but the rabbit sounds:
- Don't shoot me, you poor man, for I'll be yours without, I'll go with you, and you can do what you like with me.
Okay, Hansel doesn't shoot the rabbit. He takes it home and tells his wife:
- Well, wife, I brought you a rabbit, don't be sad. Now we'll live well as long as it lasts.
- "Well," says the woman, "there is a rabbit, but no bread. You'd better take it to town and sell it there, and then we'll use the money to buy what we need.
Hansel went into town, went to the market, and one day three men came along who were brothers and knew Hansel well. They ask him:
- What are you selling, Hansel?
- "I'm a telegraph operator," says Jancsi.
- What's that, you? - people ask.
- It's a' that you just have to stick the letter on the back, and it goes away like a telegraph (telephone - ed.).
- How do you give?
- I'll give it to you for three hundred pence forints.
The people didn't think twice, they paid Jancsi the three hundred forints. Jancsi goes home with the money, and they write a letter to try the rabbit. The letter is stuck on his back and then he is surprised with a blanket to make him run better.
Well, the rabbit ran away. But it ran away so fast that it never came back.
The next day, Hansel goes out into the forest again, sees a wolf, aims at it, but the wolf also speaks:
- Don't shoot me, you poor man, because I'll go with you without it.
Hansel took the wolf home, but he didn't even settle at home, he took it to the fair. As soon as he settled down at the market, the three men came to him in a great rage, and told him:
- Well, Hansel, you cheated on me! We sent the telegraph operator away, but he never came back.
- How is that possible? - asked Hansel. - What have they done to him?
- We did nothing more than shake him a bit with a blanket to make him run a bit better.
- "Oh, that's not good," said Hansel. - Why did they scare him with the blanket, so he won't come back!
People looked at each other and said:
- A' indeed, Jancsi may be right.
- What are you selling now? - asked the older brother.
- "I'm a sheep breeder," said Hansel.
- What are you selling, you?
- I said a sheep breeder!
- How does that breed sheep?
- That is, just let them into the sheepfold in the evening, and in the morning there will be so many sheep that they won't be able to get through the door.
- "Oh, well," say the brothers, "let's buy this!
They immediately pay three hundred forints for it, take the wolf home, put it in the pen with the sheep, and lock the door so that it can't run out.
You go to the mine in the morning, you want to open the door, but you can't. He peeps in through the window, and there lies all the sheep at the door. The wolf has bitten the neck out of every one of them.
The middle brother comes to his brother and asks:
- Well, uncle, have the sheep multiplied?
- And these, my brother, there are so many of them that I can't even open the door, just take the sheep breeder and let yours breed too.
The middle brother took the wolf, put it in the sheepfold, and was just like his brother.
His younger brother comes in the morning.
- Have the sheep multiplied, uncle?
- Meg, my brother, Meg, just take the propagator and let your sheep breed.
The man took the wolf, put him in with the sheep, and in the morning his sheep had multiplied, and were all lying in a heap at the door: the wolf had killed them all.
- "Well, they're multiplying!" - says the man to himself, and he goes to his middle brother to see if they have multiplied like his sheep.
Well, they have multiplied just as much. They go to their eldest brother and attack him, asking why he took the wolf with them if he knew he was going to kill the sheep.
- Well, I thought to myself, let's take it together and damage it together.
- "Our brother is right," said the half-witted men, "but they made up their minds at once to go and kill Cunning Janci wherever they found him. They went into the town, and there stood Hansel in the marketplace, a big stick in his hand. They attack him:
- Well, stop, you wicked one! What sheep breeder have you given us?! He killed all the sheep we had.
- How is that possible? - asked Hansel. - They must have locked the door after him.
- Well, of course we would have locked it!
- Oh, that's not good! I should have left the door open.
People look at each other and say:
- A' indeed, Janci may be right, the door should not have been locked.
- What are you selling now, Hansel? - asked the elder.
- All I sell is this stick.
- "Well, that's not much," said the people, "no one will buy that from you.
- Sure they do, they just know what it's good for, they buy it at a premium.
- What good is it?
- It's good for an old woman with an old wife to hide her in the oven, and when she crawls out, give her a good pat on the head, and she'll be rejuvenated.
- "How nice!" said the men, "Our wives are old too, it would be good if they were younger.
At once they made a deal, bought the stick for three hundred forints, and decided that the eldest brother should try it first. He had the oldest wife.
- "Well, wife," he said, with great joy, "I've brought some rejuvenator, get in the oven.
But the woman caught him. She crawls into the oven, sits there for a while, and then her husband says: well, now come out! As soon as he stuck his head out of the furnace, the man got a good bashing and hit his wife so hard on the head that she was suddenly rejuvenated: they took her to the cemetery.
The other two people did exactly the same. But now they were determined to destroy Cunning Janci, or else he would wipe them out of the world. But Cunning Hansel smelt the saffron, and suddenly he made a coffin, and lay down in it, and his wife nailed the lid on it, but left a big hole in it, so that he might not drown.
The half-minded people are coming, but the woman's cries and wailing can be heard on the road. They enter the house, ask the woman:
- Why is kend crying, woman?
- Oh, how I would cry! Do you not see, my good sir, that my soul lies in a coffin?!
- "It was a pity," people said, "he was a good man.
They went away with that, and then, whoops! Cunning Hansel knocked the lid off the coffin, jumped out into the middle of the room, laughed a great laugh, and is still alive and kicking to this day, if he is not really dead.
(Elek Benedek: Hungarian tale- and mythology Volume 3)
