Long ago, there lived an old man and an old woman. They had an only son, his name was Edikan. The guy grew up healthy and strong, and when he grew up, he was taken into the army. Previously, military service was long: twenty, or even twenty-five years. Edikan served and served - he didn’t like the strict soldier’s life, so he up and left the service.
He walks for a day, walks for two, and meets a plowman in the field. Edikan, tired and empty in his belly, stopped near the plowman and said:
- God help you, grandfather!
“Thank you,” the old man answered him. “Sit down with me, relax.”
Edikan sat down next to the plowman, who placed in front of him a jug of fresh uiran - buttermilk - and gave him a handful of bread.
- Please, take a bite.
There was no need to ask Edikan a second time. He ate, thanked the old man, and asked which road was closest to the village. The old man showed it to him.
At the edge of the village there was a small hut. Edikan went up to that hut and knocked on the window:
—Won't you let me spend the night?
The window opened and the old woman leaned out of it:
- My hut, as you can see, is small, but we’ll fit in somehow, come in and spend the night.
Edikan entered the hut.
“Salaam-alikyum, grandmother!” he bowed to the old woman.
“Alikyum-salaam, soldier,” answered the old woman. She gave Edikan tea and made his bed. The next morning Edikan got up, brought water to the old woman, chopped firewood, and repaired the roof that had been torn off by the wind. The old woman did not know how to thank Edikan for such help. She gave him the last half-loaf of bread and a small ball of wool for the journey.
Edikan went further. A day goes by, two days go by - the bread runs out, only one ball remains. “Why did the old woman give it to me?” he thinks. “If there was bread, that would be a different matter.” At least you can eat it...” He took it and threw the ball up.
At that very moment - Edikan did not even have time to blink an eye - a dapple-gray argamak horse appeared in front of him.
“Why do you need me, Edikan?” asks the horse. Edikan was so surprised that he was not able to answer right away:
— I’m going home from work. I want to get to my native places as soon as possible, but they are still far away. Can you give me a ride?
“Sit on me and hold on to my mane tightly,” said the horse.
Edikan jumped onto his horse and grabbed the mane tightly. The horse struck with its hooves - sparks flew, the earth began to hum, and the wind whistled in our ears. Before Edikan had time to come to his senses, he was already in his native village.
“Well, Edikan, I brought you where I wanted,” said the horse. “When you need me, throw a ball of wool up, and I will appear before you like a leaf before the grass.” And now goodbye.
The horse disappeared as if it had never existed. And Edikan went home. The father and mother no longer hoped to see their son, and when they saw them, they shed tears of joy.
“We thought: we’ll die, and there will be no one to bury,” they said, hugging their son.
When he joined the army, Edikan left a bride in the village - a beautiful girl named Selime. They loved each other, and Selime promised to wait for Edikan. The girl's parents thought differently:
They decided to marry their daughter off against her will to another guy. Selime drowned herself out of grief and despair. Edikan, having learned about this, was bitterly saddened. But don’t cry, you can’t resurrect the dead with tears.
How long or how long has Edikan lived with his parents? The king announces to his entire kingdom-state that his daughter has disappeared, and whoever finds her will give her in marriage, and in addition promises half of the kingdom.
Hearing this news, Edikan asked his parents for a blessing and went to the king to say that he would try to find the princess. And after leaving the palace - come what may! - He threw the ball up and began to wait. We didn't have to wait long. How a dappled gray argamak appeared from under the ground in front of him.
“Tell me, why did you need me, Edikan?” asked the horse.
Edikan explained: so and so, the king’s daughter disappeared, I volunteered to find her.
- Sit on me, hold on to my mane tightly. Edikan jumped onto his horse and grabbed his mane. The horse struck with its hooves - the earth began to hum, sparks flew in different directions, and the wind whistled in our ears.
Whether for a long time or for a short time they rushed headlong - they stopped in the middle of the deep sea. The horse remained at the top, and Edikan began to descend into the underwater kingdom. Here is the seabed. He walked along the bottom and saw a cast-iron door in front of him. I grabbed the handle and - come what may! - pulled her towards him. It was as if thunder had rumbled across the bottom of the sea - the door opened. Edikan stepped through the threshold and backed away in horror. He found himself in a long glass corridor, longer than his native village, hung on both sides with the dead bodies of men and young boys. For some reason they were all hanging upside down.
The cast-iron door closed with the same roar, there was no turning back. Edikan walked forward between the rows of dead men and saw another door. This door was several times larger than the first, and when Edikan opened it, thunder thundered throughout the underwater kingdom several times stronger.
A second glass corridor opened, filled with dead people. There were only women and children here, but they were also hanging upside down. Some children died at the very moment when they were suckling their mother's breast. Edikan began to cry with pity for these poor things. He walked through this corridor and came to the third door. It opens - in the middle of a large room, also glass, there is a coffin. A girl of unspeakable beauty lies in a coffin. Two daggers are stuck into her chest, and the coffin is full of blood.
Based on the signs that the king called, Edikan guessed that this was the king’s daughter. My heart became even sadder. He looked around and saw a door completely covered with human heads with bared teeth. Instead of a door bracket, a human rib was nailed down. Edikan - come what may! — opened this door too. What appeared before his eyes made the young man recoil: the huge room was chock-full of underwater devils of all stripes. Taking a closer look, Edikan saw the main devil lying on a dais - Satan. At the tips of his horns were golden thimbles. Noticing Edikan, Satan did not even move, but only said:
“Oh, he’s here.” And louder: “Hey, merman, welcome your guest!”
A good hundred devils immediately attacked Edikan. He pulled out his sword and began slashing at the mermen left and right. If he swings to the left, ten devils are gone; if he swings to the right, he will cut off the heads of twenty devils. Only Edikan notices that there are not fewer devils, but more and more. From every drop of blood a new trait is born. Edikan became exhausted.
And Satan lies on his bed, grinning: thank you, they say, for trying, he added the number of watermen.
Then the young man realized: he had to start with the main devil. He swung his sword at him - the sword shattered in two. Edikan remembered his wonderful horse, threw the ball up, but Satan did not let the ball fall, picked it up and laughed even louder. Out of anger, Edikan rushed at the main merman and grabbed him by the horns. Satan escaped, but the golden thimbles remained in Edikan’s hands. Edikan almost cried out of frustration, threw the thimbles on the floor, and suddenly three brave soldiers appeared from the thimbles and - to him:
- What do you order, Edikan?
“Cut down all the merman!” shouted Edikan.
The soldiers, with their fiery swords, dealt with the entire horde of devils in no time. And their king, the main devil, gave up the ghost himself: all his strength was in thimbles. The soldiers took the ball from him and gave it to Edikan.
Edikan thanked the soldiers for their service, and they immediately returned to their golden thimbles.
Edikan wanted to get out of this terrible place as quickly as possible. He opens the door, and the revived princess comes towards him:
“Well, Edikan, you saved me, now I will never part with you!” He takes off the gold ring from his finger and puts it on Edikan’s finger. And with joy she glows brighter than the sun, hugs and kisses her savior.
Edikan took the princess by the hand and led her away from the underwater kingdom. He opens the first door - what a miracle! - all the dead women and children came to life, standing on both sides of the glass corridor, thanking for their salvation.
“You, Edikan, saved us, and now we will follow you,” the women say and follow Edikan.
The men also all came to life, thanked Edikan for saving him and said that they would now follow him.
Edikan and the princess were just about to leave the underwater kingdom when a young girl under a white veil approached them and showed another door. Edikan was now not afraid of anything, he boldly opened the door and saw many people entangled in snakes that were sucking the blood out of them. Edikan tapped the thimbles against each other and ordered the soldiers who appeared:
- Destroy all the snakes!
The soldiers hit the ground and turned into cats. The cats quickly dealt with the snakes and freed all the martyrs from them. They thanked Edikan for their salvation and also followed him.
The cats again became soldiers and came to Edikan for new orders:
- What do you order, Edikan?
“I want to bring all these people out of the underwater world into the earthly world,” said Edikan.
At that very moment the last door opened, the sea split in two and formed a passage; at the end of the passage there was a glass staircase with glass walls, through which strange sea plants and colorful fish were visible.
When Edikan and the princess, and after them everyone freed from the power of the water king, climbed the stairs, the sea closed. People found themselves on a large island completely covered with gardens. Birds of rare beauty sang on the branches of the trees, and such a wonderful aroma came from the flowers that it made your head spin.
For several days people enjoyed life on this amazing island. After so many years of tedious life in the underwater world, everyone was so glad to see the clear sun and blue sky.
But people soon got bored with heavenly life. They wanted to return to their loved ones, to return to their native places. Everyone looked at Edikan with hope: he saved them from death, he was supposed to bring them to their homeland.
Edikan tapped his thimbles, and when the soldiers arrived, he ordered them to build a bridge. At that very moment, a wonderful bridge spanned from the island to the ground like a rainbow. This bridge had silver planks and gold railings. And all of it is painted with different patterns, on the sides of the bridge there are gardens, and in the gardens apples dance on the branches, leaves clap their hands. Golden ducks swim under the trees, in ponds, nightingales sing in the trees, cheerful music plays.
And as soon as people stepped on this bridge, the old became younger, the young became mature. And when everyone crossed the bridge to the ground, he disappeared, as if he had never existed.
The king learned that Edikan had found his daughter, and ordered the road to be covered with white linen from the seashore to the palace itself. So, using this canvas, Edikan and the princess entered the palace.
The king remained true to his word: he gave his daughter for Edikan and half of the kingdom as a dowry. The wedding lasted seven days and seven nights, the people had fun until they dropped.
How long or how little time has passed - the king died. Before his death, he bequeathed the second half of the kingdom to Edikan. And then, probably, the fairy tale would end. Ah, no. Although Edikan saved the king’s daughter from death, although the young woman swore never to part with him, she did not love to love her husband and kept thinking about how to get rid of him.
One day, when a young prince came to visit them from a neighboring kingdom-state, Edikan’s wife gave him both a ball of wool and golden thimbles. He returned home and, knowing the miraculous power of the donated things, declared war on Edikan.
Edikan, who did not know about the loss of the ball and thimbles, was not very worried. And when a huge army appeared on the borders of his state and when this army began to fire from cannons, Edikan took a ball of thimbles and went to meet the enemy. His wife also wanted to go with him, and he did not dissuade her.
He reached the border, threw the ball up, but the horse did not appear, he was knocking thimbles against each other - not a single soldier was visible. Then the wife laughed and said:
“You won’t see your argamak, Edikan, or your thimbles anymore, they are with the one I love.” And here he is.
At that moment, out of nowhere, the prince galloped up on a wonderful horse, picked up Edikan’s wife and took her away. Edikan realized that the unfaithful wife had replaced the magic ball and thimbles with simple ones.
He was saddened, he felt bitter and offended. “I raised her from the coffin,” he thought, “and this is how she repaid me.”
When the old woman gave Edikan a wonderful ball of wool, she also told him to remember about it if it was difficult. Edikan remembered this and said to himself:
“If grandma were here, she would come up with something.”
And as soon as he said this, a familiar old woman stood in front of him.
“Why are you so sad, son?” he asks. Edikan told her everything.
“For the fact that you, Edikan, put the main water devil to death, I will be grateful to you to the end of my life,” said the old woman. “He was my most terrible enemy, but I just couldn’t overcome him myself.” Thank you, son. And don’t worry about your unfaithful wife. Where she left you, let her disappear there.
Then a magic ball and golden thimbles appeared in the old woman’s hands, and she gave them to Edikan.
“And I’ll also give you a white handkerchief,” the old woman said goodbye. “Just make sure you don’t lose it,” and she disappeared as if she had never existed.
Edikan summoned a wonderful horse with a ball of wool, sat on it and rode off to fight the prince’s army. The prince had a large army, but Edikan, with the help of his magic soldiers, defeated him.
When Edikan returned home, he found a table laden with all kinds of dishes. There was nothing on that table: food, drink, gingerbread, and candy. At the ends of the table stood silver ladles filled with sherbet. On one ladle were engraved the words: “For Edikan,” on the other: “For Selime.”
Edikan marveled: where did Selima come from if she had been gone for a long time?! Thought out loud:
- How nice it would be if my dear Selime sat at this table with me!
And as soon as he said so, the curtain with which the door was closed was pulled back, and the most beautiful girl in the whole world appeared in front of Edikan - his dear Selime. On her shoulders was the same white blanket in which Edikan saw her in the underwater kingdom. But I didn’t recognize it then because Selima’s face was covered.
They rushed into each other's arms. Edikan sat the girl down at the table.
“The king’s daughter turned out to be ungrateful,” said Selima. “You saved her from death, and for this she almost destroyed you... Well, let’s not talk about her, she’s not worth it.” Do you want me to sing our song to you, Edikan?
And she sang Edikan’s favorite song. Selime sang it back in their home village, sang it on the evening when they kissed for the first time.
“Did you like the song, Edikan?” asked Selime, having finished singing.
“I’m ready to listen to this song all my life,” Edikan answered.
They took ladles of sherbet and drank to always be together and love each other.
“And if we love each other until the end of our days, our life will be like this song,” said Selime.
Then she showed Edikan the mother-of-pearl button on the table:
— If you want to listen to our song again, press this button.
Edikan pressed the button and was surprised to hear the song that Selime had just sung ring in the room. He opened the window - the song sounded throughout the city. It was as if the whole city was singing Selima’s song. “Isn’t this a dream?” thought Edikan.
Meanwhile, the miracles did not end there.
“Would you like, Edikan, to look at our wealth?” Selime asked and led him out of the house to the twelve-door barn.
We opened one door - wonderful flowers, which have no name, are blooming. We opened the second one - different outfits and decorations were hanging on the walls. They opened the third one - all kinds of dishes are on the tables. They looked into the fourth door - a field of ripe grain, into the fifth - herds grazing in green meadows...
We opened all twelve doors and had a look at everything. And they saw the seas, and the ships that sailed across the seas, and forests with trees up to the sky, and winged machines flying across that sky... Probably no one before Edikan and Selime had seen what they saw.
Edikan and Selime began to live in contentment and harmony. Everyone was happy with them, everyone loved them.
And soon Selime made Edikan happy - she gave birth to his son. Edikan felt in seventh heaven with joy and threw a feast for the whole world. They named their son Udikan.
Everything would go just fine. Yes, Edikan has a new enemy-villain - the forest Satan. He was the grandfather of the water chief devil and could not forgive Edikan for destroying his dear grandson.
One day in the middle of the night Edikan woke up from Udikan’s scream. In the meantime, he managed to approach the bed on which the son and mother were sleeping, thunder struck, lightning flashed, some fiery bird flew into the window and carried Selime away. Edikan ran out of the house in horror and saw that fire was raining on the city.
Edikan threw up the woolen ball, not immediately, but only after a while, and approached it, barely dragging his feet, the argamak.
“My Edikan, I would be glad to serve you, but I am powerless against this villain.”
Edikan tapped his thimbles, three soldiers appeared, limping, and said the same thing.
“Oh, if only grandma were here!” Edikan burst out in grief.
The old woman didn’t have to wait long.
“No, Edikan, I won’t overcome the king of the forest devils,” she said. “Ask my older brother, maybe he can help.” Return to the house and press that mother-of-pearl button that Selime showed you.
Edikan returned to the house, pressed the button, and someone invisible in the house spoke:
“Edikan, I, too, was once a gallant soldier.” And more than once he tried to deal with the main king of the forest devils, but failed. His evil power overpowered my power. Now an opponent worthy of him has been born, this is Udikan. In the twelve-door barn, enter the last twelfth door, go down into the dungeon and take the fiery sword hanging there. Also, take a white handkerchief there. Use that handkerchief to wipe Udikan’s face, and then give him the sword. He himself knows what to do next... Now press the button again.
Edikan pressed the mother-of-pearl button and - amazingly marvelous! - he saw in the mirror first his barns, then a dungeon and a fiery sword in that dungeon. And it occurred to him, is it possible to see Selima in the same way, to find out where she is now? And as soon as he thought so, he saw a dense, impassable forest, and in the forest there was an iron house, around the house there were twelve rows of wolves, twelve rows of tigers, twelve rows of lions sitting on chains. The entire forest is infested with snakes and lizards, and here and there human bones lie in heaps near the house. And in the house, Selime, tied up, sits on a pile of bones, opposite her is the main king of the goblin.
Without wasting any more time, Edikan ran out of the house, opened the twelfth barn door, went down into the dungeon and took the fiery sword with a white handkerchief. After that, he wiped Udikan’s face with a handkerchief, and in an instant he turned into a tall, strong hero. And straight to Edikan:
- Give me your ball, father.
Edikan gave his son a ball of wool, the son threw it up, and a limping argamak appeared. Udikan ran a handkerchief over his mane, and the horse again became playful and strong.
“Sit down, both of you,” said the horse, “now I’ll hold you both up.”
Edikan and his son jumped on a horse and rode into the dense forest to rescue Selima.
Beyond the seven seas, behind the seven cast-iron mountains, and seventy-seven fields, there was that dense forest in which the chief king of all goblin lived. But the argamak flashed with lightning and instantly carried Edikan and Udikan to the iron house.
Udikan only waved his fiery sword once and incinerated all the reptiles and beasts guarding the house of the forest Satan. The next moment, the hero jumped on his argamak over a seven-foot cast-iron fence and flew into the house of the king of the forest devils. Once again Udikan waved his fiery sword - the head of the forest Satan rolled from his shoulders. The hero took his mother in his arms, wiped her face with a handkerchief - the mother became more beautiful than before, like the morning sun, washed with dew, the sun began to shine. Udikan ran his fiery sword across the pile of bones that lay in and around the house—the bones became living people. The forest came to life from their voices, the birds began to sing in the trees.
Udikan brought his mother to his father, and then waved a white handkerchief, and the sky seemed to be covered with clouds. But no, these are not clouds - these are flying carpets. Edikan and Udikan put everyone on flying carpets and flew to their kingdom. And when they arrived, they opened all twelve barn doors for everyone - everyone could come in and take what they wanted. There was so much wealth that even after this there was still enough for a feast for the whole world.
I was at that feast. I saw how Edikan and Udikan pressed the mother-of-pearl button and a cheerful song flowed over the city. They said that this song was heard not only in the city, but throughout the entire kingdom-state. Someone said that they heard it even through seven states in the eighth.
Edikan brought me a full silver ladle with sherbet at the feast and asked me to tell you this tale. I would like you to like it.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru