Once upon a time there lived a man and his wife. One day the husband felt bad and became ill. He suffered for a while and then died. Some time passed and an evil spirit got into the habit to visit the young widow every night. The devil used to appear before the woman in the guise of a handsome man and she became infatuated with him. Finally she realized that something terrible was happening. Somehow or other, the unfortunate woman tried to get rid of the man. She was almost exhausted, but the devil preyed on her mind and she could not do anything with him.
Once the widow told the woman next door about her trouble and the good woman said to her:
"Dear, you should curtain the doorway with a hempen shirt. It will not allow the evil spirit to enter the house."
The widow obeyed her neighbour. She made a long shirt from hempen cloth and curtained the doorway to her house. The next night, the evil spirit came to the widow but the Hempen Shirt told him:
"Wait a minute, good man, listen to what I have had to see and experience in my lifetime."
"Well, what is it with you? Come on, get it out," - answered the evil spirit.
"Look, even before I had come into the world," - the Shirt began its story, - "there was a great deal of trouble with me. In the old days there lived a farmer in a village. Once on a spring morning he ploughed up the field. In a while he harrowed his plot, and only then planted the hemp - that was me! At a later date he harrowed the ground for the second time. The ground covered me like a blanket, and the sun warmed my bed. While the first rains have made the ground damp, there sprouted little stems and I saw the light. Well, when I was born, I began to grow and grow, rising to the sun..."
"Okay then, stop talking," - said the evil spirit with a dirty look. - "Let me in!"
"But if you started to listen, let me finish the explanation," - answered the Shirt. - "When I grew up and become hardened, I was pulled out of the ground..."
"I realize," - again interrupted the angry devil, - "off with you!"
"No, you do not understand," - the Shirt did not let him go. - "Hear me out, please, I have still a lot to say. Then folks had to grind me and separate the seeds..."
"What the hell? Stop it!" - The evil spirit lost his patience. - "Go away!"
But at that time a rooster crowed in the yard, heralding the morning, and the evil spirit disappeared, never having visited the widow.
The next night he came again, and again the Shirt did not let him go.
"So, where was I?" - said the Shirt. - "Oh, yeah, it's on the seeds. Then folks skinned the hemp, blew it in the wind and put the seeds into storage. And the very hemp without seeds, they first piled in the stacks, and then put in the water to soak for a while."
"Well, is it all?" - asked the evil spirit in a bad temper. - "Let me go!"
"No, that is not the half of it!" - answered the Shirt. - "I am still lying in the water. Only in three weeks, I should be pulled out of the water and put to dry!"
"Enough is enough, leave now!" - The devil was getting furious. - "Make way!"
"You have not even heard the most important thing!" - said the Shirt. - "You do not know how they would crush and break my bones! Thus they must crush and break me as long, as my body will be cleansed up from the bones. More than that, they should put me in a mortar, and the three or four of them should beat me with pestles..."
"Get out of the way!" - said the evil spirit, having lost his patience.
"They would then knock all the dust out of me," - continued the Shirt, - "and leave the clean body. They would hang me on a combing machine and divide into thin fibres, and then they would spin me for some time. A spun yarn they would wind round a reel, and put it into alkaline liquor. Then it will be hard to survive, because they would clog up my eyes with ash, so that I could see nothing. Yes, I can't see now..."
"And I don't wanna hear it any more!" - said the evil spirit and was about to fly into the house, but at that time the cock crowed the next time, and the devil disappeared.
He reappeared on the third night, feeling a little irritated at that tricky shirt. But the Hempen Shirt continued its tale:
"Okay dear, they should wash me off, then dry, make the coils, pass through a reed, then weave, and only then I'll turn into a canvas."
"Hey, is that all now?" - asked the evil spirit. - "Let me go!"
"There is no standing still," - said the Shirt. - "You should listen to the whole tale... They would boil the canvas in alkaline water, lay it on the green grass and wash it from the ash. And then the three or four of them would crush me for the second time, until I got soft. After that they would cut off a piece of canvas, as you want, and sew a shirt. Only then the seed, that was thrown down into the ground long before, could turn into the Hempen Shirt, which now is curtaining the door..."
There again crowed the rooster in the yard, and the evil spirit had to get out of his way empty-handed. After all, he had been tired of standing at the door and listening to "the old wives' tales"...
Since then he had lost interest in his job and left the young widow alone.
![The Hempen Shirt [Славянский Владимир Владимирович]](/img/s/slawjanskij_wladimir_wladimirowich/thehempenshirt/thehempenshirt.jpg)