There lived a little boy. He had neither father nor mother. Only two sisters lived with him. One day a boy was swinging on a swing and singing:
- Who will come to rock me? If there was a father, he would rock me, if there was a mother, she would rock me.
He sees an old man coming. He heard the song and said to the boy:
- Let me rock you.
He shook the boy, and he then said to him:
- Well, now you go to our yurt, my sisters are cooking very tasty meat today.
The old man went to eat meat. I ate my fill and fell asleep. The girls decided to play a joke on him. They glued deer hair dyed red to the old man's eyelashes.
The old man got enough sleep and, suspecting nothing, wandered home.
-In the evening, when he and the old woman were drinking tea, the old man looked at the smoke hole and said:
- Wife, look, our yurt is on fire! The old woman ran out of fear into the street and began throwing snow on the yurt. And then I realized that there was no fire. She returned to the yurt and said to the old man:
- Why are you deceiving me, old man? Nothing is burning!
- No, it’s on fire, take a good look up!
- What's wrong with you, old man? Look at me! The old man looked at the old woman, and she saw red wool glued to his eyelashes. - Why did you glue wool to your eyelashes? - she asked her husband.
“I don’t know anything, I didn’t glue anything,” the old man answers.
“Who glued this wool to you?” the old woman continued to ask. “Where were you today?”
“This afternoon I walked, and then ate delicious meat and rested with some women. Now I’ll go and scold them. They probably did that.
The old man wandered towards the girls. I approached their yurt, and next to it the boy was again swinging on a swing and singing again.
“Let me rock you,” says the old man.
- No, you better go to my sisters and eat delicious meat from them.
An old man entered the yurt. The girls served the old man delicious food. The old man ate and fell asleep again. Then the girls painted the sleeping old man’s face with charcoal and red paint.
“The old man got enough sleep and, suspecting nothing, went to his home.
On the way, he decided to get drunk in the river. He approached the river, bent down and saw some strange face. It seemed to the old man that there was a woman in the water.
- Woman, why do you live in the water? - asked the old man. There was no response. “What a proud woman,” the old man thought. “She doesn’t even want to talk to me.”
Then the old man turned to the woman again:
- Proud woman, come to me!
Silence again. “Apparently, she doesn’t want to come to me because I have an old woman,” the old man thought and said:
- Woman, I will kill my wife and come to you. I will bring all our property with me.
The old man came home. Killed his wife. I collected my things and dragged them to the river. Again he bent down to the river and again saw the woman.
“Proud woman, I killed my old woman and brought you things,” says the old man. - What will you do with my things? Do you need them?
It seemed to the old man that the woman was nodding her head.
Then he said:
- Now I will throw things into the water, and you grab them.
The old man threw a blanket into the water. It did not drown, but floated down the river. And the old man thought: “What a rich woman! Why does she need my blanket?”
Then he threw down the skin scraper. The scraper immediately sank to the bottom. And the old man thought: “Well, of course, a rich woman won’t even take a scraper! How will she tan the skins then?”
The old man threw all his things into the water, and then said:
- Dear woman, now I’ll come to you myself! The old man fell into the water upside down and drowned.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru