Hungarian Folk Tales: Szusza
In the village there lived a wealthy farmer.
He had barns, and cellars and attics that were full of goods.
Plus he also had a couple of hundred forints sewn into a sack.
However, he also had a lazy, good-for-nothing, stupid wife who was truly useless.
Each time the farmer was about to leave for work, he told Szusza what to do:
Go to the neighbour lady, see what she is doing and do exactly as she does.
So Szusza walked over to the neighbour's house where they were busy bleaching the linen.
When she saw this she went home,
took her husband's boots and leather hat into the bleach and let them cook there.
They must have been in there for a long time because when she took them out
and she was about to take them to the stream for rinsing, they melted away in her hands.
When her husband came home he asked her:
Well, Szusza, what have you been doing all day?
She told him what she had done and the poor man had to give her a beating.
Finally he told her to pay more attention to the neighbour woman the next time.
The next day the neighbour woman was preparing mash for the pigs in a bucket.
Szusza saw what she was doing.
She ran home, took ten sacks of barley flour, and threw them all into the well.
Szusza was very proud of herself.
She wanted to tell her husband how much mash she prepared for the animals.
As soon as her husband came home, she immediately told him the story.
Do you know what I did today? Mash, the whole well is full of the stuff.
There be plenty for the pigs.
What? Are you out of your mind, woman?
That's exactly what I did.
So Szusza was beaten once more and her husband told her that
if she did this again, he would teach her a lesson she would never forget.
On the third day the neighbour woman was cooking cabbage with bacon.
Szusza watched her then went home, sliced up a whole block of bacon,
then she took the bits and pieces to the garden and place them on the cabbage heads.
At noon her husband came home and saw his dog lying dead by the gate.
He asked his wife: What have you done to this dog, woman?
Why did it drop dead?
The thief ate all the bacon I was preparing for lunch in the garden, that killed him.
The man looked into the pantry the bacon was all gone.
He realised what Szusza must have done and he beat her soundly.
The man kept all his money in a leather bag under the bed.
But he never told his wife, less she should spend it all.
He told his wife that it was an ogre.
He scared her by saying that if she did something stupid the ogre would eat her.
One day a traveling potter came their way.
Szusza wanted to give him the ogre so she wouldn't have to be afraid any longer.
But of course she did not want to give it away for free,
so she asked the potter how many pots he would offer in return.
Somehow the potter guessed what must be inside the ogre,
so he gave her all of his pots.
Szusza was very happy with the deal.
When she was left on her own she placed the pots on the poles of the fence.
Finally she wanted to arrange the smaller mugs as well but there was not enough room.
Then she found a long pole and started yelling:
Alright, you pots, stand in line so there is room for the little ones too.
But the pots just didn't want to stand in line so Szusza smashed the pots with her pole.
When her husband came home, he immediately saw the fragments on the ground.
He suspected that something was wrong so he asked:
Where did you get these pots, Szusza?
Well, you see I paid for them with that ogre of yours,
so you could never scare me with it again.
The man nearly had a fit, but he realized that his wife was mad.
The next morning he sent Szusza off to do some reaping,
so she couldn't cause any more trouble at home.
Szusza went out to the field with a sickle and by ten o'clock she harvested three sheaves of wheat.
She pulled them together and arranged them in a stack.
She huddled up in the middle and fell fast asleep.
Her husband waited for her at home in vain.
This Szusza has suddenly become so hardworking.
I'm going to go after her before the work makes her sick.
He went out to the field but however hard he looked, he just couldn't see Szusza anywhere.
Where could she be?
He was about to go home when he finally noticed the three sheaves of wheat.
He walked up closer and discovered Szusza snoring beneath them.
It's then that he realized he had to get rid of Szusza once and for all.
He ran home and brought back a pillow full of feathers and a small pot of honey.
He poured the honey all over Szusza, and then he covered her with the feathers.
Szusza woke up, she looked at her hands and feet and said to herself:
Ahm, err... her hands are like Szusza's, her feet are like Szusza's
but this is not Szusza, how could this be?
She just couldn't decide whether she was really Szusza or not.
Finally she decided she would ask her husband whether his wife was at home?
If he said yes, she is home, then she could not be Szusza.
If he answered no, then she must be Szusza, without a doubt.
When she got to the house she called out loud:
Listen John, is your wife at home?
Of course, she is! What's wrong with that?
That's how Szusza finaly decided that she was not Szusza.
She started thinking about who she might be but she just couldn't find out the solution.
So in the end she completely lost her mind.
Finally she ran off and nobody has ever seen her since.