One day the Narts staged one of the most festive sanitary drinking parties. Sosruko, Badynoko, Ashamez and other famous Narts came together. I attended sanitary drinking and Bataraz. Bataraz arrived not on his beloved Karapts, but on a peaceful, albeit frisky mare from an overseas herd.
Having dismounted at the kunatskaya, where the feast was taking place, the sled tied his mare to a cart that stood in the courtyard.
The feasting lasted long after midnight, the nearby guests went home, and the distant ones, including Bataraz, stayed overnight as guests.
Early in the morning, one of the guests, going out into the yard, saw Batarazov’s beautiful mare and next to her a young, slender, newly born foal. The young man took the foal, carried it to the stable, and then at the feast he announced to those gathered:
- Sledges! Today our old cart gave birth to a foal.
“Miracles!” the Narts were surprised. And Bataraz, going out into the yard, realized that his face had foaled, and someone had taken the foal.
The Narts, of course, knew that the foal was brought by the mare Bataraza, but they decided to test his ingenuity and, if he did not guess, take the offspring of an overseas mare.
- Where are you taking my foal? - Bataraz asked the young man.
- How does he know where the foal is? - the Narts objected, and no matter how much Bataraz persuaded them to give him his goods, they did not want to know anything. Then Bataraz thought: “Okay, I will force you to break what you have built with your own hands.”
After sitting with the feasters for a while, Bataraz said:
“We won’t argue, Narts, but let’s call together different animals.” For them, you and I are equal, let them decide who owns the foal.
No sooner said than done. After three days and three nights, various animals came to drink sanitation. Whoever was there, one hedgehog was missing! They sent a dog after the hedgehog, and soon it brought a prickly animal on its neck.
- Why didn’t you immediately answer the call? - they asked him.
“If you knew what I was doing, you wouldn’t be surprised,” the hedgehog panted.
“You probably had an important matter, you won’t bother with trifles,” the Narts laughed.
And the hedgehog says:
“I immediately followed your call, but on the way I saw that the fire had engulfed the mountain range, and I paused: I took an armful of dry hay and put out the fire with it.”
- Could this be? - the sleds objected to him, - you can’t put out a fire with dry hay, especially in such heat.
“If your old cart can bring a child, then dry hay can put out any fire,” the hedgehog answered them, and all the animals laughed: how cunning the prickly one is!
The embarrassed Narts had to return the hidden foal to Bataraza.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru