In ancient times, there lived a rich Kazakh. He had no children. Once the khan gave his daughter in marriage and on this occasion threw a big ceremony. He invited only family members to this event. The childless were not ordered to come to the holiday.
The guests began to arrive. A Kazakh man who had no children also came to the festival. He brought with him a lot of kumiss, on seven camels. But the khan did not let him in. The angry Kazakh poured all the kumiss on the ground and returned home.
At home, he killed an ox, sacrificed it to Allah, and he and his wife went to look for children for themselves. In the evening they stopped near the grave and spent the night. In a dream, the wife saw a man, and he asked her how many children she wanted to have - a hundred or one. She replied that one would be enough. In the morning she told her dream to her husband.
The couple returned home, and a month later the wife gave birth to a son. They called him Ermagambet.
Ermagambet grew quickly. In his sixth year he was already hunting wild animals. One day he was returning home from hunting with his comrades. One man met them and said to Ermagambet:
- Your mother gave birth to a daughter. But her parents want to kill her.
Ermagambet quickly drove his pacer into the village. I arrived home, entered the tent and asked my parents for permission to look at my sister. Ermagambet took his sister, jumped on his horse and disappeared into the steppe.
They began to live together. The brother was engaged in hunting, and the girl grew quickly and turned into a beauty.
One day a girl walked through the water and saw a floating log. She decided to write a note and put it in the middle of the log. She wrote: “I am a very beautiful girl. There is no one near me except my brother.” She pushed the log away and it floated on.
The log floated for a long time and finally floated to the shore. At this time, one Kazakh woman was washing her clothes and saw a log.
“Well, I’ll pull out the log,” she said, “it’ll be useful for firewood.”
She pulled out the log, brought it home, and when she began chopping wood, a note fell out of it. She took the note and went to the literate. The letterman read it and kept it with him, and the next day he delivered the note to the khan. Khan read the note and went in search of a beautiful girl, taking with him a retinue of servants. In the steppe they met Ermagambet. Khan asked him:
- If this is your sister, then do you agree to voluntarily give her to me as a wife? Or do you want me to take her by force?
Ermagambet became angry with the khan, beat him and his retinue and went to his yurt. And when he arrived, he immediately fell asleep soundly.
The sister saw that her brother was sleeping, took the pacer and went for a walk on it into the steppe. Climbing up the mountain, the girl saw many killed. She decided to examine everyone to see if there was anyone alive among them. I found one. The girl brought him to the yurt and hid him in a chest. This man turned out to be the khan himself. When her brother went hunting, she would let the khan out and talk to him.
The khan liked the girl, and the beauty also liked the khan. They decided to lime Ermagambet. But how? We thought and thought, and the girl said:
“I’ll pretend to be sick and ask my brother to go to foreign lands to find a healer.”
One day my brother returned from hunting. The girl went to bed, pretending to be sick.
“Listen, brother,” she said. “Somewhere there is a person who knows how to heal.” Go and bring him to me, I’m sick.
Ermagambet felt sorry for his sister. He said goodbye to her and set off on a long journey.
Driving around, Ermagambet came across a poor yurt. An old woman lived in it. She asked the horseman where he was going. And when she found out, she began to dissuade him. But Ermagambet insisted on his own and asked the old woman to show him the way to the healer. The old woman agreed and said:
“The door that leads to this medicine man opens exactly at noon; at this time it is only possible to capture it.
Ermagambet did just that: exactly at noon he went to the door and, taking the healer with him, returned to the old woman. Spent the night with her. During sleep, the old woman replaced the healer with a simple man. Ermagambet did not notice this. In the morning he went to his sister. He entered the yurt and saw that his sister was healthy.
The brother began to hunt again, and the sister and the khan kept coming up with ways to destroy him. This is how she says to the khan:
- When my brother returns, I will invite him to play. I will tie his hands, and in the meantime you will kill him.
Brother has returned. His sister invited him to play. He agreed. The girl tied his hands, but he easily untied them. Finally, his sister began to ask him what could be used to tie him up so that he could not untie his hands. Ermagambet said that he had a belt made of tiger skin. The sister quickly took out this belt, tied her brother’s hands and gave the khan a sword:
- Now you can kill him!..
But the khan got scared and could not fulfill her request. Then she decided to do it herself. But her brother told her:
“You can kill me, sister, but I ask you one thing: when you kill me, put my body in a bag, tie this bag to the saddle of my horse and let it go into the steppe.”
So she did as her brother asked. The horse went into the steppe and ran to the old woman who replaced Yermagambeta as a healer. The old woman revived Ermagambet using various means. He thanked her and went to his sister. He found her with the khan. Ermagambet killed his sister, and brought the khan to the village to his father.
The father was delighted at the return of his son, arranged for him, and killed the khan because he did not let him into his daughter’s wedding.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru