The gypsy went to steal horses, but the family remained in the camp. They wait for him one day, two, three - there is no gypsy, he gives no news. What's happened? The family became alarmed and raised the camp to its feet. We went to look for the gypsy. They searched for a long time, but never found it.
They all decided that he died. We held a wake for the gypsy, the wife shed tears and slowly began to forget...
And this is what happened to the gypsy. He went out into the clearing at night and saw a horse of extraordinary beauty grazing.
The horse's mane is long, its tail spreads along the ground, and sparks fly from under its hooves.
This horse gallops once and flies across the entire clearing. The gypsy wanted to catch this horse, he began to sneak up on him, but as soon as he came closer, the horse, sensing a man, neighed so that the earth shook. The horse rushed and galloped away, only the gypsy saw him. The gypsy was offended. “How can this be,” he thinks, “after all, I’m not new to such matters, but I couldn’t take the horse. We must find him."
I thought and went. Follows the trail. One day goes by, another goes by. His tracks lead to the cave. The gypsies were scared, but there was nothing to do, you had to go further into the cave if you wanted to take the horse.
And the cave goes lower and lower, deeper and deeper. The gypsy walked and walked and ended up in the kingdom of the snake. In this kingdom, the eldest was the twelve-headed Serpent - a monster the likes of which the world had never seen, and the rest of the Serpents were his workers.
The elder Snake saw the gypsy, flew at him and shouted:
- How dare you, gypsy, enter my kingdom?
The gypsies are scared, but they don’t show it. He told the Serpent:
- So and so, so and so.
I couldn’t take the horse right away, I followed in his tracks, and so he brought me to you.
- Do you know, gypsy, that there is no turning back from here? So choose: either you will accept death, or you will become my worker.
Who wants to die? Of course, the gypsy went to the Serpent as a worker.
“You, gypsy, are a great master of horses, and therefore you will be the mouth of my magical spears,” ordered the Serpent.
From then on, the gypsies began to herd the magical herd. The horses in it were not ordinary. In the Serpent’s dungeon they ate precious stones and drank from a silver stream. And only once a year did the Serpent release them into the wild.
A year passes, another passes, a third passes. The Snake liked the gypsy, became friends with him, and felt sorry for the gypsy. One day he calls him over and says:
- What, gypsy, would you like to return home? But the gypsy had been restless in his soul all three years, he really wanted to go home, he would have run away long ago, but how could he escape from under the serpent’s supervision. When the gypsy heard the words of the Snake, he rejoiced:
- Let me go, Snake. I served you for three years, and now I want to see my family, my wife and children.
“Okay,” agreed the Serpent, “I’ll let you go.” Just remember: no one should know what happened to you here.
I will take an oath from you, and if you break it, then you will not escape trouble.
The Snake struck with its tail and the earth parted. The twelve-headed Serpent whistled, and all the Snakes around curled into a ball.
This ball began to unwind and unwound all the way to the ground.
- Get in! - the Serpent ordered the gypsy, and the gypsy climbed up. He climbed out onto the ground, looked around, and saw: a large stone lying. The Snakes entwined this stone and began to lick it.
The Serpent came out and ordered:
- Swear, gypsy, that you will not break your word.
- Yes, so that my wife and children will not see life if I tell! – he swore a terrible oath.
“Now lick the stone,” the Serpent ordered. The gypsy licked the stone and the Serpent released it into the camp. The gypsy came home, and his relatives almost went crazy. Of course, after all, he had long been considered dead. The wife is happy, the children are happy.
– Where have you been, my dear husband? Why did he disappear for so long? Tell!
When I saw the gypsy family, I was so happy that my head became foggy. He forgot about the word given to the Snake, began to talk about his troubles, adventures, and when his story came to the end, he realized:
- Oh devlale! What have I done?
After all, I broke the oath given to the Snake!
The gypsy screamed, fell to the ground and began to wriggle along the ground. He wriggled and wriggled and turned into a poisonous snake. He began to attack his wife and children, bit them, and they fell dead next to him. The next morning the gypsies looked into their canopy and saw: a gypsy woman was lying dead, the children were lying dead next to her, and a snake was crawling between them.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru