An old man lives with an old woman. They themselves are thin, and their child is small. He plays everything alone. Where can he find a comrade? He will place a log like a deer and tie the antlers to it. And he will make a hare from talnik.
One day a child says to his father:
- Make me, father, a bow and two arrows. I will play with arrows.
The old man answers him: “You can go get the arrows, but then you won’t find the plague.”
- I do have eyes. Why am I going to lose it?
“No,” says the father, “it’s too early for you to shoot arrows.” The boy asked for three days. On the third day his father made him a bow and two arrows. Mother says:
- Why are you keeping a child in the tent? Let him play outside. That's why you made him a bow.
The boy began to play on the street. If he puts down a stick, he will hit the target. If he puts another one, it will hit again. He plays from morning to evening, only comes to bed at night. Where can he find a comrade?
This old man's tent stood on the bank of a river overgrown with willow grass. The boy walked along the river. He sets a target, shoots and goes again. He walked and walked and saw a yar near the river. I reached it and began to think: where is it located, is it close or far from the plague. A large black niohi bird, looking like an eagle, looks and stands.
The boy came closer to the niohi bird and began to cry. He forgot where he is, doesn’t know where the tent is.
Niohi says here:
- Why are you crying? Come here. I can speak in a human voice.
The boy came up and saw that Nyoha had a big head and huge wings.
- Do you have a father, baby? - asks the bird.
- Yes, I have.
- And your mother?
- And there is a mother.
- Why did you come here?
– I came here by chance. I walked and walked and saw you. When I saw you, I got scared.
“But you don’t know me, do you?”
- No.
- It's good that you came here. Will you help me?
- What?
“I have a broken bone in one wing.”
- What should I do?
- After all, your father is a blacksmith. He knows how to forge iron. Tell him to make me a bone while you bandage my wing.
The boy answers:
- Okay, I'll tell you.
“Tell him: if he fixes my wing, he will receive a big ransom for it.” I don't have the strength to get up from here. I fell on the filthy ground.
The boy went to his father. I've reached the point of chaos.
“I found,” he says, “a niohi bird.” She asks you to forge a bone for her. Father answers:
- I can’t.
- Although you don’t know how, you have to do it.
- How? I can't.
- We need to do it in three days. – I’m telling the truth – I don’t know how. Here the old woman intervened:
- How can you not? Got old, or what? After all, you forge any iron. And the bird needs to make a bone. On the fourth day the old man says:
- Well, wait. Go to bed. I will forge.
The old woman lay down with the child. The old man went to the camp. Far from the plague, I found iron in a pit. I made a bone overnight - like a goose wing.
In the morning, when the son and mother got up, the old man came and said:
- Well, son, go get it! I made a wing. The boy went. Where the bird was, there it remains. Niohi saw him and spoke: “Thank God that you came.” Did you bring it?
“I brought it,” says the boy.
“Now sit here for six days.” I will send payment to your father with you.
The bird flew into the sky like an airplane. She is not visible. The boy waited for five days, on the sixth he went to the place where he first saw the bird; A woman sits here and looks at the water.
- Hey guy, come here! - says the woman. The boy walked towards her.
One of her eyes is normal, and the other is iron. One arm and leg are normal, the others are iron.
He walks closer to her, but she is not visible. A thin tree, like an amulet, stands. The boy says:
“I thought he was a man.” What are you kidding? Don't play! After all, Niohi promised to send payment. If this is really my payment, then don't joke.
He began to approach closer and saw only a black stone.
-What are you playing again? - says the boy. - I'm afraid.
He began to approach again and saw that there was nothing iron, but a real woman was standing.
- You are my husband! - she exclaimed. “My father sent me, nyohi.” You made his hand. If it weren't for you, my land would have perished. My deer will come soon. I have a lot of argish. We'll sleep together.
This guy says:
- I have a filthy little girl. How are we going to sleep?
“Nothing,” he says. - I'm not afraid.
We went to bed. At night the guy thought:
“My wife was in three forms - stone, wood, iron, then she became a woman again.”
The guy woke up and saw that the deer had arrived. He looks at twelve sledges standing: ten large ones, one for women, one extra.
“Mine, apparently,” says the guy.
On some sleds there are plague poles, on the other - nukes. And there are extra deer. Fifteen reindeer follow the large argish sledges.
“I,” says the guy, “thought that these were not real deer.” No, real ones.
A thin important woman is tied to a sled with crazy poles. Behind her are fifteen small deer. Wife says:
- Well, let's go! Where is your chum? Here's the sledge, take it. My father sent this to you. He sat down on the sledge and said:
– I don’t know how they catch deer.
They barely caught the deer and the guy and his wife went to their tent. They began to drive up to the tent, and the wife said to the guy:
- Stop.
They let the reindeer in, made a chum, and didn’t go to the guy’s father all day. And from the plague it seemed like three became. One looks like stone. He disappeared, and it seemed that the fire was burning, then the plague became real again. Wife says:
- You have a father. You go to him. Only there are no guests there for a long time.
The guy came home and found out that his father had died, and his mother had also died.
Then the wife began to speak:
- Let's go nomadic. We won’t break that plague. Time passed, and the woman began to have children. Children grow into women, and they again have children. That woman had twenty-five children. And from this one man came various nations. Thus, they say, many tribes came into the world from these twenty-five children. These tribes dispersed across the tundra in different directions.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru