Once upon a time, there lived a man and he had a daughter. Many young men came to her to woo her. But to each groom the father answered:
“You won’t get my daughter as a wife, go back to your home.”
And they left with nothing.
However, there was a young man among the suitors who answered his father:
- I won’t return home, I want to marry your daughter!
“If you want to marry my daughter,” said the father, “you will have to do one job first.” Can you hold the wind so that it does not break a single stalk in my millet field? If you can do this, you will get my daughter as your wife.
The young man agreed.
“Show me the shamba (field, plantation) where I will have to guard your millet,” he said. “I will watch your field day and night, not a single stalk will fall.”
“If I see that you managed to hold back the wind, I will give my daughter for you!”
And at night the young man went to the field to guard the millet. And early in the morning the father-in-law came to see how things were going, and saw many broken stems.
— Why did so much millet die? - he asked the young man.
“Wait, dear father-in-law,” he answered. - Everything will be fine. There, at the edge of the field, I saw a guinea fowl. Now I'll shoot her.
With these words, he went to the edge of the field, fired and returned with a guinea fowl in his hands.
“Here is a guinea fowl,” he said to the old man. - Bring it home to your daughter, let her cook it, and then put some of the stew on a wooden fork and send it here to Shamba - I’ll stay here for a long time.
The old man brought the guinea fowl home, his daughter cooked it and tried to scoop up some of the stew with a fork - she just couldn’t do it!
- Is it possible to take this with a fork? - she told her father. “I can’t bring stew on a fork to his shamba.” And no one can!
Then they sent for the young man to Shamba and told him to return home. He came and said to his father-in-law:
- I want you to gather all the men. Let people judge our case and say which of us is right and which is wrong!
So everyone gathered, and the young man turned to the elders:
“Tell me, elders, can anyone in the world guard the wind so that not a single stalk of millet is broken by it?” The wind blows from one side to the other! How to fight him? I ask you: what do you think about this?
And the elders answered:
“We have never heard of anyone being able to guard the wind!”
“In response, I asked my father-in-law to do me one favor,” the young man continued. “I killed a guinea fowl and told him to give it to his daughter, and she would cook it and bring the stew on a fork to my shamba.” But I waited in vain for the stew.
Then the elders asked the girl’s father:
“Why did you leave the young man without stew and make him starve?” He got you a guinea fowl.
“Think for yourself, elders,” he answered, “who can bring stew on a fork?”
- Which of us can hold back the wind? - the elders asked the father-in-law. - As long as we have lived, we have never heard such a thing! You can waylay a bird, but never the wind! The young man is right, he paid you back with the same coin and defeated you. If you send to hold back the wind, you must be able to bring soup on a fork!
The elders told him so. And they added:
“You have only one thing left: give your daughter for him!” He actually came out victorious.
And the old man had no choice but to schedule a wedding and give the young man his daughter as his wife.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru