A proud Yakut and his daughter and a kind Yakut and his son lived near the blue lake. Their yurts stood very close, but they never visited each other. They used to meet on the shore, the kind Yakut would bow respectfully, but the proud Yakut would not even look at him. A good Yakut will sit on the street to smoke, facing his neighbor’s yurt, and his neighbor will turn his back. A good Yakut goes to fish on the nearest shore, and a proud Yakut goes to the farthest shore. That's how we lived.
One day a big wind ran past a deep lake. He looked at people, how they lived in discord, and thought: “Let me try to make them the same.”
The wind crept up to the place where the proud Yakut and his daughter were fishing, and how it would blow! The dried fish flew in the direction where the good Yakut and his son were fishing, and ended up on their shore. And the wind climbed onto the hill and is watching what people will do next. The kind Yakut and his son collected the fish, carried it into the boat and took it to the proud Yakut. He saw that the neighbors were carrying fish, and ordered his daughter to look in the other direction and not talk.
The father and son swam to the shore, pulled the boat out of the water and said:
- Take, neighbor, the fish that the wind took away from you.
And the proud Yakut and his daughter stand dumb. The good neighbors felt offended by such disrespect; they threw the fish out of the boat onto the shore and swam back.
The proud Yakut waited until his neighbors landed on his shore, and then he ran to the fish left on the shore and threw all of it into the water.
The wind saw this and became even more angry. “Wait,” he thinks, “I’ll knock off your pride now.”
As soon as the proud Yakut got into the boat to cast the net again, the wind rushed across the lake like a wave. A high wave hit the boat and threw it out right where the good Yakut was fishing. Father and son ran up to their proud neighbor, but he was barely breathing. They put him on a strong net and carried him into the yurt. My daughter came running, hid in a corner, crying and didn’t want to talk to anyone. A kind Yakut and his son began to care for the sick man. They cook firewood, carry water, brew tea, stand by the fireplace at night, and the wind slowly moves around the yurt and waits: what will happen next?
One fine morning the proud Yakut became healthy. He rose to his feet, beckoned his daughter to follow him and took her fishing, without even saying thank you to the neighbors for their concern. Father and son sighed heavily, and the wind that day became completely angry. He lay down on a high stone and waited for the Yakut and his daughter to go home. As soon as they approached the yurt, the wind jumped out from behind the stone and swirled a column of black earth. He tore down the yurt of a proud Yakut, turned the wooden frame into chips, and carried the reindeer skins over the hills.
At this time, the kind Yakut and his son were leaving work. They looked at the place where their neighbor’s yurt stood and gasped. A deep hole has formed there. They felt sorry for the proud Yakut and his daughter, who were left homeless, they approached them and said:
“Go to our yurt, and we’ll build another one for ourselves.”
Again the proud Yakut did not thank his kind neighbor, did not even please him with a warm look, entered someone else’s yurt and began to manage things in his own way. The wind saw that the kind Yakut and his son were assembling a yurt from twigs, and the proud Yakut was walking and still raising his nose in the air, and decided to run to the wind to the great mountain and ask for advice: by what force can force people to become related?
The wind ran through the valleys for many days and nights until it reached the great mountain.
He stopped at the mountain and asked:
“Tell me, great mountain, is the whole earth visible to you?”
“As everything is,” answers the mountain.
“Please advise, great mountain,” the wind continued, “how can people be related?”
“Friendship,” says the mountain.
- How to find this friendship?
- Run to your old land, shake large and small trees in the taiga from edge to edge, raise gray water in wide rivers and seas, disperse black clouds in the sky and make way for a clear dawn. Then you will see how friendship is born.
The great wind sang its gratitude to the great mountain and ran back. A day runs, two days run - no matter what, the more strength he feels. He flew into the wide taiga and could not calm down. It goes from end to end and picks up everything that is on the earth. He looks and doesn’t believe: the earth is humming, his power has done so many things that it’s hard to believe. The wind goes around the valley and admires it. The deer that were scattered throughout the taiga moved into one large herd. People all sit together around a big fire, doing one job. The wind rustles and grows younger along with the people. Early in the morning he approached a deep lake, and there many people came out to greet the clear dawn. A proud Yakut and a kind neighbor are cutting down a new house, and their cheerful children together are carrying a large net to the lake. The great wind looked at the equal happiness of the people, he felt joyful, and he sang a mighty song over the world: how the great mountain taught him to sweep across the earth an unprecedented hurricane, from which discord dissipated and friendship shone forever.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru