The peacock birds were chosen as zaisans. The peacock spread his shining tail wide. There are gold tassels on the cap. A real zaisan! The birds began to look for his wife. The peacock refused the partridge, the nutcracker, the tit, all of them: the tit is small, the partridge flies poorly, the nutcracker is thin, the cuckoo crows sadly... He only liked the magpie: she is cheerful.
After the wedding, the peacock plucked dark green feathers from his chest and placed them on the magpie's back and tail. The magpie was putting on airs. Doesn't do anything. He sits and sorts out new feathers. It flies and shines with new feathers. In the morning the light will jump out of the nest, and she will be gone until nightfall.
-Where are you going, magpie? - the peacock asks her.
-Wherever I want.
- Where have you been, magpie?
- Where I wanted.
The peacock got angry. It was still dark, while the magpie was sleeping, he quietly flew off the nest and hid behind an acacia bush. In the morning, the magpie opened its fur coat covered with black silk and flew, sparkling with its white trim.
Peacock is behind her. They flew to the man's home. The magpie immediately went down to the trash heap and began pecking at the garbage.
- Aren’t you ashamed?! - the peacock shouted. - Fly home now!
And the magpie doesn’t even turn around: it pecks and pecks. A peacock flew up to her and hit her on the head with its beak.
“Anyway,” he says, “you’re not my wife!” Since then, rummaging through the garbage, the magpie keeps turning its head and teaching its children:
“Peck once, but look back five times, otherwise the peacock will fly in and hit you on the head.”
The magpie children remember this well. They peck once and turn around. They’ll peck and they’ll look around.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru