Seven brothers had one and only sister. All brothers were married. Since they loved their sister very much, their wives began to envy her and once went to the orsary so that he could teach them how to make the brothers stop loving their sister. For this they promised him a lot of gold.
Orsaryzh advised them to get some hare fat and give it to the girl-sister to eat: then she would become pregnant and the brothers would stop loving her. The women did as the sage advised, and the girl became pregnant. Then her brothers took her and threw her into the steppe. There she gave birth to a hare, who soon discovered such a property that if, having gone to the steppe, he found some rags, then it again turned into a new thing. In this way he obtained food for his mother and himself. Thus they lived for a long time.
Finally, the hare once said: “I’ll go ask the khan to give me some kind of saklya,” and went to him. Having made a low bow, the hare asked the khan: “Give me, Ziuskhan, one hut in which my unfortunate mother, my poor mother, could live.” Khan gave him some kind of saklya. Hitting him with his forehead again, the hare said: “If you give permission, I want to ask you for one more thing: give me two or three carts to transport our belongings.” The Khan also gave him carts. Then the hare returned to his mother. He put all his property on the carts, put his mother there, and moved to the aul, to the saklya given to him by the khan.
And so a hare and his mother lived in this sakla; Once the hare said: “I’ll go to the khan and ask him, if he does not neglect us, to visit us and taste our bread and salt.”
He went to the khan and, striking him with his forehead, asked him about it. “Ha-hai, I’ll come,” said the khan and, taking several people with him, he went to the hare. He was so happy about the guest that he didn’t know where to put him.
Khan really liked the hare's mother. From the moment he saw her, he could no longer think about anything else; he no longer looked at his wife; no matter what was being prepared at his house, he could not taste it before he sent this dish to the hare’s mother. Then the khan's wife prepared to go home to her mother to get poison to poison the hare's mother. When she left, the hare followed, but so that no one noticed him.
Arrived to mother. Everyone who was in her house and who arrived with her daughter, after drinking and eating, lay down, and the mother and daughter were left alone; at that time the hare was sitting under the bunk and waiting for what they would talk about among themselves. The daughter said: “In our village there lives one woman with her son, a hare; the khan is so seduced by her that he does not allow us to eat a single dish prepared by us without sending her some from him.” The mother replied to this: “When you return home, tell her to prepare hunthups from Sarachin grain and pour this into it,” and she gave her daughter poison.
Having heard and remembered these words well, the hare returned home in the morning, just before dawn. Soon the khan's wife also returned. She immediately ordered huntoops to be cooked from Sarachin grain and, when it was ready, she told the hare to go home for a cup into which a portion was poured for his mother. The hare brought it. Hansha took the cup and, as if stirring huntoops in it, poured poison into it. At that same moment, the hare jumped out of the hut and, running up one hill, raised the alarm, shouting: “Hahai, the army has arrived!”
Everyone who was in the hut, along with the Khansha herself, rushed out into the yard at this cry to find out what had happened. While they were standing there, the hare ran back into the saklya and poured the hunthups poured for his mother into the Khansha’s cup, then joined those standing in the yard, inquiring in turn: “What happened?”
When the people dispersed and the khansha returned to her hut, they gave his cup to the hare, saying: “Take part of it to your mother.”
The hare went home with a cup. Hansha died as soon as she took a sip of her hunthoops. The news of her death immediately spread. Hearing about this, the hare, hitting himself on the head, came to mourn the Khansha. Having mourned her, the hare then asked the women who had gathered for the funeral of the Khansha, so that two or three of them would go with him, so that his unfortunate mother, his poor mother, would also come with them to mourn the Khansha. Taking the women with him, the hare, accompanied by them, brought his mother. She, having mourned the khansha, returned home and was seen by the khan, who ordered not to let her go home. She was abandoned and later taken by the khan as his wife. After that, the hare went to live in the steppe, and from him, they say, the present-day hares originated.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru