Madelaine - Swearing Tales. Creepy pastas

Translator Vladislav Yuldashev

Illustrator Madelaine

© Madelaine, 2022

© Vladislav Yuldashev, translation, 2022

© Madelaine, illustrations, 2022

ISBN 978-5-0053-1852-7

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Where did the Russian swearing come from? It is not known exactly, but Peter 1 also handed out nicknames to his funny courtiers. In our ancestors, swear-word drove away evil spirits. According to one version, the swear-word appeared from the Mongol-Tatars. In those days, the unbelieving pagans, with whom the church fought, swore. The Mongol-Tatars were not Christians, and due to the Russian bad mentality, more often, in everyday life, it was understood that they did not talk, but swear. It was these infidels, Hordes, Basurmans and pagans who taught the Russians to swear. Thus, Mongolia is the birthplace of the Russian swear-word. Buryats are one of the Mongol-speaking peoples, hence the swear-word comes from Buryatia. One of the old designations of the swear-word is «kutah».

However, Russian swear-word itself has Slavic roots. The words were borrowed from the Turkic languages: sheepskin coat, bazaar, money.

Swearing in Russia is respected, cool, is a sign of leadership. Today it is very polysemous and allows you to compose many bad words from one root, where one word often has more than one meaning. Therefore, there are no full-fledged analogues of Russian swear-word in foreign lexicons. You can safely refer to swear-word culture as a common human cultural heritage. Although the use of swear-word is not allowed by public morality, history knows many positive swear-word phenomena. This book of Russian swear-word fairy tales is the best confirm swear-word of this.

It is in Russian strong expressions that the gift of folk language creation is manifested. Recently, more and more often, obscene words are quite cute and, even, weird and are a good substitute for unnecessary expressions. A tribute to fashion. For example, these are: Japanese mom, damn it. Only in our language can one find such a variety of newly formed neologisms. Its unique feature: talented Russian common people who come up with funny words and expressions in the hope that a new swear-word will supplant another swear-word. This trend has been observed since the late 1990s. Studying this topic, I collected swear-worderial on three such books (which have not been written), but I will present you one.

The fishermen talked about her. Like, when they went fishing with an overnight stay somewhere between Rossosh and Tula, this «hut» flew to them. Such a bird, no more than an average perch, singing. The men were poor. And in general they were not very good. The tents were set up and insulated with reeds. So, what kind of huts it turned out (like Lenin once did). Hence the «hut». And the ruble because the wild bird ate them in rubles like a crow. The jokers-men will fill her with a handful – she will eat it. The men did not keep warm, so they fed the bird in full. But how did she manage to eat copper rubles? Unclear. Everything would be fine, but the men returned from fishing as millionaires. Telling an amazing story about a hut-bird because of which the whole tree on which she was sitting bloomed with real banknotes.

Driving through snowy Russia somehow, in this winter I heard another story. New Year’s trees told. In one of the villages, I don’t remember the name (Pukhovo, maybe), there are many of them all over Russia, among the forests close to the unprepossessing houses approaching – an unusual rabbit got into the habit. It was said that he, like a squirrel, could quickly soar on any, even the tallest tree, with its top reaching up to white clouds. Climbing, the rabbit flew down like an arrow. Then everything was repeated.

He came to elections, the first snow, Christmas or retirement, and other significant events. They called the rabbit Yoshka. In honor of the tree, which he couldn’t climb because of the «furry paws» – and he fell. The case is so rare that I remember it. The rabbit’s name has become a household name. Because its jumping shadow – to events in the life of the village or any of its inhabitants.

This tale was born in the snowy mountains of the Caucasus. In a small Adyghe village. It’s about a proud young girl. Popularly nicknamed Skolopendrium. The legend about her is already our days. As if they saw her every snowy winter coming out from behind a rock in a hollow. In a flowered summer dress and hat, a fur vest, with a bouquet of spring flowers (different every time), with red hair tied in a long ponytail and bright scarlet lips. Comes out and stands in the snow – does not move. As a rock is immovable. At the sight of a man, she begins to seem to move towards him, but without reaching it disappears, always leaving behind the same rock. Dissolving into a whitish sky, merging with the earth on the horizon.

She never found a groom.

* As names go, it’s good enough.

There were rumors somehow, about some such and such, in general, some zero without a wand. A variety of people talked about him. But there is especially a lot of truth, and certainly not lies, – the old man said, from a rather deaf Russian province. Such that when traveling in Russia in December, it will seem like a white-white carpet, only here and there diluted with black eye sockets, of windows of fluffy snow houses.

As delightfully cold as that old man’s refrigerator. His pension was small, however, like all his neighbors. The old man counted every penny and even complained to the president at the next conference that he was eating poorly.

What happened to him in his own house makes you wonder. And this is what happened. One day, coming from the store with a purse, the old man laid out all the products on the shelves of the refrigerator and went to bed. To fall asleep faster, he counted zeros and sticks on the bills. Until it seemed to him that he fell asleep. But either in a half-doze, or in reality, or in a dream, he opens his eyes and sees: the refrigerator door wide open. He walked over and looked into it. And there a creature, round like a big head, freezes! Sits like that, bored.

The man was stunned at first, realizing that the creature did not react to him, tried to retreat.

But it was not there! The «gingerbread man» rolled out of the refrigerator and began throwing cocktail tubes and toothpicks at the pensioner, which he had grabbed from somewhere. The hit of the latter with a sharp end was quite painful. Throwing them continuously, he pushed the pensioner out of the kitchen into the room, and then into the corridor to the front door.

It was already possible to fold a woodpile from sticks of all kinds, when the unfortunate man realized that a stupid creature was trying to knock him down, aiming mainly at them. Then the man lay down, pretending to be dead. It worked. And the zero rolled back into the refrigerator. The man jumped up and propped up the refrigerator door. He propped her up as long as he could. Soon the knocking from inside the cell died down. Opening the door slightly, the frightened pensioner saw what seemed to be a numb round timber. But the creature stirred and pulled out a bigger stick and pounced again. Then the old man was not taken aback and, seizing the initiative with a weapon, beat the monster. The corpse was cut into pieces and thrown into the trash.