Once upon a time there lived a rich gentleman, and he had one and only beautiful daughter. Suitors come to her from all over the world to woo her, but the fastidious beauty repeats one thing:
- I will marry the one who comes dressed in pure gold!
And then one day a carriage, drawn by six horses, rushed by, and a stately young man emerged from it, dressed from head to toe in gold. The beauty gave him a hand and hurried him with the wedding.
They began to prepare for the wedding, twelve tailors sewed a wedding dress for the bride day and night, and a wedding shirt with golden lace for the groom.
On the wedding day, the carriages ride, one more beautiful than the other. In them are noble guests, in the last one - the worthy groom himself. The bride and groom were married, there was fun and dancing until you dropped. The bride is dripping with sweat.
A beggar hobbled to the wedding on crutches. They want to feed him in the kitchen, but he doesn’t go into the kitchen, he sat down on the threshold and began to look closely at the guests. So the bride and groom went to dance, suddenly the beggar clasped his hands and shouted:
- Look, good people, look! I don't like guests! Just look, some have horse hooves instead of legs, others have crow's feet!
The young husband heard his words, grabbed his wife in his arms and ran into the yard, the guests quickly rushed into the carriages, whips whistled and everyone rushed away! Now they are already outside the village.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a black rooster appears! The rooster crowed at the top of his lungs, and in the blink of an eye the entire wedding fell through the ground, and in that place the lake overflowed. The young husband picked up his wife, rose into the sky and flew to God knows where. He was not a good fellow at all, but a dragon with twelve heads and twelve tails! And in order to deceive people, he tied himself with straw strands, and everyone was ready to swear that he was wearing pure gold, and that he himself was handsome and stately.
Parents cry day and night that their only daughter is missing and there is no word of her, not a soul, they have completely withered away from grief and are emaciated, wandering around like shadows.
One day a woman came to them, saw their tears, and began to ask why they were crying.
- Don’t you know that our only daughter has disappeared? At least to find out, at least to check where she is, what’s wrong with her, whether she’s good or bad! - the mother laments.
“Don’t cry,” the woman consoles her. “Tears won’t help my grief.” I will help you find out where your daughter is and whether she is doing well or not. I have a son, and he sees everything in the world, he will find her, no matter where she is. I will send it to you today.
- Oh, send it, but just quickly! - asks the mother. How long is it short, and that woman’s son is already right there!
- Is it you, Vsevid? - the girl’s father asks him.
“I am,” the guy answers. “Tell me what I should see, and you should find out!”
- Tell us, where is our daughter and what is she doing? Then Vsevid looked around and said:
- Eh, sir, your daughter has an unenviable life! After all, the dragon took her away. He hid your daughter among the bare rocks, in a dark cave. And she must scratch his twelve heads day and night so that he can sleep sweetly.
- How can I get her out of there?
“We’ll let you out if my brothers and I get down to business.” Where my middle brother hits with his butt, a triple, insurmountable wall will immediately rise, and my younger brother, a hundred miles away, will not only kill a mosquito, but even a smaller one with a shot.
- Get down to business, I’ll give you everything I have, everything you want.
- Hands down! - Vsevid agreed.
The mother gathered her sons for the journey, gave each of them a full bag of bread, a knapsack with cheese, and saw them off.
And Vsevid already knows where to go and what is happening in the dragon’s cave. They walk straight and don't turn anywhere. They arrived and Vsevid immediately rushed into the cave. He sees: the girl is sitting, scratching the dragon’s head, the dragon is dozing, and he is holding her with his tails.
The girl saw Vsevid, got scared and whispered:
- How dare you come to us? After all, not even a fly will fly here!
“This is not the time to talk,” he replies. - You scratch your heads so that the dragon doesn’t wake up, but I myself know what to do.
She scratches, and the fellow frees her from the tails. If he takes off one tail, the dragon will ask:
- Wife, why does it smell like a man? And his wife calms him down:
“You’re dreaming about this, you know that even a fly can’t get here.” He freed her from all twelve tails and she, following Vsevid, quietly left the cave.
The brothers surrounded the girl on all sides and moved away. Then the dragon woke up and followed them, and she screamed in fear:
- Oh, don't give me away, oh, don't give me away! Vsevid says to the brother who has the butt:
- Hit the butt of your head on the ground, put up a wall, it screams very loudly!
- No, it’s still early, let him fly closer.
And the girl keeps screaming, afraid that the dragon will grab her and take her back. But as soon as the dragon stretched out its paws to her, the middle brother hit the ground with his butt and immediately a triple, tall wall grew. The dragon runs around the wall and growls:
- Give me what’s mine, it’s not yours! Give me what's mine, it's not yours! And the girl screams:
- Ai, don't give me up! Ai, don't give it away!
Fun and nothing more. The brothers are tired of this mess, they answer the dragon:
- Yours is not here! Where you lost it, look there! But the dragon stubbornly refused to move:
- Until the end of the world, if you don’t fulfill my wish, let me look at just one hair of hers!
- How can we give you a glimpse of a hair's breadth?
- You have a butt, so make a crack in the wall! - the dragon shouted to them.
- Don't listen to him, don't show him anything! - Vsevid says to the brothers, he knows that the matter will end badly.
But they were so tired of listening to the screams and screams that they agreed:
- What a little thing! Let him look!
The dragon got his way. They showed him a hair, and he wrapped it around his finger and pulled out the whole girl by the hair! All she could do was scream!
- Ai, don't give me up!
The brothers see that the dragon is dragging the girl away from right under their noses. Then the Marksman grinned: it was his turn to distinguish himself and get the girl.
- My dragon will still dance when my hour strikes! And he began to wait.
And the dragon is already far, far away, almost out of sight - it has become the size of a mosquito.
- Why are you delaying? Shoot! - the brothers are making noise.
“It’s not time yet,” answers the Marksman.
- How not to be late! - Vsevid shouts. “He’s already half the size of a mosquito!”
Then the shooter took aim and - once! Shot off all twelve heads and twelve tails of the dragon! The freed girl rushed towards the brothers, and the brothers rushed towards her. They took her to her father and mother, and there was great joy! Of course! After all, she was the only one they had!
The girl stopped waiting for the groom dressed in gold. The youngest of three brothers, Marksman, is also a good husband for her. And the other two were not at a loss: each received a rich reward and began to farm on their own land. And then they found beautiful brides and played three weddings at once, and they were so cheerful - they never remembered anything like this either before or later.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru