Once upon a time there were two hedgehogs. They lived in the forest in a hollow tree.
One day a woodcutter went into the forest and cut down this hollow tree. I brought it home and cut it into large pieces to make it easier to drown. The woodcutter's wife took some logs and lit the stove with them. She wanted to cook food for her hungry husband.
The hedgehogs felt the heat and turned to God with a prayer:
- Oh God, save us, and we will give thanks to you with ah-sarfambals from the lungs of a deer and honey on the chest of a bear!
The hedgehogs stank.
- What kind of stinking wood is this! - said the hostess and threw the wood out of the stove.
The hedgehogs were afraid to run away during the day, they hid, and at night they got out of the village. By morning they were already in the steppe and there they agreed that one of them would settle on one mound, and the second on another, which was at a considerable distance from the first.
So they did. Each one hid on his own mound. Meanwhile, a deer approached the first hedgehog. The hedgehog talked to him and offered him a bet:
“Come on,” he said, “let’s run a race with this condition: whoever of us reaches the next mound first can kill the lagging behind and eat him.”
And he pointed out to the deer the mound on which the second hedgehog was sitting.
The deer thought to himself: “How can this hedgehog overtake me?” And he agreed. They stood in a row and said: “Let’s run!” started to run. The deer rushed forward with all its might, and the hedgehog dashed into the weeds and hid there.
The deer reached the mound, and the hedgehog said to him:
- Where have you gone? I'm already waiting for you! The deer was very surprised:
- Let's run again! - he asks the hedgehog.
“Okay,” he says, “let’s run back to our mound!”
The deer started to run, and the second hedgehog also ducked into the weeds and hid. The deer ran as fast as he could, but when he reached the mound, he was surprised to see a hedgehog there.
“Why are you so late,” the hedgehog tells him, “I’ve been here for a long time!”
So the deer lost the bet, and the hedgehogs killed him. They hid the deer carcass and went into the forest in search of honey. They found honey in a high hollow, pulled out honeycombs filled with honey and sat down on the tree.
Meanwhile, a bear passed by these places. Seeing him, the hedgehogs began to gobble up the honey.
- Give me honey too! - asked the bear.
And they answered him:
- Get it out of there yourself!
- Show me where the honey is! - the bear tells them.
- You see, on the tree, the bees flock there. The bear climbed the tree, took out several honeycombs with honey and asked the hedgehogs:
- How can I get them down?
- Lie down and put the honeycomb on your chest - this way you can bring it to the ground.
The bear listened to the hedgehogs' advice. He lay down on his back, fell from the top of a tree and fell to his death.
The hedgehogs killed the bear; They also brought in a deer carcass. They made akhsarfambals from deer lungs, placed the honey on the bear’s chest and prayed to God:
- Oh my God, thank you! You saved us, and we are fulfilling our word to you: we give thanks with honey on the chest of a bear and akhsarfambals from deer lungs!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru