There lived a husband and wife.
One day, when the husband and six other hunters went out to sea, bad weather broke out and they died.
The wife gave birth to a son and named him after her husband. The boy grew up very quickly, and now he is already walking along the shore by himself, collecting seaweed. The meat that his father got had already run out, and people wouldn’t give it to them. One day, when the mother was sleeping, the son got up and went to collect seaweed. It was autumn; he saw algae under the icy stone. He reached for them and fell under a stone.
There was some kind of housing under the stone. The boy sat here for a while. And then a man comes dressed as a hunter. Seeing the boy, he began to scold and beat him. Then six more people came. They began to get angry with the man. They asked the boy: “Who are you and where are you from?”
The boy said. People were surprised, and the one who beat him began to cry and hugged the boy. - My son! - he said.
- Father, let's go home! - the boy says, but the father replied that he could not. The boy began to cry, then the father took off his clothes, and the boy saw a skeleton underneath.
-What are you eating there? - asked the father. . - Only seaweed.
- Well, that's it, under each nail I will put you a fiber of meat, fish and fat. At home, go to the hole where the meat was stored, close your eyes and shake it off your fingers. Then, without looking, go home and send your mother for meat.
The father gave the boy his spear. The boy came home, walked up to the pit, closed his eyes, spat, shook it off his hands and came into the dugout. The mother cooked cabbage, and the boy said:
- Go into the pit, scrape the fat along the walls, it will taste better!
The mother scolded, but still went. She took a large basin. She approached the pit, and there, as before, with her husband, it was full of meat and fat. The mother began to cry and brought a bowl full of food.
When there was no more fat or meat left, the boy took his father’s spear and went ashore. He approached one artel.
- Take me! - he asked.
- Run for the cloak! - they told him, and the canoe sailed away.
He approached the second one:
- Take me!
But even here they only cursed him.
A boy approached the third canoe. The people pushed him away and swam out to sea. He approached the fourth canoe, where an old man was sitting.
- Take me! – the boy asked the old man. The old man thought: “I’ll take it for luck, it doesn’t matter, I’m old, my hand is not steady!” - and he took the boy.
They were the last to set sail, when all the canoes were already chasing the whales. They began to avoid pitfalls. The boy threw a spear at a stone - and it turned out to be a whale. They pulled the whale to the shore, began to cut it into pieces and put it in holes.
Empty canoes returned from the sea. When they heard about the whale, they immediately rushed to the boy and began arguing among themselves about who he should go to. One artel shouts: “We sent him for a white cloak made from seal intestines!” Another shouts: “We should have him on the canoe.” The third artel shouts: He will be our gunner! Then the old man said:
-You pushed him away. I won't give it away. You need to ask the boy himself - where will he go?
The boy stayed with the old man, and they always had a successful hunt.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru