The Narts had an old, but bad custom.
When a man became so decrepit that he could no longer pull a sword out of its sheath with three fingers, could not sit on a horse without someone else's help, could not draw a bow to shoot game, he no longer had the strength to put leggings on his feet, to hold a rake in his hands, to fold a haystack, he no longer had the strength not to doze off while guarding the herd - they put this decrepit old man in a wicker basket and carried out of the village.
They were carried out and raised to the top of the Mountain of Old Age. Large stone wheels were attached to a wicker basket and the basket was launched down the cliff into the abyss...
This is what they did with old people. And they did the same with the old women.
The time came when Badynoko’s father, Badyn, turned into a very old man, decrepit and powerless.. This was not surprising, because time had managed to silver the head of Badynoko himself a little. Badynoko loved his father, whom he recognized as a young man, and was tormented by the fact that he had to push his father into the abyss with his own hands, but what could he do if among the Narts, breaking custom was considered a disgrace? Isn't shame worse than death?
Hiding his sadness, Badynoko wove a basket from brushwood, put his father in it, lifted Badyn to the top of the Mountain of Old Age, attached two huge stone wheels to the basket and said:
“I’m sending you, father, to your death.” Blame it not on me, but on the Nart custom. Goodbye!
Badyn said nothing in response, and his silence made Badynoko’s grief heavier. He pushed the basket and it rolled down the road of death. She came closer and closer to the abyss, Badynoko’s heart beat more and more often. At the very edge of the abyss, the basket suddenly stopped, catching on a stump. The wind began to swing it over the abyss, Badyn’s white beard fluttered in the wind, and the old man could not stand it, he laughed.
- Father, why are you laughing? - asked Badynoko.
Badyn, still laughing, answered:
“I thought that when you become decrepit and your son throws you off the Mountain of Old Age, your basket will also get caught, perhaps on this very stump.” Isn't this funny?
The kind laughter of his father, sentenced to death, wounded Badynoko to the very heart. He ran up to his father and said, like a man who had made a firm decision:
“Let the Narts do what they want with me, but I won’t send you down the road of death!”
“If you want to know the truth, my son,” answered the old man, “then I’m not a very big fan of hanging around idle in the next world.” It is true that a useless life is worse than death. But am I not able to bring benefit to people? I can't work, but I can think!
Badynoko pulled his father out of the basket, threw the basket into the abyss, and carried his father to a mountain cave. Laying him on a bed of grass, he said to the old man:
- Father! Live here, live secretly, so that no one finds out about you: otherwise the Narts will be angry with me for violating the custom. And I will bring you food every week.
So time passed. Badyn lived in a cave, and Badynoko brought him food every week.
It so happened that the fruits in the Country of the Narts did not bear fruit. And the next year the fruit trees did not produce a harvest. And another year passed, and the orchards remained bare. There was not a single apple, not a single pear in the Nart gardens.
One day the day came when Badynoko brought food to his father. Walking past the river, he noticed three apples floating in the water.
“I’ll take these apples to my father,” thought Badynoko and climbed into the river. But the apples dived into the water and disappeared. Badynoko became sad, and the sadness did not leave his face even when he entered the cave. Old Badyn noticed this. He asked:
- Why are you sad, son?
“I was annoyed,” said Badynoko. “When I was walking to you, I saw three apples in the river.” I wanted to bring them to you, but as soon as I got into the water, the apples disappeared.
- Don't be sad about this, my son. Just don’t look for apples in the river in the future. Walk with your head up and you will find apples.
This is how Badyn taught his son. Badynoko said goodbye to his father. He wandered for a long time through forests and gorges, wandering with his head raised. Climbing into the forest thicket, he saw an apple tree and a pear tree. They stood right next to the river. Each tree bore one fruit. Badynoko picked both fruits and brought them to the sledges.
The Narts rejoiced, sowed the seeds of these fruits, and again apple and pear trees blossomed on the Nart land.
A lot of time passed, and a new misfortune befell the Narts: the loss of livestock began. Death took away all the rams, leaving only a few sheep. The Narts were afraid: all the sheep and rams would disappear from the face of their land, for how could the remaining sheep give birth if all the rams had died?
The sledges gathered for their Khasa, but could not think of anything. Meanwhile, the number of sheep became fewer and fewer. Anxiety gripped the Nart Country. Badyn read this anxiety in the eyes of his son when he brought him food. The old man asked:
- Why is your look so cloudy? Maybe you're tired of taking care of me?
“I rejoice in caring for you,” answered Badynoko. “But there is little joy in the Country of the Narts.” There was a death, the livestock died, only a few sheep remained, but how will they give birth if there are no rams?
“Don’t worry, Badynoko,” said the old man. - Drive the remaining sheep to the place where Amysh grazed the first rams. You will see that in a year the sheep will give birth.
Badynoko knew the pasture where, long ago, when the first sheep appeared on earth, Amish, the patron saint of animals, grazed his flock. It was to this high mountain pasture that Badynoko brought the Nart sheep.
The sheep sniffed the ground on which the first rams grazed - the ancestors of all today's rams - and descended into the village. The next year, each of them brought three, four, or even five lambs. So flocks of sheep appeared again in the Nart Country.
A lot of time passed, and again grief visited the Narts: during the harvest, hail of unprecedented force fell and destroyed all the millet. The sledges were left without millet, even without millet seeds. The Narts did not know how to help their grief.
Badynoko still has some millet left from last year. He fried it and took it to his father. Old Badyn lived in a cave for many years, not seeing his friends, far from the sledges, and therefore every visit to his son was a joy for him. But when he saw that his son brought him little millet, he was upset and said with offense:
“Apparently, you’re tired of me if you brought me such a tiny handful of millet!”
“Don’t be offended, father,” said Badynoko. “The Narts are in grief: the hail destroyed the entire millet harvest, and we didn’t even have any seeds left.” We don’t know what to do, what to do.
“There’s no need to grieve,” Badyn answered. - Harness the oxen and plow all the roads along which Thagolej transported the first millet, plow the old current of the god of fertility.
Badynoko harnessed the oxen and went to the Thagoleja current, drove along all the roads along which the god of fertility transported millet. The millet grains, which scattered after the first threshing on earth, gave a wonderful harvest. Millet appeared again in the Country of the Narts, and, having collected it, the Narts organized a sanitary drinking party. The Narts said their first toast in honor of Badynoko, who saved the Nart Country from the destruction of fruits, sheep and millet. Having praised Badynoko, the Narts asked him:
- Tell us, Badynoko, how did you find an apple and a pear, how did you arrange for the sheep to give birth, although all the rams died, how did you get a bountiful harvest of millet without sowing grains?
Badynoko went to the middle of Khasa Nartov and said:
- Narty, this is not my merit!
- Whose? — the sledges were surprised.
- Swear that you will not get angry, that you will not grab your swords from their scabbards, and I will tell you the whole truth.
These words of Badynoko surprised the Narts even more, and they exclaimed.
- We swear!
“Then find out the truth,” Badynoko began. “My love for my father is so strong that I could not kill him.” I hid him in a cave and bring him food every week. It was my father, the white-bearded Badyn, who taught me what to do when our orchards, our cattle and our millet died. If apples and pears bloom again in the Country of the Narts, if flocks of sheep graze in our meadows again, if the Narts again harvest abundant harvests of millet, then this is not my merit, but the merit of my father. I only followed his wise advice. And if I had brought him down from the Mountain of Old Age along the road of death, then we would have lost fruits, sheep, and millet.
After listening to Badynoko, the Narts exclaimed:
- May your years last, Nart Badynoko, you are the pride of your father, the pride of the Nart Country!
The Narts decided: to abolish the old custom, for it is bad, not to take decrepit old people to the top of the Mountain of Old Age, not to throw them into the abyss along the road of death, but to cherish their old age and listen to their wise advice.
Thus Badynoko introduced a new custom in the Nart Country. This was a good custom, and the old people lived from then on until the very end of their lives, instructing the Narts with wisdom and blessing Badynoko. But Badynoko himself did not live to see the days of old age, for he died from the arrow of the insidious Dzhilakhstan.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru