It was or wasn’t, but a very rich man lived in one kingdom. He had a beautiful daughter, her name was Bekhnane. When the girl was ten years old, her mother died. The father grieved greatly and remained a widower for exactly five years, but as soon as his daughter turned fifteen, he decided to get married. The city found out about this. One day Bekhnane came to school, the teacher told her:
“My child, I found out that your father wants to get married. I don't want your stepmother to torture you, so tell your father to take me. I will be your own mother.
“Okay, madam,” Behnane replied.
In the evening she talked to her father, and he agreed to marry the teacher. In the morning Bekhnane brought her good news.
They had a wedding and everyone lived happily ever after. But soon the teacher contacted Peri-shahzade, the son of Padishah Peri, who lived in the basement of their house.
One day, when her stepmother went for a walk, Bekhnane decided:
- Mother is not at home, so I’ll start cleaning.
She rolled up her sleeves and started cleaning, washing, and sweeping everywhere. While sweeping trash into a corner, the girl suddenly caught something with her dustpan. Looking closer, she noticed a small lock that closed the lid in the floor. She unlocked the lock, lifted the lid and saw a staircase that led to a wonderful garden. The girl thought and thought and went downstairs, and in the magic garden she saw a very handsome young man, who also noticed her.
“Oh, Allah, there’s a strange man here,” Bekhnane was frightened. She hurriedly went upstairs, closed the lid and locked the lock.
In the evening the stepmother returned. They ate, drank and went to bed. When everything calmed down, the stepmother went down to Peri-shahzade and, as always, asked him:
- Which is better: the month or the sun? Who is more beautiful: you or me? And Peri-shahzade exclaimed sadly:
“Neither the month, nor the sun, nor your beauty makes me happy.” Bekhnane is the most beautiful in the world!
The woman thought that Bekhnane and Peri-shahzadeh had fallen in love with each other. Then she decided to get Bekhnana out of the house, went to the old witch, told her her sorrows and asked her for advice.
“I’ll give you a copper ribbon,” answered the witch, “put it under your mattress, and when you begin to turn from side to side, it will crack loudly.” Then you complain to your husband: “Look, dear husband, what your daughter did to me, can you hear how all my bones are cracking. I ask you, my lord, drive her out...” So you will get rid of your stepdaughter.
The woman did everything exactly as the old witch told her, and, having deceived her husband, made him promise to drive Bekhnane out of the house. In the morning, the father called his daughter to him:
- Daughter, today you will go to my brother. Get ready, I'll come pick you up in an hour.
Not even an hour had passed before they set off. They walked for a long, long time, through rivers and valleys, forests and mountains. Finally we came to a mountain, which was covered with forest from top to bottom.
- Ah! - exclaimed the father. “I forgot something at home that I couldn’t do without.” Wait for me here.
The same dear father returned home. Bekhnane waited for him until the evening, but he never returned. When night came, she climbed a tree and sat there until the morning. At dawn she began to think about what she should do now. I thought and thought and decided to look for the way home, but to my misfortune I went in the other direction. Having wandered until noon, she finally saw a house. She timidly knocked on the door, and a decrepit old man appeared on the threshold.
Bekhnane told him about her trouble. While she was talking, the old man admired her: after all, she was beautiful, tall, slender, with long golden braids, with eyes as black as cherries, and her face was innocent, like a child’s. The old man brought the girl into the house and said:
“Forty robbers live in this house.” If they don’t receive you in the evening, then tomorrow morning we will think about what to do next.
Evening came, the forty robbers returned home and sat down at the table.
- Tell me, my sons, if I had a daughter whom I lost, and after a long search she found me, then who would she become to you? - asked the old man.
The forty robbers answered in one voice:
“Your daughter will become our sister in both this world and the next.” Ataman added:
“But if your daughter is beautiful, then I don’t want to be her brother.” The old man followed the girl and brought her into the room. The chieftain looked at Bekhnane and saw that Allah had endowed her with such beauty, which has no equal in the world. He was so surprised and delighted that he even closed his eyes.
“This girl is not related to me,” he repeated, “but she will now be my daughter.”
That's how much the ataman fell in love with the girl!
Let's leave Bekhnana to live happily with the robbers, and let's return to the girl's old house...
As soon as the father kicked out Bekhnane, the stepmother immediately recovered and went to Peri-shahzade and asked him:
- Which is better: the month or the sun? Who is more beautiful: you or me?
“Neither the month, nor the sun, nor my beauty, nor your charm pleases me.” Bekhnane is the most beautiful in the world! - answered Peri-shahzade.
“You fool,” the evil woman became furious, “I drove your Bekhnane into the mountains.” There she was torn to pieces by wolves, and birds pecked at her there.
But Peri-shahzadeh told her where Bekhnane lived and how happy she was, - after all, he was the son of the padishah of Peri and knew everything. Then the woman again went to the witch and asked to give her a magic ring. The sorceress fulfilled her request. Taking the ring, the teacher went to the house that Peri-shahzade had told her about.
- Oh, my daughter, my beloved daughter, your treacherous father abandoned you in the mountains, I found you by force! Come out, show yourself to me at least once, I’m worried: has your beauty faded from grief?
The girl replied that she could not see her stepmother, because the door was locked and could not be opened.
- Oh, what a disaster, it’s okay, at least stick your finger in. I will give you a ring as a souvenir!
The girl stuck her finger through, and before the stepmother had time to put the ring on it, Bekhnane fell to the ground and died. The stepmother, losing her mind with joy, returned home.
In the evening the chieftain came and saw that the girl was lying on the floor as if dead. He picked her up, put her to bed, called her several times and, making sure that she was not waking up, began to cry bitterly. His comrades returned and, having learned that the girl had died, decided to bury her. They made a coffin, dressed Bekhnane in beautiful clothes, put her in a coffin and carried it to the top of the mountain; they left it there. The chieftain climbed the mountain every day and mourned Bekhnane.
One day, the son of the Sultan of this country was walking with his teacher and saw a flickering light on the mountain.
“Lala,” he shouted, “let’s go and have a look!”
[Lala is an uncle, a teacher of children in rich and noble families.]
They climbed the mountain and opened the coffin. The young man, amazed by the beauty of Bekhnane, decided to move the coffin with her body to his palace. Together they lifted him and carried him, and in the palace they put the girl to bed.
- If you are so beautiful dead, then what were you like alive? - exclaimed the Sultan’s son, spending whole days near Bekhnane in hunger and cold.
They told the Sultan about this, he became angry and ordered the corpse to be washed and buried in the ground. But while washing, the ring was removed from the girl’s finger, and she instantly came to life. Little by little she came to her senses and told everything that had happened to her.
Soon the Sultan's son married Bekhnan, and a year later she became a mother. But let the child grow up to the joy of his parents, and you and I will return to the stepmother’s house.
Once again the teacher pestered Peri-shahzade:
- Which is better: the month or the sun? Who is more beautiful: me or you?
“Neither the month, nor the sun, nor my beauty, nor your charm pleases me.” Bekhnane is the most beautiful in the world!
- What are you saying? — the angry woman was indignant. - After all, she died.
Then Peri-shahzade told her that the Sultan’s son had married Bekhnan. The teacher heard this, went to the witch for the third time and asked her to make a magic needle. Having received a needle from the witch, the teacher went to the palace and asked the servants:
“Leave me and my daughter alone, we’ll talk a little.”
The servants came out, and the stepmother, caressing Bekhnane, quietly stuck a magic needle into her. Bekhnane immediately turned into a bird and flew away. And the woman put on her dress, called the servants and began shouting at them:
“You left me alone and look what happened to me!” My husband, the Sultan's son, will come and beat you with sticks.
The Sultan's son, returning home in the evening and seeing how his wife had turned ugly and faded, became very angry and scolded the servants. The doctors were called. The woman told them that she would reward them generously if only they would cure her. Doctors came every morning, but none of them intended to treat the patient. A few days later, the head gardener, who was sleeping in the Sultan’s garden, heard this, saw this, and was very surprised. A bird sat on one of the three branches of the rose bush and called to the gardener:
- A gardener, a gardener!
-What do you want? - answered the gardener, looking in surprise at the incredibly beautiful bird.
— Is the big shahzade sleeping?
- Yes, he’s sleeping.
- Is little Shahzade sleeping too?
“And he’s sleeping too.”
“Let them sleep peacefully, let the roses bloom around them, and let the branches on which I sit dry,” said the wondrous bird and flew away. And the branch on which she was sitting immediately withered.
The gardener told all this to the Sultan's son... The next morning the bird flew again, and the branches it touched dried up again. The Sultan's son smeared the roses with resin and hid in the gardener's hut. As usual, a bird flew in and said:
“Let the Sultan’s son sleep, let the roses bloom around him, and let the branches on which I sit dry.”
She flapped her wings, trying to fly away, but her paws got stuck in the resin. Shahzade ran up, took the bird from the branch, put it in a cage and began to look after it.
Having learned about this, the insidious stepmother said to the doctors:
- Ask my husband to slaughter the bird that lives with him, and let me eat its heart. I'll give you a handful of gold.
The doctors, wanting to get gold, began to beg the Shahzade, and he agreed. But before giving the bird to the doctors, he took it in his hands to caress it for the last time, and felt something hard on its head. He parted the feathers and saw a needle. Without thinking twice, he pulled out the needle - and Bekhnane immediately appeared in front of him, as beautiful as before.
“My dear husband, this vile stepmother-witch did all this.” She got me into trouble many times. Punish her,” Bekhnane asked and began to cry. But instead of tears, pearls fell from her eyes.
- Oh, vile woman, now I will send you to hell! - the prince was angry.
Having said this, he went to the teacher’s room, and Bekhnane followed him.
- Well, witch, your time has come! What do you want: dull knives in the side or a trip on a filthy mule?
“Knives are for my enemies, but give me a mule,” the woman answered.
The executioners cut the vile stepmother into forty pieces, loaded them onto forty mules and sent them off in different directions. And the prince and Bekhnane continued to live in peace and harmony.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru