There lived two brothers. The older brother is rich, the younger brother is poor. The elder brother had many workers, land, and owned fire. The younger brother's people had neither land nor fire. The younger brother thinks: “We must somehow get land and fire for our people.” I thought of this: “I’ll tell my brother to give me land only the size of an ox’s hide.” He told this to his elder brother, who replied:
- Well, if it’s the skin of a bull, then I’ll give you land.
The younger brother, having thus agreed with his elder brother, left; went to look for a big bull.
He found and killed a bull, skinned it, and cut the hair from the skin. The skin removed from the bull was cut into thin, thin strips. He came to his brother and said:
- I brought the skin.
The elder brother said:
- Well, let's measure it.
The younger brother showed the skin to his brother and said:
“This is how long the belt cut from the skin will be, and the same will be the width of the land that you will give me.”
The elder brother said:
“I will only give you land the size of an ox’s hide.”
-The younger one replied:
- Here is the skin of a bull.
They began to measure the ground with a belt cut from the skin of a bull. We measured the length and width of the plot of land. More than half of the land was taken by the younger brother from his older brother.
Then the younger brother began to ask for fire. The elder brother, angry, said:
- I won’t give it! Then the younger brother went and found two horses. I taught one horse this way:
- If a person sits on you, run as fast and as far as possible.
Then he came to his brother with the horses and said:
“No one can sit on this horse.” The elder brother began to say boastfully:
- It’s too much to give in to such and such a horse! I'll sit on it. The elder brother sat on the horse, and it quickly ran and carried him far away. After his departure, the younger brother took his brother's fire and mounted the second horse. I rode across the earth with fire. Hitting fire against trees, stones and earth, he said:
- Let there be fire in the stones, in the trees, in the earth. So one man took the fire from another. Since then, there was fire in the stones, in the trees, in the earth, and people lost their hair, became hairless, because they began to own fire.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru