The drunkard and his bride
Once there lived a man and wife. The husband liked to drink a great deal, and every night he would come home drunk. One day the wife got fed up with him and she took a lover. Her husband would come home drunk; she would tuck him into bed, leave the key in the door, and leave to go to her friend. Day after day, it went on like this. Before this time, she used to yell at her husband, and then she began to let him drink. He drank, she took her pleasure, and it wasn't anything to anyone. One day the man put a finger to his head:
“How come earlier my wife was after me to quit drinking, but now she doesn't say anything to me?”
He pretended to be drunk and came home.
“Husband, shall we eat?”
“Let's eat.”
“Wouldn't you like a little brandy? I bought some beautiful brandy.”
“Well, pour some.”
But she didn't give him ordinary brandy, she poured him double-distilled brandy, strong stuff, just one shot is enough to tie one on. But he's clever too, he managed to pour it in some water. He began to slump and to make out as if he were drunk. They finished eating and he stretched out on the bed. She covered him up, and when it got dark, she put her knitting under her arm, put the key in the door, and went off to her lover's. When her husband looked for her, she wasn't there. He got up, went downstairs, and locked everything up. After a while, around midnight, here she comes. She knocks - it's locked. She knocks and he calls out from the window:
“Go back to wherever you came from!”
“Hey now, husband, I haven't been anywhere, I've just been knitting at the neighbor's.”
“No, go back there.”
She couldn't get inside so she said to him:
“I'm going to fling myself into the well, and they'll lock you up and you'll rot in prison.” She took a stone and flung it into the well. Her husband thinking that his wife had flung herself into the well, went down, unlocked the door, and went to look in the well. But she goes into the house and locks him outside. Now he begins to call:
“Let me in.“
He begins to bang. Suddenly she starts shouting from the window:
“Hey neighbors, get up! Get up and see what this drunkard is doing!”
The neighbors knew him to be a drunkard since he always quarreled and raised a ruckus. They began to yell at him:
“You good-for-nothing, you thus and so.”
The police came by and nabbed him. They beat the hell out of him. Then he returned:
“Well wife, it's no big deal - I'll keep to my drink, you go to your lover, and so we will live.”
And so they live to this very day. She with her lover, and he with his brandy.Kiril Penushliski. Macedonian erotic folktales