Once upon a time there lived a poor widow with her son Mishuk. They huddled in an old hut, it was good if there was enough bread until the new year, and in the summer they subsisted on berries and mushrooms.
Once, after a warm rain, an old woman went into the forest to pick mushrooms. I walked and walked and didn’t find a single mushroom. “You can’t go home empty-handed,” she thought. “Let me at least pick up some brushwood.”
I started collecting brushwood and came across an armful of dry dead wood. She picked it up and saw that the big one was already curled up on the ground, the horns on its head were turning yellow.
The old woman, without hesitation, took off her apron and spread it next to the snake. He crawled onto the apron, wriggled on it, and then, leaving his yellow horns, crawled into the bushes.
The old woman immediately tied her apron with horns in a knot and, satisfied, ran home. He comes home and tells his son about his discovery.
-What are you happy about? - Mishuk asked her. “What’s the use of them?”
“Because of your youth and stupidity, you still don’t know that along with these horns happiness has come to our house,” the mother answers. “They are not simple, but magical.” Put them in a bank with grain - no matter how much you take, the bread will not decrease; put the horns in your wallet - there will be no loss in money, no matter how much you spend.
They decided to start with money. Mishuk took out his wallet and counted the money. There was not much money, only about seven rubles.
The next morning Mishuk went to the market. He walked around the bazaar, he was asking the price of this and that, but he was in no hurry to spend the money: well, you’ll spend it, but it won’t be replenished?! Then he looked at the squeaky boots and - was it not! - gave three rubles for them. I bought boots, stepped aside, looked into my wallet, and there were seven rubles there, and they remained there.
With the same seven rubles they built a new spacious house, a barn, a barn, and bought all sorts of livestock. In a word, they began to live no worse than other village rich people. Mishuk wore his boots squeaking not only on holidays, but also on weekdays. His peers called him Mishuk in Boots.
Mishuk has turned twenty years old, it’s time to get married. His mother matched him with the daughter of rich parents. The wedding was celebrated according to honor.
People wondered where the poor widow and her son got such wealth from. But the mother and son, not only strangers, didn’t even tell their daughter-in-law anything about the wonderful horns!
Winter has come, and in winter the main thing for girls and women is spinning. The young woman sat down to yarn. To make the daughter-in-law tense more, the mother-in-law quietly slipped wonderful horns into her tow. The daughter-in-law spins for a day, a second, a third, and the tow lobe not only does not end, but does not even decrease. “That’s the problem,” the young woman thinks. “People will start laughing: I can’t finish one lobe in three days.” And when on the fourth day the mother-in-law lit the stove, and she went out to see her neighbor for some reason, the young woman, without thinking twice, took the tow from the comb and threw it into the fire. And so that the mother-in-law would not guess, she took out a new lobe.
The mother-in-law comes from the neighbor and is amazed that the wood in the stove was still burning and not decreasing. It’s time to put the bread in the oven, but only when you put it in the flame.
“Have you finished spinning your tow, honey?” the mother-in-law asked, sensing something was wrong.
“No, I haven’t finished spinning it yet,” answered the young woman.
And it's time for lunch. The son came home. The stove was still heated, and the wood still doesn’t burn out. At this point the daughter-in-law began to understand something and admitted:
“I threw a tow into the stove, isn’t that why the fire doesn’t go down?”
“Oh, little dear, little dear, what have you done!” cried the old woman. “You ruined and ruined us.” Grab buckets and carry water. Put out the fire in the stove!
The son immediately understood his mother, grabbed the buckets and went to the well. His daughter-in-law also began to help him. They carry water, and the mother pours it into the stove on the fire. Lily, lily, they extinguished it forcibly. However, the fire went out - a new misfortune: water poured out of the stove. An hour passes, two, half a day passes. The entire hut was already flooded and the courtyard was flooded. From the hut and from the yard, water flowed down the ravine further and further, and every hour it became more and more.
It was this water that, without ceasing, flowed from the furnace, and gave rise, as the old people say, to a large river, which to this day flows through the Chuvash land. And since the old woman’s son’s name was Atal Mishuk, the Chuvash named the river Adal, that is, Volga
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru