Somewhere, sometime, but where and when we do not know, one gentleman went to war. This was the king's order. And while he was at war, his wife gave birth to twins - two boys, so sweet and comforting that you couldn’t find them more beautiful in the whole wide world. My father will be happy when he returns from the war!
No such luck! He entrusted his wife to the old grandmother, and she was just waiting for the opportunity! Just listen to what this witch did: she threatened the servants, she bribed the maids and ordered them to sew up her poor wife and children in an oxhide and bury them in a garbage heap in the yard, and put her daughter in her bed. She herself made noises everywhere as if the children had died and ordered them to have a rich funeral.
OK.
Time fled, and finally our gentleman returned from the war. The witch tells him that this is how it is, the young wife is lying in bed sick, and the twins are dead. The sir was saddened. But tears won’t help your grief. He hurries to his wife, he loved her very much. I saw it and was stunned! Where has her beauty gone! He himself was an honest man, he didn’t think about deception and began to live with the one that his grandmother slipped him.
One morning the new housewife looked out the window and saw that on the garbage heap where her wife and twins were buried, a beautiful golden nut tree had grown overnight.
She got worried and said:
- Oh, hubby, tell me to uproot that nut tree! After all, it will make a great bed!
He agreed.
They lay down for the first time on the golden walnut bed. He sleeps peacefully, he has a good dream, but she doesn’t close her eyes, apparently her conscience is torn. He turns from side to side and suddenly hears voices:
-Are you feeling good, brother? - asks the first voice. And the other one answers:
- Oh, what a thing! After all, the liar lies on me! Are you feeling good, brother?
“It’s good for me, because our dear father lies on me!”
The old woman’s daughter immediately realized that these were the golden twin brothers who were talking. In the morning my husband says:
- Oh, I slept sweetly on this bed, I had such good dreams! How did you sleep, darling?
- May it fall apart! There has never been a worse night! If you love me, have this bed chopped up and burned!
The husband agreed. The golden bed was cut up and thrown into the oven. Suddenly the mistress shouts to the maid:
- Run, quickly, shut up the pipe so that not a single spark flies out of the pipe! But it's too late. A spark has already flown out of the pipe and landed on a blooming rose bush. At that hour, a little goat was grazing in the garden and completely gnawed the rose bush.
The evil woman orders the kid to be slaughtered without delay. The maid went into the stream to rinse the goat's tripe, the tripe slipped out of her hands and floated downstream, right to the sea.
I swam to the sea exactly at noon. The sun is shining with all its might. Suddenly the entrails began to swirl in the middle of the sea and two boys, golden brothers, came out of it and let’s splash in the sea.
OK.
The Sun came home in the evening, and his mother asked:
- What's new in the world, son?
- Oh, mother, I saw two lovely boys in the sea, similar to each other like two peas in a pod - only one was a little bigger, the other a little smaller. How well they played in the water!
Then the mother speaks to the Sun.
- By morning I will sew two shirts for them, you give them these shirts, give the larger one a small one, give the smaller one a large one. If they don’t quarrel with each other, but start exchanging shirts, it means they are twins, golden brothers. Then bring the boys here to me.
The next day, the mother gives her son two shirts, and he throws the smaller one to the larger one, and the larger one to the smaller one. The first one says:
“Look, brother, you’re smaller, but your shirt is big, I’m bigger, and mine is small.” Let's exchange, you give me yours, and I give you mine!
And they exchanged shirts. The sun immediately realized that those boys were brothers. Again they played in the sea all day, and in the evening the Sun took them to his mother. She received them kindly and immediately began to teach them all sorts of wisdom, taught them to sing so beautifully that no matter how much you listen, you can’t hear enough.
One day, Mother of the Month came to visit the Mother of the Sun. She liked the children so much that she gave them each a golden apple so that they would have something to play with.
And after some time, Mother of the Sun calls the brothers to her place and says:
- My children, you have already grown up, you have learned something, you live well with us, but your mother is still lying in the trash heap, and instead of her, the villainess is in charge of the house. Today your father is calling guests. Go there and start singing right under the window. The villain will send a maid, she will drive you away, but you don’t leave, sing! Wait for what will happen.
OK.
The boys went, stood under the windows and sang. The mistress heard and sent a maid:
- Throw something to those beggars and drive them away, let them go their own way. But the boys don’t leave, just know they’re singing. Then the guests heard their singing and began to persuade the owner to invite the singers into the room. The master himself followed them. One of the guests took the boy in his arms, and the owner placed the second one with him. Before anyone had time to say a word to them, the golden brothers began a conversation among themselves:
“Are you feeling well, my golden brother?”
- Oh, how good can I feel if someone else’s gentleman is holding me in his arms? Are you feeling good, my brother?
- Oh, how bad I can feel if my own father is holding me in his arms!
The guests looked at each other, what are the brothers talking about, the owner, surprised, asks the question: what are they talking about?
The older brother told everything, and how the evil woman ordered them and their mother to be sewn up in an oxhide and buried in the trash, and how she slipped her daughter to her father, and how she ordered a golden nut to be uprooted, a bed to be chopped up, a kid to be slaughtered, how they ended up in the sea, and from the sea to the mother of the Sun, and from there here, to their own father.
The guests took shovels, dug up a garbage heap and found there a poor wife and a cowhide sewn up.
They took her out into the sun, the beauty came to life, became even more beautiful than before, stood up and said:
- My good husband, why did you wake me up, because I slept so sweetly! Have you returned from the war yet? Where are my kids?
“Here,” the husband replies, “here are your children, just look at how beautiful the boys are, golden brothers!”
And he told her everything as it happened. And then they began to think about how to punish the deceiver. The owner says:
“It’s best for her to come up with a punishment for herself!”
The guests agreed. They called the deceiver and her witch mother. The owner asks them:
- What does a villain deserve who wants to destroy a mother and her children?
And they answer:
- So that they put her on a fiery iron horse and let her ride all over the world!
- So you have passed a sentence on yourself! - exclaimed the owner. As we decided, so we did!
And then the owner asked all the guests to stay and invite new ones! They began to play a new wedding, the likes of which have never happened before and never will happen! And since then the husband lived with his real wife and children in peace and harmony. The golden brothers were always together.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru