A hare was collecting seaweed on the seashore, and a small seal was playing on the waves.
The seal saw the hare and shouted:
“Don’t you dare collect our algae.”
The hare responds:
“Ours are on the shore, and yours are at sea.”
Nerpa got angry at the Hare and screamed even louder. The grandmother heard her, came out of the water and asked her granddaughter:
- Oh, why are you shouting?
- The Hare offended me!
Grandmother was angry with the Hare and wanted to teach him a lesson. The Hare saw that the old seal was coming out of the water, swung it and threw a stone at it. A stone hit the seal in the head and it fell dead.
A wave came, lifted the small seal high, and she saw that the grandmother had been killed.
“Abuu!” Nerpa cried and dived into the waves. She ran to the yaranga and woke up her grandfather: “Grandfather, get up quickly, the hare killed our grandmother!” Grandfather swam ashore, puffing and snorting. He saw the Hare and growled:
- Come out to fight!
- No, come here.
“I can’t fight on land!”
- But I can’t on the water! - says the hare.
The old man climbed onto the shore. The hare threw a stone at him. - Telyappa! “Oh, it hurts!” the old man howled and fell down dead.
A little seal is swinging on the waves, calling his grandparents, crying.
The father returned from hunting and heard from his daughter that his old men had been killed. He got angry with the Hare and jumped from ice floe to ice floe. A piece of ice floe bounced off and hit the Hare right in the forehead. The Hare jumped up and fell dead on the ground.
The father of the little seal approached him, cut off his ears and swam out to sea. He swam up to his daughter and gave her bunny ears.
The Hare's neighbor, the Fox, came ashore, saw her neighbor, went into the tundra, found grass leaves that looked like hare ears, and put them in place of ears.
The Hare came to life and jumped for joy.
They dragged the seals home. They invited guests, cooked and ate meat all night.
The next morning they felt sorry for the old man and the old woman. They had known the old seal and her old man for a long time, since they were little.
They tied the bones of seals, doused them with fat, anointed them with brains, wrapped them in grass and threw them into the sea. An old man and an old woman are swimming from the shore. They beat the tambourine, the Hare and the Fox danced in joy, and the seals swam home.
The granddaughter was delighted to see her grandfather and grandmother.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru