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This is another tale from Pavel Bazhov's collection
of Urals miners legends "The Casket of Malachite".
It tells about the small girl that suddenly jumps out of bonfire and
dances. He name was Ognevushka-Poskakushka ("ogon'" means
fire and "skakat'" means to jump in Russian). She shows to
gold seekers the place where they have to search for gold. But it is
very difficult to keep this place in mind.
One evening a group of gold seekers was sitting around the bonfire telling
different stories and legends. Among them were the boy of 8 years old
named Fyodor, his father and his uncle Ephim. Suddenly the small merry
red hair girl with dressed in blue clothes and not bigger than a doll
appeared in charcoals. She started to dance around gold seekers becoming
bigger and bigger until she reached Fyodor's statue. Near one of the
trees she stopped dancing but at this moment an owl shouted and the
girl disappeared. Uncle Ephim explained that it was the sign where to
look for gold and they have to find this tree. But everyone showed at
different trees. The dug all around but did not find anything. Few times
more boy and his uncle saw the girl and every time she disappeared after
owls shouting and again they could not find anything. Their family became
the object of different jokes in the village and sometime these jokes
were very evil. One winter day when Fyodor's stepmother was not in the
good mood he decided to visit his sick father in the hospital. Going
to the town he had to cross the forest and suddenly under one of the
birch-trees he saw Ognevushka dancing on the snow. She looked at Fyodor
by her merry eyes and melted the snow near the old birch-tree. "When
the springtime will come look under this birch-tree," - she said.
"We had tried but did not find anything," - answered the boy.
"Take this. It will help you," - said she, gave him an old
gold seekers spade and disappeared. At springtime Fyodor with relatives
found a lot of gold there and never need after that.
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