Once upon a time there lived a blacksmith. He lived well with his wife and son. The blacksmith's anvil rang from morning to evening, and the little son kept hovering around his father - learning the craft. He even forged himself an iron knife. But soon the blacksmith’s well-being came to an end. His wife fell ill and died. The blacksmith married someone else, and they had many children. The stepmother loved her children, but she looked askance at her stepson and said to her husband every day:
- Drive him out of the house before he grows up. He grows up, starts working in a forge, and takes away his brothers’ bread: you see what skillful hands he has.
The whole village will order sickles and axes for him, and the brothers will have to starve.
-Where am I going to put it? - asks the blacksmith.
- Take him to a dense forest where there are wolves, tie him to a tree and leave him there.
- Well, I won’t do that! - answered the blacksmith.
But the blacksmith’s wife did not calm down. She called his assistant in secret from her husband and persuaded him to take the boy into the forest.
“I’ll reward you generously if you get rid of him!” - she said.
He took the boy into the dense forest, pulled out a rope from his bag and began to unwind it. The boy looked at him, looked and asked:
- Why do you need that rope, uncle? My father’s assistant confessed everything to him.
“If you are a kind person and have pity in your heart,” said the blacksmith’s son, “spare me!” Don't tie it up, but leave it in the forest. And I'll take care of myself.
The man felt ashamed, and he did as the boy asked. He threw the rope into the ravine and left the orphan in the forest. The boy looked back and walked through the thicket. I got lost all day, came across a goat path and followed it.
“I’ll go where the path takes me,” he decided.
I walked until the evening. And when the sun set, I reached a beautiful palace. “Maybe the people who live here will shelter me,” he thought and entered the yard.
But there was not a soul there. The boy walked around everything, looked into all the corners, and finally saw in the depths of the yard an old blind snake sitting in a chair in front of a large cauldron. A lame donkey was pacing lazily. The boy tiptoed closer to the cauldron and looked into it. It was empty. But then, a little later, bells were heard, and a herd of goats without a shepherd entered the yard. The blind snake got up, took a bucket, began to milk them, and poured the milk from the bucket into the cauldron. He milked all the goats, bent over the cauldron and began to drink greedily. The boy was dying of hunger. He looked and looked, and bent over the cauldron and drank to his heart's content. But he didn’t say anything to the blind snake, because he was afraid that he might eat him.
Five or six days passed. Every evening the snake went to bed without eating its fill, because the boy drank milk and the snake did not have enough.
“What a wonder,” thought the blind snake, “why I don’t have enough milk, is someone drinking it secretly from me? We need to find out what’s going on here.”
The next day, when the snake began to drink milk, it suddenly stretched out its paws and began to rummage around the cauldron. The boy didn’t even have time to look back when the snake grabbed him.
The boy got scared, cried and began to ask:
- Let me go, uncle snake! I beg you! If you leave me alive, I will work for you.
“Okay,” said the snake, “it’s good for me.” I have grown old, and there is no one to milk my goats.
Now you will milk them and pour the milk into the cauldron. Once you get this job done, you'll sweep the yard. Drink as much milk as you want. You need to eat well, and then I will eat you. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the opportunity to feast on human flesh: since I went blind. And in my youth I ate as many people as there are grains of sand at the bottom of the sea.
- How did you get here? - asked the boy.
“I am the last snake, a descendant of giant monsters that inhabited the earth a long time ago. I'm very old. All my teeth fell out.
The snake released the boy, and he began to work for him. And since he was hardworking and agile, the owner of the empty palace soon got used to him and one day said:
- I'm pleased with you. Until now you have only swept the yard. Now I will give you the keys - sweep the whole palace. You can open all the rooms, but don’t enter the two very last ones. Otherwise it will be bad for you!
The boy took the keys, unlocked all the rooms, swept them thoroughly and finally reached the last two. He stopped in front of the doors and said to himself: “Since the snake does not allow me to open them, it means that some miracle is hidden behind them. Let me see!” And opened the forbidden doors.
He entered the first room and saw a wonderful fountain flowing there: instead of water, pure gold was pouring out of it. The boy put his hands under the stream, and they immediately turned yellow.
“I see such a fountain,” he thought, “for the first time in my life!”
He entered the second room and saw a marvelous black horse standing in it, and in the corner a clay bowl was burning. As soon as the boy opened the door, the horse raised its head and said in a human voice:
“Now get on me and we’ll rush away, I have no life here!”
Then the horse's tail, which was the serpent's faithful servant, spoke:
- Just try to run away, I’ll tell the snake, and it will eat you.
- Cut off my tail! - the horse ordered. The boy cut off the tail with his knife - only one hair remained from it - jumped on the horse, and he said to him:
“Take a clay bowl with a fire burning in it, take my comb, and let’s rush through the forest!”
The boy did everything the horse told him. But as soon as they left the palace, the uncut hair from the horse's tail began to scream and squeal - to the whole forest. The snake heard a noise. At the same moment he jumped up, climbed onto his lame donkey and chased the fugitives. Although the donkey was lame, he rushed like the wind. Beyond the forest, where an open field already began, the snake began to catch up with the black horse. The boy trembled with fear.
- Drop the comb! - the horse shouted. The boy turned around, threw the comb, and at that same moment a whole forest of combs grew up in front of the snake and his donkey, with their teeth pointing upward. While the donkey was making his way through this jagged forest, he injured his other leg, but still he puffed, snorted and again began to catch up with the black horse. Then the horse said to the boy:
- Throw the bowl with butter!
The boy threw the bowl, and at the same moment a deep oil lake spilled out behind him. The donkey threw himself into the lake and drowned. The blind man-eating snake also drowned.
And the boy returned back to the serpent’s palace, settled in it, set up a forge for himself there and began to forge sickles, hoes, axes, and plowshares. And since the golden fountain never dried up, he washed his hands with golden water every day. Therefore, everyone began to call him: “Blacksmith - golden hands!”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru