It was not so long ago, and not so recently. There lived in a village called Dev, which stands on the very shore of the Bay of Biscay, a fisherman named Thomas. He knew all the bays, breakers, reefs and capes along the coast from Algorta to Biarritz by heart, and with his eyes closed he could steer his boat wherever he wanted. True, his character was tough, but fair. He traveled a lot and was a skilled fisherman, but that year he was unlucky.
Then Thomas took a boy named Bilinch into his team. And at first everyone decided that it was he, Bilinch, who brought misfortune to the fishermen, but then they realized: it was not about Bilinch. They were the first to arrive at the fishing site, and only dead fish fell into their nets. The boats that sailed nearby were bursting with catch, and Thomas and his friends returned home empty-handed. And this went on not for a day or two, but throughout the long months of fishing. The fishermen racked their brains, wondering what had happened, how they had angered the sea, but they couldn’t come up with anything.
So, amidst grievances and misfortunes, spring has come, the last day of fishing has arrived. All the fishermen are sleeping at home, and the boy Bilinch is patching the sails. Last day. Maybe he'll get lucky, he thinks.
He worked and worked, sat down to rest, began to feel sleepy, and then two shadows appeared on the pier. They just fell from the sky, these two female shadows. Bilinch was so frightened of them that he could not move. This is what saved him, because the witches flew to the pier.
The witches began to circle around the boat. They circled and circled, and the older one said to the younger one:
- Let this boy sleep. Let him sleep and wake up only when I order him.
Bilinch closed his eyes tightly and lay there, not breathing. And then the boat rose into the air and floated across the sky. She stopped, went down to the ground, and the witches jumped out of the boat. No matter how afraid Bilinch was of them, he opened his eyes: he wanted to see where they had sailed through the air, but he saw nothing in the darkness. Only some shadows were circling, only some voices were singing in harmony with the wind.
The witches returned, the boat rose into the sky again. And when they arrived at their native village, the eldest sorceress said to the younger one:
- Say goodbye, daughter, to this boat and to the fishermen who go to sea on it, forever!
- Forever? Why, mother?
“Forever,” I told you, because you will never see them again. They should lie on the seabed that night!
“But the sea is calm, like an oil puddle, mother!”
“Even before they go around Cape Ar-Ranchaga, I will raise three huge waves. The first one will be made of milk, and they will escape from it. The second will be from people’s tears, and they will also leave her. But they cannot escape the third wave, the bloody wave.
- Why do you hate them so much, mother?
“I don’t hate them, daughter.” I am a sorceress, and my destiny is to haunt people for the rest of my days. I disturbed them all winter, I drove waves at them, threw dead fish into their nets. But my power ends tomorrow at midnight, and today I will bring the last, terrible misfortune upon them.
“You won’t spare anyone, mother?”
- No one, not a single fisherman, daughter.
– What if they don’t go to sea today?
- Shut up! They must go to sea! Everything is against them. They will go to sea and die. I will keep my witch's word. There is only one way to deceive fate, but they don’t know it and will never know it!
- What remedy is this, mother?
– Throw a harpoon into the middle of the third, bloody wave. I myself will be this wave, and then the harpoon will pierce my heart.
The sorceress said this, jumped from the boat and shouted to Bilinch:
- Wake up!
And both of them disappeared, like shadows melted at dawn, only laughter rushed along the pier and flew away into the sea.
Bilinch told Captain Thomas everything, but Thomas was a real sailor, and he did what any real sailor would do. He went out to sea. And everything happened as the witch said at night.
The ocean was quiet and calm, like an oil puddle, but suddenly - it is not clear where it came from, and whether it came in reality or in imagination - a huge wave rose in front of the barge. Tall as a house and white as snow.
“Look,” whispered Captain Thomas, “this is a wave of milk!”
The rowers trembled with fear, cold sweat appeared on Bee-Lynch’s forehead, but the captain shouted:
- Go ahead, guys! Arraun mutillac, as the Basque sailors say.
The oars hit the water, and the boat rose to the crest of the wave. The oars hit the water a second time, and the barge was already in calm water.
But then a second wave grew in front of her. It was taller than the first and sparkled like crystal. The spray burned the eyes, and it seemed as if tears were pouring down the faces of the sailors. Yes, it was a wave of human tears, and again Thomas and his friends left her, and the wave rolled away from their boat and crashed on the sand near the village of Dev, where they all came from.
“Look ahead,” the captain shouted. – Look forward, and may your hand be strong!
And again the oars hit the water, but immediately froze in the air, because a huge red wave was coming towards the boat. She covered the sky with herself. The dawn stopped smiling at the sea, and the sea stopped smiling at the dawn.
- Arraun mutillac! - the captain shouted. - Take a harpoon, Bilinch, throw it into the middle of the damned wave!
Bilinch took the harpoon, swung it and threw it into the very middle of the bloody wave, into the very heart of the night witch.
The wave groaned and parted.
The wave rushed to the shore and licked the sand, like an animal licking the ground before death.
And again the dawn smiled at the sea. And again the sea smiled at the dawn.
That day the fishermen were tired of pulling out their nets, and the fish glittered in piles at the bottom of the boat. Aodka was already scooping up water with her sides, but the catch kept falling into Thomas’s hands.
- Arraun mutillac! - the sailors rejoiced. - We won!
It’s not for nothing that in Baskonia they say that people can compete with witchcraft and emerge victorious from this fight!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru