The three brothers had only the wealth of a single bull. But that bull was not an ordinary one. He was so big that when he stood in one place, he grazed in the meadows of seven mountains. He did not have enough water from the Marta, Pshisha, Pchasha rivers, he also drank from other rivers - Laba, Shkhatdashchi.
One day the brothers decided to take the bull to a watering place to the large river Pshiz-Kuban. The eldest brother sat on the bull's neck, the middle one on the bull's back, and the youngest one at the tail. They took provisions with them and set off.
On the way they met a horseman. The elder brother asked him:
“Oh Marge, when you meet my middle brother, tell him to drive the bull faster.”
The rider rode for a whole week until he met the middle of the brothers.
“The elder brother told me to tell you to hurry up the bull,” he said.
“If so, when you meet our younger brother, hurry him up too!”
The horseman rode again for a week and finally met the youngest of the brothers and conveyed to him the request of the elders.
And after that the brothers rode the bull for a whole week and finally arrived at Pshiz. The giant bull drank the entire river and didn’t leave a single drop.
“Thank God, our bull is finally drunk,” said the brothers, “let’s rest a little and return home.”
The brothers settled down on the banks of the Pshiz River. Suddenly a huge eagle swooped down, tore the bull to pieces and ate almost everything. There was only one bull's leg left - he grabbed it and flew away.
The eagle flew for a long time. Suddenly, one shepherd, grazing sheep in a meadow, noticed a huge eagle in the sky. He looked up intently, and at that time a bull’s leg fell out of the eagle’s beak and hit the shepherd in the eye.
The shepherd returned home and addressed his seven young daughters-in-law:
- Listen, get into the boats, take an oar and swim into my eye, today a speck got into it, it’s bothering me, it would be nice to get it out.
The young women got into the boats, took seven oars, swam into their father-in-law's eye, searched and searched, and with difficulty found the bull's leg, which had been perforated by an eagle's beak, and dragged it out.
The shepherd picked up the bull's leg, took it out of the house and threw it away.
Many years have passed. The bull's leg was covered with earth and turned into a high hill. Tall grass grew on that hill, clear streams flowed there - people fell in love with that place, and they began to settle here. Seven villages grew up on the hill.
The salt carriers drive into the hole on the bull's leg on carts, travel for seven days, load the salt and travel back for seven days and nights.
One day seven carts of salt returned. The old woman saw them and asked her daughter:
- Go, daughter, ask them for a handful of salt and bring it here to me.
They poured all the salt from seven carts into her palm, but it was enough to fill her palm. The daughter brought this salt to her mother, the old woman poured it into her mouth and ate it.
One day the fox saw a bull's leg with a hole in it. She started gnawing on it and, of course, moved her leg, and all seven villages shook with her. People began to wonder why the earth was shaking.
So time passed, and one day people noticed a fox gnawing on a bone. They sent hunters and they killed the fox.
The hunters removed the skin from one side of the fox and made hats out of it for all the men of the seven villages. They wanted to remove the skin from the other side, but they could not turn the fox over.
The dead fox lay not far from the village. One day a young woman passed by. She saw a fox. She took a bucket in one hand, a rocker in the other, and with the hook of the rocker she turned the fox over.
“Maybe there will be enough for a hat for my little son,” she said and skinned the remaining part of the fox. She added more fur to the fox skin and sewed a hat for the baby.
Now tell me, who was the greatest?
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru