My husband' s mother related that her husband had gone, as people would, to earn some money pulling boats in some faraway place somewhere in Russia. He said they were all rowing on a lake, when one of the workers there said, "Well, men, would you like some butter?"
Those men said, "Where are you going to take butter from?
Yes, we do want some."
They all started saying, "We want some! We want some!"
On the other side of the lake cows were standing in the water. (When it gets warm, animals wade into the water.) The man began to stir the water in that lake with an oar. He kept stirring with a circular movement. The cows started bleating in horrible voices. Thus he churned a piece of butter weighing about two kilos. He picked it up on the oar and said, "Help yourselves!"
"We were so terrified," my father-in-law said, " that we never ate that butter. And the people who were present wondered whether it had even really happened." But my father-in-law himself was there and he told his wife about it. And then his wife told me.

(Recorded in 1968)