Bychy-Bychekhan and Lyaglyar-Bergese lived together, but there was no friendship between them. They also obtained food in different ways: Bychy-Bychekhan caught fish, and Lyaglyar-Bergese hunted squirrels.
Once Bychy-Bychekhan went to set up a fish catcher (a tool for catching fish from rods woven in the shape of a cone) and returned home empty-handed: what kind of catch could there be if the traps were just set! And Lyaglyar-Bergese caught two squirrels that day. He came, cooked himself lunch from squirrel carcasses, ate one, and left the other for the morning. The hungry Bychy-Bychekhan's mouth watered at the sight of food.
“A friend, Lyaglyar-Bergese, would share his catch,” he says to his comrade. “Tomorrow I catch fish, and I’ll share the same.”
“I can’t,” Lyaglyar-Bergese refused. “I need to eat properly in the morning, otherwise I won’t have the strength to walk through the forest all day.”
So Bychy-Bychekhan had to go to bed hungry.
The prey hunter Lyaglyar-Bergese sleeps soundly and gets up early. A hungry neighbor sleeps poorly and gets up late. When he got up, Lyaglyar-Bergese had already managed to eat the second squirrel carcass and go hunting.
Bychy-Bychekhan also wandered off to inspect his peaks. He came across two hefty burbots. He goes home joyful.
Lyaglyar-Bergese soon returns from hunting. He had no luck that day and returned empty-handed.
Bychy-Bychekhan cooks lunch from burbot. He cooked it and sat down to eat.
“Friend, Bychy-Bychekhan, would give me some fish too,” asks Lyaglyar-Bergese.
“Did you give me meat yesterday?” the comrade answers. “If you had shared it yesterday, then I would have shared the fish with you.”
Lyaglyar-Bergese regrets that yesterday he was greedy, but now, no matter what, you can’t improve the matter. You have to go to bed on an empty stomach.
The well-fed Bychy-Bychekhan gets up early, the hungry Lyaglyar-Bergese - much later. Everyone goes their own way: one goes to the river, the other to the forest.
This time Bychy-Bychekhan takes several burbots out of the tops at once. Out of joy, he began to jump through the hole. He jumped and jumped, slipped, fell straight into the hole and drowned.
Lyaglyar-Verghese was also lucky on the hunt that day: he killed two squirrels. But it seemed to him that this was not enough, he chased after the third. He caught up, shot at the squirrel when it sat down on a larch branch, and took the branch and broke it off - right on his head. The hunter fell and never got up again.
This is how two people who lived together died on the same day.
Old people say that if they not only called each other “friend,” but actually were friends, nothing bad would have happened to them and they would have lived and lived. Maybe they would have survived to this day.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru