In the old days, there lived an old man who was a span tall and had a beard of two spans. The only property he had was a poor ram, a mangy dog and a wicker cart.
One day an old man went traveling. The cart creaks: creaks, creaks; The little ram calls out: “Bon-bon”; The dog runs behind: “Woof-woof.” The old man rode up the hill, and there the snake lay. The old man grabbed the snake - after all, prey! — he threw it into the cart and drove on.
He met an ail on the way. From there he grabbed a sharp peg, an old log, seven bird eggs, and a copper mallet and drove on. The cart creaks: creaks, creaks; the little ram calls out: “Bon-bon”; The dog runs behind: “Woof-woof.”
Along the way, the old man met the home of a black mongoose. The monster himself was not at home, and the old man boldly entered his home, ate, drank his fill, and then hid the log in the bed, the snake in a wineskin with kumiss, bird eggs in the ashes, a sharp peg behind the beam, and a copper mallet under the ceiling. And he hid himself, it wasn’t difficult to do: the old man is only one inch tall!
At dusk the black mangus returned home. I wanted to put the whip behind the beam, but it pricked me on a peg. He wanted to sit on the bed, but he hit the block painfully, he wanted to drink kumiss, but the snake bit him hard, he wanted to light a fire in the hearth, he began to stir up the ashes - the eggs broke, his eyes were all covered. The mangus got scared. “Well,” he thinks, “otherwise the end has come for me.” He wanted to crawl out of the yurt and take one last breath of fresh air, but a copper mallet fell on his head and beat him to death.
The old man crawled out of his hiding place, and he was filled with such laughter! Just think! He is so small, only a span in height, but he defeated a formidable and strong mongoose!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru