They say there lived a Big Old Man in the sky. He was a great spirit, he ruled the whole world - the stars in the sky, and the fish in the rivers, and the animals in the taiga, and the birds in the air, and people on the earth. And his name was Yes.
Yosya had a chum - all like glass, and through that chum Yosya saw everything that was happening in the world.
And Yesya had a wife - Khosyadam, a small thin woman. She keeps grumbling and swearing: this is not right, and this is not for her. Somehow Yes and Khosyadam were arguing, they were arguing - Yes became angry and threw her from heaven to earth, and with her her servants.
Hosyadam became the head of all evil spirits on earth. She will send one of her servants to the people - trouble will certainly happen to them. And when she comes, it’s even worse: people begin to die, pestilence attacks the deer, the animals flee into the taiga, the fish disappear in the rivers.
Khosyadam lived with her servants at the foot of the Great Mountains, on Big Water, on seventy-seven islands.
So Khosyad harmed people until the great hero Alba was born.
When he grew up, he began to sail on the water in a birch bark boat, catch fish with a spear, and hunt elk and deer at crossings.
So one day Alba says: “How long will the evil Khosyadam destroy people?” I’ll go look for her, I’ll fight with her!
And Alba sailed on his birch bark boat to the foot of the Great Mountains, to the seventy-seven islands.
He drove up to the islands and went ashore. Then six terrible monsters, servants of the Khosyadam, rushed at him from the dense thickets. But Alba was not afraid, he waved his palm tree - and only the whistle started: the heads of the monsters flew off the shoulders.
Alba defeated the servants of Khosydam and thinks: “There were six of them. Where is Khosydam herself? She should be the seventh. We need to find her." And Alba sees something moving in the sand near the shore. Alba began to dig in this place and saw a small burbot. He curled up into a ball and looked at Alba so pitifully. Alba took pity on the burbot, threw it into the boat to put it into the water, where there was more algae, and sailed away.
Alba didn’t know that it was Khosyadam herself who turned into a burbot.
Suddenly Alba hears wonderful music on the mountain. Some handsome man is playing a seven-string kata, and it seems that the taiga, the mountains, and the waves are singing. Alba also didn’t know that it was Chuutyp, the beloved son of Khosyadam, who was playing.
Alba listened to the wonderful music and did not notice how the burbot jumped into the water and disappeared into the mud. I only heard a voice from the mud:
- You, Alba, beat my servants, and thank you - you spared me!
Oh, and Alba was angry that Khosyadam missed out! He jumped up in the boat, raised his iron bow and sent a well-aimed arrow at Chuutyp’s head. The head of Hosyadam’s son shattered into seven pieces, and the rocks were stained with his blood. Since then, the Osinovsky rapids on the Yenisei have been red.
Alba grabbed the spear and struck it into the water, in the place where he heard the voice of Khosiadam, but she dodged the fatal blow and rushed to the north. And she sent her stone deer across the Big Water to block Alba’s path. But the stone could not withstand Alba’s blows: he killed the Khosyadam with her, and they remained lying in the water. Only their backs stick out from the water - they have become rocks.
Then Hosyadam dived to the foot of the Great Mountains, began to dig the ground and leave Alba. And he chases after her, crushing rocks with a palm tree.
So Hosyadam fled underground to the north, and Alba crushed rocks. And the water flowed along the riverbed and became the Yenisei River.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru