It happened one day in a certain kingdom that women went to fetch water in the morning, but did not get any water. The ashdaga lay at the source and did not allow anyone passage. This continued for several days, and the people began to suffer from thirst. They reported this to the king. The king sent an army to the source. But Ashdagha did not join the battle. He said:
– Your king has three daughters. Let him give me one of them as a wife, and I will leave in peace. Ashdags always take royal daughters as wives. This is our custom.
The army returned with nothing. They reported to the king: so, they say, and so, the ashdaga does not want to fight, but wants to get the princess as his wife.
The king thought deeply. He became sad while sitting on the golden throne. In the morning, the eldest daughter came to her father to say hello.
- Oh Allah! Why are you so sad, father? Who upset you? - she exclaimed.
And the king told her about the ashdaga and asked:
“Would you agree, daughter, to become his wife?”
-Are you crazy?! – the eldest daughter shouted. - Fail, your ashdaga! Is there really no better husband for me?! - And, knocking on the door, she left. And the upset king moved from the golden throne to the silver one.
Following the eldest, the middle daughter came and brought her father breakfast on a chased platter.
- Oh Allah, father! – she was surprised. - Why did you move from the golden throne to the silver one?
And the king told her about the ashdaga and asked:
“Would you agree to become his wife, daughter?”
- Damn you and your ashdaga! – the middle daughter got angry. “Isn’t there really a better groom for me in the world?!” - And she left, slamming the door, and the king almost cried from resentment and moved from the silver throne to the copper one.
The last to come to her father was the youngest daughter, saw his face and turned pale:
- Oh Allah! What happened to you, father? What's the problem? Why are you sitting on the bronze throne?
The king also told her about the ashdaga.
“Your older sister called me crazy, and your middle sister cursed me.” – The king lowered his head low. “And now I don’t dare ask you to become the ashdaghi’s wife.”
“If you only have this one grief, you can help him,” the younger princess consoled him. - Let the ashdaga tear me apart and swallow me! I agree for the sake of people suffering from thirst, for your sake, dear father. I will marry Ashdagha! - And she asked her father to move from the copper throne to the golden one.
The king summoned his viziers and ordered to inform the people that he was giving his youngest, most beloved daughter to the Ashdagh as his wife. And he ordered the groom to send gifts for the bride: a dress of such thin silk that it would fit into a nut shell, and a necklace made of gems. Ashdaga gave the princess an outfit, thin as a gossamer, and a necklace of rare gems, and many jewelry of the kind that girls like.
The king gave his daughter to the ashdaga, and she settled with him in a secluded house with a single maid. In the evenings, the ashdaga lay down at the gate and admired his young wife walking in the garden, and the princess looked at him furtively and with fear.
But then one night the ashdaga came to her bedroom and lay down on the threshold. As soon as she saw him, the maid ran away. She thought that today the ashdaga would finally eat the princess.
The princess thought so too. But the longer she looked at the ashdaga, the less she was afraid of it. His eyes were kind. And the princess said:
- If you are an ashdaga, eat me. If it’s a person, say a word!
- Step on my back! - Ashdaga asked. The princess timidly approached him and did as he ordered. And suddenly the skin on the ashdagi’s back burst, and he came out of it and turned into a handsome, slender young man.
The young man hung the skin on a nail, checked whether the windows were curtained, whether there were any cracks in the doors, and if there were, he sealed them with wax. After that, he sat down next to his wife and told her his secret:
– I am Gugurchi, the son of the ruler of the underworld. My father wanted to force me to marry my cousin. But I refused. Then my evil aunt, the mother of this girl, turned me into an ashdaga... I ran away from my father’s house. Now my father's servants are looking for me everywhere. Be careful not to tell anyone who I am!
At dawn, Gugurchi again climbed into the skin of the ashdagi and lay down at the threshold.
In the morning, a maid crept up to the door, put her ear to her ear, and listened: was the princess alive? I heard her voice. She knocked on the door. The princess opened it to her, and her lips were smiling, her eyes were burning, her face was shining like the sun. And the ashdaga lies quietly at the threshold, as if dozing.
The maid ran to the palace and told the king’s daughters about everything.
- By hook or by crook, find out who this ashdaga is? - the princess sisters told her. – There’s something fishy here! If you find out, we will reward you royally.
The maid began to secretly watch the ashdaga, but did not notice anything special. Then she paved the way to the mistress’s heart with affection and flattery, and she entrusted her with her secret.
The maid immediately hurried to the palace with a denunciation to the two senior princesses. They envied their younger sister with fierce envy, biting their elbows in frustration... And they began to pester their father to send nukers (Nuker - warrior, bodyguard) to steal the skin of the ashdagi.
The king resisted for a long time. He didn’t want to disturb the peace of his youngest daughter. But the older princesses pestered him so much that he waved his hand and agreed. At night, the nukers snuck into the young couple’s bedroom and stole the ashdagi’s skin. And the older daughters threw her into the fire. At the same moment as the skin caught fire, Gugurchi woke up, jumped out of bed in fear and shouted:
- Oh-oh! I smell my birthmark!
The princess also woke up. They saw that the skin had disappeared.
“You told someone about my secret,” Gugurchi said sadly.
And the princess, all in tears, confessed to him that the maid had extracted the secret from her.
Gugurchi stamped his foot, turned into a nail and went underground. The princess was left alone with her grief. And there is no one to complain to. It's my own fault!
She waited a day, waited two, waited three. I waited a week and a month. No Gugurchi! Then the princess went to her father:
– My happiness has burned, my heart is broken. How should I live?
- Sorry, daughter! It was your sisters who gave me no rest. “They scared me that the ashdaga would take you to the underworld and I would lose you,” the king lamented. - They deceived me!
The princess put on men's clothes, hid her braids under a sheepskin hat, and went around the world to search and ask: has anyone seen Gugurchi?
The princess wandered for a long time. Nobody had ever heard of Gugurchi. One day she asked to spend the night with a decrepit, sick old woman. I trusted her and told her about my grief.
- Don't kill yourself! - the old woman consoled her. - I'll think of something. - And she stroked the princess on the head. “I don’t have much time left to live.” But I still have time to give you good advice.
The next morning the old woman, sensing that her last hour was approaching, said to the princess:
“You’ll go to the spring that gushes out from under the white stone behind my sakla, bend down lower and call: “Uh-Wai!” She said and died. The princess buried the old woman and cried over her. She went to the spring, leaned towards the water and called:
- Wow!
And immediately the giant stood in front of her and said:
- I'm Uh-Wai! Order, princess!
“Take me to the underworld,” the princess asked.
- It will be done! - Uh-Wai answered. “But before that we need to wash ourselves with water from the spring near the white stone.”
So they did. And then Ukh-Wai took the princess in his arms and flew away. They flew for a long time, flew high, right under the clouds... At the foot of the snowy mountain, Ukh-Vai sank to the ground. There was a crack in the rock. Smoke poured out of it and fire burst out, but Ukh-Wai calmed the princess:
- Don't be afraid, let's go! The water we washed ourselves with is magical! Fire will not touch us!
And they went down the crack, deep, deep, and reached the underground kingdom. At the gate to it, Ukh-Wai stopped.
“I can’t go any further.” Here is the key to the gate, and here are seven thousand keys to the houses of the underground capital. Go look for your Gugurchi. And if you need me, you’ll click: “Wow!” The princess took the keys, unlocked the gate, and entered the city. All living things in it: people, animals, and birds were turned into stone. The merchants behind the counters were petrified, the children in their cradles, the cows and sheep in the barns, the pigeons on the balconies... It was quiet and dead all around.
The princess opened the doors in every house, but did not find Gugurchi in any of them. Finally she saw a house with the door wide open. She entered it and in one of the rooms she noticed a swallow that was sitting on the windowsill, as if waiting for her. The swallow flew up and landed on the princess's shoulder, and looked into her eyes, and the princess kissed her head. Then the bird lightly flapped its wings, touched the floor, and in this very place Gugurchi stood in front of her princess. Out of joy, both could not utter a word for a long time. They hugged and kissed, and Gugurchi told what happened to him:
“When my aunt found out that your sisters burned the skin of the Ashdagh, she again began to marry her daughter to me.” I refused, and my aunt, out of anger, turned me into a swallow, and turned everything living in the capital into stone... Now look around! Your brave heart, your love defeated the evil spell of the witch.
Indeed! The princess looked around, and life was in full swing all around. People got to work, shepherds drove their flocks to pasture, pigeons cooed on the eaves...
Gugurchi went with the princess to his father. He hoped for forgiveness. But neither the ruler of the underworld, nor his wife, nor his relatives wanted to accept the young daughter-in-law. Gugurchi's mother said:
– We decided to marry you to your cousin and we will! And we will make this girl you brought as a maid. Let him first wash all the streets in the city with sea water for your wedding. If she doesn't wash it, your aunt will turn her into stone!
The princess wept bitterly and went to the seashore. They saw the clouds in the sky and she was bursting into tears and felt sorry for her. They absorbed sea water and shed it with frequent rain over the capital.
The stones on all the streets became white and sparkled.
Although Gugurchi’s relatives were silently amazed at such a miracle, they were not appeased. We started thinking: what other task should I ask the princess?
We thought and thought and came up with an idea. Gugurchi's mother called to the princess:
“My son’s fiancée will arrive this evening.” The palace should be as bright as day. You will greet the bride holding a resin torch on your head.
How to do this?! And yet the princess managed to contrive! When evening came, she lit torches in the corners of the courtyard and on the stairs in the palace, and tied a round mirror on her head. The fiery reflections in it blinded the ruler of the underworld. She closed her eyes and could not see whether the princess had a torch on her head. But I thought: yes!
For the second time, the princess outwitted Gugurchi’s relatives.
But Gugurchi’s mother did not calm down. When her sight returned, she told the princess:
“And now here’s your third task: get seven jugs of ghee from the well for the wedding halva.”
The princess did not know how to get oil from the well instead of water. She went to the well and just bent over it to look down, when the ruler of the underworld, sneaking up from behind, pushed her into the well.
Gugurchi saw this from the windows of the palace. He rushed to the well, pulled out his wife, and they started to run. Gugurchi took with him a bottle of sea water, a sharp knife and a pack of needles.
The evil aunt Gugurchi set off in pursuit of the fugitives. He doesn’t run, he flies, and is about to catch up and grab him! Gugurchi threw a pack of needles over his shoulder and shouted:
“Behind us, in front of you, let the thorns, prickly as needles, grow!”
And a thick thorny thorn grew behind the fugitives.
The witch-aunt gnawed her way through it for seven days. It was all torn to pieces, but it gnawed through. And she chased them even faster. On the spacious plain, she almost overtook Gugurchi and the princess. But Gugurchi threw a sharp knife over his shoulder and shouted:
“Behind us, in front of you, let the rocks stand as sharp as this knife!”
And high rocks grew between them. The aunt bit into them with her teeth, wounded herself, cut herself, but still broke through to catch up with the fugitives.
The princess was tired, her legs were bleeding, and she was weak from hunger. Gugurchi took her in his arms and carried her. And the evil witch is already catching up, hot on his heels... Gugurchi made his wife rest. He splashed sea water from a bottle onto the ground and shouted:
“Behind us, in front of you, let the lake overflow!”
And the salt lake overflowed behind them. The witch did not know how to swim and drowned in that lake.
- Wow! – the princess then called.
And immediately a giant appeared before her and said:
- I'm here! Order, princess!
- Take us quickly to my father’s house!
Ukh-Vai lifted the princess and Gugurchi and soared up to the very clouds. He dropped down in front of the royal palace. The king was happy that his beloved daughter had returned. And when I saw my son-in-law, I immediately fell in love with him, let’s hug him.
They played a cheerful wedding in the palace, and from then on the young people lived happily, and they had sons like their father and daughters like their mother.
This is where the fairy tale ends!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru