id: "How now, fool! we are
what you see. You know how cold it is, and that it is a man's business
to go." But he said: "I am lazy." "How!" they exclaimed, "you are
lazy? Surely you will want to eat, and if we have no water we cannot
cook. But never mind," they added; "we will only tell our husbands not
to give him anything when they have bought the fine red coat and all
for him!"

The fool heard what they said; and, as he longed greatly to have the
red coat and cap, he saw that he must go; so he got down from the
stove and began to put on his shoes and stockings and to dress himself
to go out. When he was dressed, he took the buckets and the axe and
went down to the river hard by. And when he came to the river he began
to cut a large hole in the ice. Then he drew water in the buckets, and
setting them on the ice, he stood by the hole, looking into the
water. And as the fool was looking, he saw a large pike swimming
about. However stupid Emelyan was, he felt a wish to catch this pike;
so he stole cautiously and softly to the edge of the hole, and making
a sudden grasp at the pike he caught him, and pulled him out of the
water. Then, putting him in his bosom, he was hastening home with him,
when the pike cried out: "Ho, fool! why have you caught me?" He
answered: "To take you home and get my sisters-in-law to cook you."
"Nay, fool! do not take me home, but throw me back into the water and
I will make a rich man of you." But the fool would not consent, and
jogged on his way home. When the pike saw that the fool was not for
letting him go, he said to him: "Hark ye, fool! put me back in the
water and I will do for you everything you do not like to do yourself;
you will only have to wish and it shall be done."

On hearing this the fool rejoiced beyond measure for, as he was
uncommonly lazy, he thought to himself: "If the pike does everything I
have no mind to do, all will be done without my being troubled to
work." So he said to the pike: "I will throw you back into the water
if you do all you promise." The pike said: "Let me go first and then I
will keep my promise." But the fool answered: "Nay, nay, you must
first perform your promise, and then I will let you go." When the pike
saw that Emelyan would not put him into the water he said: "If you
wish me to do all you desire, you must first tell me what your desire
is." "I wish," said the fool, "that my buckets should go of themselves
from the river up the hill to the villag