The Tale of the Toothy Pike

On the night before St John’s Day, a pike was born in the Sheksna River, with teeth enough to make you cry, “Heaven help us!” Bream, perch, and ruffe all…

On the night before St John’s Day, a pike was born in the Sheksna River, with teeth enough to make you cry, “Heaven help us!” Bream, perch, and ruffe all gathered to stare at her and marvel at such a wonder. The water in the Sheksna surged; a ferry crossing the river was almost swamped, and the pretty young women strolling along the bank scattered in all directions. What a toothy pike had been born! She began growing by the hour, not by the day: every day she grew another vershok, about four and a half centimeters. And the toothy pike began roaming the Sheksna, catching bream and perch. She would spot a bream from far away and snap it up in her teeth—and the bream was gone, with only its little bones crunching between the toothy pike’s jaws.

What a calamity had come upon the Sheksna! What were the bream and perch to do? Things looked grim: the pike would eat them all, wipe them out. All the little fish gathered to think how they might get rid of that toothy, nimble pike. Ruff Ershovich came to the council too and quickly spoke up:

“Enough thinking and racking your heads, enough wearing out your brains! Listen to what I have to say. Life is hard for all of us in the Sheksna now: the toothy pike won’t let anyone pass, and every fish ends up between her teeth! There’s no living for us here. Let’s move to the little rivers instead—to the Sizma, the Konoma, and the Slavenka. No one will touch us there, and we’ll live happily and raise our little ones.”

So all the ruffe, bream, and perch set off from the Sheksna for the little rivers—the Sizma, the Konoma, and the Slavenka. On the way, a crafty fisherman caught many of their fellows on his line and made a splendid fish soup; that, it seems, was his last feast before the fast. From then on, there were very few small fish in the Sheksna. A fisherman would cast his line into the water and pull out nothing; once in a while he might catch a sterlet, and that was the end of his fishing! That is the whole tale of the toothy, nimble pike. The trickster caused plenty of trouble in the Sheksna, but later she fared badly herself. When there were no little fish left, she began snapping at worms and was caught on a hook. The fisherman made fish soup, slurped it, and praised it: it was so rich and fatty! I was there too and shared the soup; it ran down my mustache, but none went into my mouth.