ABSTRACT

Once there was a poor forest ranger who already had his second wife. From the first wife two children remained, one little girl and one little boy; they were named Evička and Janík, These poor souls endured a lot with their evil stepmother; she never gave them a kind word, her eye never warmed to them, she just harassed them unceasingly, wore them down and thrashed them every godforsaken day. In those times people barely eked out a living, and it looked especially bad for rangers, who were the poorest, so that at times they didn't have even a morsel of bread in the house for as much as three days. One morning the ranger asked, "Woman! What will we give our children to eat?"