Once upon a time there lived a nice young man - Prince Marko. One day he was sitting with his mother at dinner, and then three letters were brought to him. One was from the city of Buda from the local king, the second from the city of Sibin from the Duke of Sibin Yanko, and the third from the city of Bayazet from the Sultan of Bayazet. In a letter from Buda, the king invited Marko to be a matchmaker, in a letter from Sibin, Duke of Sibin Yanko invited him to become a godfather, to baptize his two little sons, and in a letter from Bayazet, the Sultan called on him to take up arms against the formidable Arab land. Marco asked:
-Where should I go, mother?
- Join the Sultan's army. God will forgive us, but the Turks will probably be offended.
Marco began to prepare for war. He took his servant Goluban with him.
When they reached their third overnight stop, Marco drank wine and fell asleep. Servant Goluban began to wake him up and said:
“Hey, my lord Korolevich Marko, you’ve gone to war before, but you’ve never slept so soundly.”
And Korolevich Marko answered him:
“I had a strange dream - as if a young man came from the city of Kostur, seized and burned my house, killed my old mother and took away all my goods from the storerooms.
“Don’t believe dreams,” says the servant Goluban, “a dream is a lie, only God knows the truth.”
When they arrived in the formidable Arab land, Marco began to take one city after another and took all forty-four cities. But when they approached the city of Kara-Okan, they besieged it for four years, but could not take it. Marco killed the Arab youths, and sent their heads to Sultan Bayazet. The Turks did not like this, and they slandered Marco in front of the Sultan, saying that he chops and sends the heads of the dead. When Prince Marko heard this, he asked the Sultan to let him go for a few days to celebrate his name day.
He came to a green forest, pitched a tent, sat there and drank red wine. The Arab patrols immediately learned that there was no Prince Marko in the Sultan’s army, and they shouted to their own:
“Now attack, fierce araps, now in the Sultan’s army there is no formidable young man on his horse Shartse!”
The Arabs attacked the Sultan's army, and then six hundred thousand soldiers died.
The next morning the watchmen again shouted the cry:
“Attack again, fierce araps, the Sultan’s army still doesn’t have that formidable young man on the fleet-footed Sharts!”
The araps attacked again and killed one hundred thousand warriors.
Then the Sultan wrote a letter to Prince Marko: “Hurry up, my adopted son Marko, otherwise the araps will chop up my entire army!”
And Marco returned to the Sultan’s army. When the watchmen saw him, they shouted to their own:
“Retreat, fierce araps,” there he is, the formidable youth!
The Arabs began to retreat, but Marco crashed into the very middle of the army and dispersed it into three directions. He chopped one part with sabers, trampled the other with Shartsa’s hooves, and captured the third and brought it to the Sultan. Marco received seventy wounds in battle. The Sultan asked him:
- Marco, my adopted son, are your wounds severe? — he put his hand in his pocket and gave him a thousand ducats to heal his wounds.
Marco took the money, but did not go to heal his wounds, but went from one tavern to another to look for better wine.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru