Once upon a time there lived an old man and an old woman; they had no children. No matter what they did, no matter how they prayed to God, the old woman still did not give birth. Once an old man went into the forest to pick mushrooms; An old grandfather comes his way.
“I know,” he says, “what’s on your mind; you keep thinking about the children. Go around the village, collect an egg from each yard and plant a chook on those eggs; what will happen, you will see for yourself!
The old man returned to the village; in their village there were forty-one courtyards; So he went around all the yards, collected an egg from each and planted a hook on forty-one eggs.
Two weeks passed, the old man looked, the old woman looked, and from those testicles boys were born; forty strong, healthy ones, but one failed - frail and weak! The old man began to give the boys names; He gave to everyone, but the last one lacked a name.
“Well,” he says, “be you Zamoryshek!”
The old man and the old woman’s children are growing up, growing by leaps and bounds; They grew up and began to work, helping their father and mother: forty fellows are busy in the field, and Zamoryshek manages the house. The time has come for haymaking; the brothers mowed the grass, put up haystacks, worked for a week and returned to the village; They ate what God sent and went to bed. The old man looks and says:
- Young and green! They eat a lot, sleep soundly, but apparently they haven’t done anything!
- Look first, father! - Zamoryshek responds. The old man got ready and went to the meadows; I looked - forty stacks of sour cream.
- Well done guys! How much was mowed and swept into haystacks in one week.
The next day the old man again went to the meadows; he wanted to admire his property; arrived - and one haystack was gone! He returned home and said:
- Oh, kids! After all, one haystack was missing.
- Nothing, father! - Zamoryshek answers. - We will catch this thief; Give me a hundred rubles, and I’ll do the job. He took one hundred rubles from his father and went to the blacksmith:
“Can you forge me a chain large enough to wrap around a person from head to toe?”
- Why not chain it up!
- Look, make it stronger; If the chain holds, I pay a hundred rubles, and if it breaks, your work is lost!
The blacksmith forged an iron chain; Zamoryshek wrapped it around himself, pulled it, and it burst. The blacksmith made it twice as strong; Well, that one was good. Zamoryshek took this chain, paid a hundred rubles and went to guard the hay; sat down under a haystack and waited.
At midnight the weather rose, the sea began to stir, and a wonderful mare emerged from the depths of the sea, ran up to the first stack and began to devour the hay. Zamoryshek jumped up, wrapped an iron chain around her and sat on horseback. His mare began to moo, through the valleys, over the mountains; no, I can’t knock down a rider! She stopped and said to him:
- Well, good fellow, when you managed to sit on me, then take it and own my foals.
The mare ran up to the blue sea and neighed loudly; here the blue sea shook, and forty-one stallions came ashore; horse horse is better! Go all over the world, you won’t find these anywhere!
In the morning the old man hears neighing and stomping in the yard; what's happened? and it was his son Zamoryshek who drove a whole herd.
“Great,” he says, “brothers!” Now we all have a horse; Let's go look for brides for ourselves.
- Let's go!
Father and mother blessed them, and the brothers set off on a long journey.
They traveled around the world for a long time, but where can they find so many brides? I don’t want to get married separately so that no one will be offended; and what mother would boast that she had just forty-one daughters?
The fellows have come to distant lands; They look: there are white stone chambers on a steep mountain, surrounded by a high wall, and iron pillars placed at the gates. They counted - forty-one pillars. So they tied their heroic horses to those pillars and went to the yard. Baba Yaga meets them:
- Oh, you uninvited, uninvited ones! How dare you tie up horses without asking?
- Well, old man, why are you shouting? First, give him something to drink and feed, take him to the bathhouse, and then show him around and ask questions.
Baba Yaga fed them, gave them something to drink, took them to the bathhouse and began to ask:
- What, good fellows, are you trying to do things or are you trying to do things for the sake of it?
“We’re trying things out, grandma!”
- What do you want?
- Yes, we are looking for brides.
“I have daughters,” says Baba Yaga, she rushed into the high towers and brought out forty-one girls.
Then they got married, started drinking, partying, and celebrating weddings. In the evening Zamoryshek went to look at his horse. A good horse saw him and said in a human voice:
- Look, master! When you go to bed with your young wives, dress them in your dresses, and put on your wives’ clothes; Otherwise we'll all be lost!
Zamoryshek told this to the brothers; They dressed the young wives in their dresses, and they themselves dressed in their wives’ clothes and went to bed. Everyone fell asleep, only Zamoryshek couldn’t close his eyes. At midnight Baba Yaga shouted in a loud voice:
- Hey you, my faithful servants! Chop off the heads of uninvited guests. Faithful servants came running and cut off the violent heads of Baba Yaga’s daughters. Zamoryshek woke up his brothers and told everything that had happened; They took the severed heads, stuck them on iron spokes around the walls, then saddled their horses and rode off quickly.
In the morning Baba Yaga got up and looked out the window - all around the walls were her daughters’ heads sticking out on the knitting needles; She became terribly angry, ordered her fiery shield to be brought, galloped in pursuit and began to fire with her shield in all four directions. Where can the good guys hide? Ahead is the blue sea, behind is Baba Yaga - it burns and scorches! Everyone should have died, but Zamoryshek was smart: he didn’t forget to grab Baba Yaga’s handkerchief, waved that handkerchief in front of him - and suddenly a bridge spanned the entire blue sea; good fellows moved to the other side. Zamoryshek waved his handkerchief in the other direction - the bridge disappeared, Baba Yaga returned, and the brothers went home.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru