When I was about eight years old, I caught a bad cold and then got sick. And today, I remember the care and concern with which doctors and midwives nursed me in the children's department of the rural hospital. In the evenings, a babysitter, Aunt Sonya, would come to our room and sit on a stool and tell us all sorts of interesting bedtime stories. Here's one of the stories from a plump, duck-like woman who is very quirky and resonant with a woman's voice...
The main road leading through the forest from our small town to the neighboring village was wide, always broken by wheel rims and horses' hooves. There were many paths running from the main road into the forest, but one of them was special, not only because it led to rich mushroom and berry areas, but also because it led to an unusual forest Intersection of seven directions. Forest roads radiated seven rays from this intersection, each in its own direction. And then there was the eighth...
But let's not get ahead of ourselves, but tell it the way we heard it from dear Aunt Sonya.
Both this forest and all the oak forests adjacent to it belonged to a rich magnate family. For decades, the forest lands had been looked after by a forester, who was deservedly favored by the owner of the local lands. He had a decent farm, a stone house, a wife and eight children. Among other duties of the forester was the sale of timber. Narrow clearings were laid to the far sections, through which the material was transported to temporary warehouses for the forest. Most likely, it was according to the plan of the forester that eight roads appeared here in the spring in the places of the clearings, according to the number of his children. At the intersection where they converged, a huge oak cross was erected, on top of which a forest bird had built a nest.
Old-timers claimed that until recently, these clearings, turned into roads, even bore the names of the forester's children. That's what they said: "on Darya's road," "on Justina's road," or "not far from Lavona's road."
Today, the intersection has no cross, and there are only seven roads leading from it into the forest. Where did the eighth go? Her disappearance is connected with the French company of 1812. All the representatives of the magnate family fought on the side of Napoleon, and when his troops retreated from Moscow to these places, they went with the Frenchman to Europe. But before that, the forester was secretly summoned to the palace, which was located about twenty versts from here. As a trusted person, he was instructed to urgently take out family valuables and hide them in a safe place. The forester set off from the yard with several carts closer to midnight, and at the first rays of dawn he reached his house, changed horses and sent the wagon train into the forest thicket. It was on one of the eight roads that the richest treasure trove of the palace was safely buried.
One of the forester's sons often replaced his father in forestry during his lifetime. Most likely, on behalf of his father, he began to launch one of the roads on purpose, to let it overgrow. Well, supposedly there was no need for it. Soon the forest swallowed her up completely. And already before the Second World War, only one memory remained of this road. The cross from the intersection also disappeared. And, as Aunt Sonya added in her story, it was directed precisely to that eighth road.
But the remaining seven roads still run away from the Forest intersection to the richest areas for mushrooms and berries...