One night Balu-moon looked at the earth illuminated by his light to see if anyone was moving there. He chose the time when everyone on earth was sleeping to play with his rattling dogs. He called them dogs, but people on earth called them snakes - viper, black snake and tiger.
Placing his three dogs near him and looking at the ground, Balu saw about a dozen Daens crossing the river. He called out to them:
- Wait, I want you to carry my dogs across the river.
But the Daens, although they loved Bala, did not love his dogs. When Baloo let them play on the ground, they bit not only the earth's dogs, but also their owners, and they died. Therefore the Daens objected:
- No, Baloo, we are afraid, your dogs may bite us, and their bite kills.
Balu said:
“If you do what I ask, you will not die as usual, but will come back to life again.” Look at this piece of bark: I throw it into the water.” And he threw the piece of bark into the river. - You see, he has surfaced and is floating on top. This will happen to you too if you do what I ask of you. When you die, you will drown and then float to the top. If you can't stand my dogs, you stupid Daens, you'll die like this. “And he threw a stone into the river, which immediately fell to the bottom. “You will become like this stone and never rise again, womba daen!”
But the Daens repeated:
“We can’t do this, Baloo, we are very afraid of your dogs.”
“Then I’ll go down and carry them myself to prove to you how tame they are.”
And he came down - a black snake wrapped around one of his arms, a tiger snake around the other, and a poisonous viper curled up on his shoulders near his neck. So Baloo carried them across the river.
Having crossed the river, Balu picked up a large stone and threw it into the water, saying:
- Cowardly Daens! You did not want to do what I, Baloo, asked you to do, and now you have forever lost the opportunity to rise after death. You will lie where you are laid, and, like this stone under water, you will become part of the earth. If you would fulfill my request, you could die as I die, and come back to life again as often as I do. And now, during your lifetime, you will remain just daens, and when you die, you will become bones.
Baloo looked so angry, and the three snakes hissed so fiercely that the Daens rejoiced when he disappeared behind the trees.
The Daens had always been afraid of Baloo's dogs, but now they hated them and said:
“If we could get them away from Baloo, we would kill them.”
Since then, when they notice a snake, they kill it. But Balu sends more snakes, saying:
“As long as the Daens exist, there will be snakes on earth to remind the Daens that they did not fulfill my request.”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru