Once upon a time there lived a lazy man. He lay down in a field under a bush and saw: a great many flies were clinging to some carrion. The lazy man swung his hand and slammed four tens in one fell swoop.
- Eva! Look how great I am! - he said to himself.
He wanted everyone to think he was great. The lazy man went to the gunsmith and ordered him to forge a good saber and write on it: “In one fell swoop - forty souls in a beating!” Let everyone who reads the inscription marvel and tremble before the daredevil.
They forged a saber. The lazy man put it on and went to the mountains to scare those who would be more cowardly than himself. I walked around and walked around and lay down in the cold to rest.
Well, forty robbers were playing tricks in the mountains. Along the path they came to the place where the lazy man was snoring, noticed a sleeping man and sent two to investigate: what kind of man was he? Two messengers looked at him and read the inscription on the saber: “In one fell swoop - forty souls beaten!” They immediately informed the other robbers, and they all decided together: it would be nice to take the brave man as their atamans!
And that’s all I need for a lazy person. They became friends and went wandering through the mountains. Their fame spread everywhere, and all because of the daring chieftain. People were trembling with fear - both old and young. Well, it’s known: one person will say it, and the other will repeat it! Rumors also reached the king.
There was no drinking water in the capital royal city. There was only one pond, and even in that pond a dragon settled and demanded a bloody tribute for the water - bring him one person a day to eat.
So he took a person from each house. It was the turn of the princess. The king issued an order: whoever is brave and daring, let him fight the dragon and, if he defeats him, he will receive a great reward.
They told the king: the robbers supposedly have an ataman, such a daredevil that he can destroy forty enemies in one fell swoop. The king immediately sent envoys to the ataman to ask him to come to the palace with his entire gang. If he defeats the dragon and saves the princess, the king will not only have mercy on the whole gang, but will also marry his daughter to the ataman, and immediately appoint all the robbers as ministers, so that they will sit until the end of their days in the palace, and not stagger in the mountains.
The ataman received such news, and the robbers immediately caught fire: let’s go, they say, let’s destroy the dragon. They really wanted to become ministers. And even then, say: the ataman himself will fight, and they will sit on the sidelines, and then they will come for the reward.
The chieftain, seeing their zeal, even though he knew that he would have to go ahead of everyone, reasoned that it would be awkward to refuse, the cunning deception would instantly be revealed and everyone would understand that he was a terrible daredevil.
So the robbers came to the king, and then wandered to the shore of the pond - the chieftain needed to figure out how best to kill the dragon.
The ataman looked around and decided: let the gang sit in ambush, and he himself will climb a tree, closer to the pond, and will command from there.
In the morning, the ataman came with his gang to the pond, hid all the robbers in ambush, climbed a tree himself, and looked so brave, as if he didn’t care about anything. Even though in his soul he said goodbye to life, he doesn’t show it, because he still hopes that, sitting on a tree, he will somehow survive. He strictly ordered the robbers: not to dare disturb the dragon without a command.
A little later a dragon appeared from the water - and straight towards the tree. The brave fly swatter saw him, and all his veins began to shake: what can you do here! The dragon's mouth is huge - it can swallow a person without choking.
“Yes, try to kill him! Of course!” thought the unfortunate brave man. “I’d better jump straight into his mouth, let him swallow him - and that’s all. The end of the atamanism, enough of fooling people’s heads. There’s no need to beat flies here, forty of them in one fell swoop. There’s a dragon!”
And the dragon noticed him, opened his mouth, raised his terrible head, and reached straight towards the chieftain. The guy was so frightened that he couldn’t even call the gang out of an ambush - they say, well, shoot, kill the dragon! The brave man’s arms and legs began to tremble, he fell from the tree and flew down. He didn’t fall into the dragon’s mouth, but grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and, out of fear, grabbed his ears so as not to fall. The dragon was surprised, even dumbfounded. It’s not for nothing that old people say: “Once a coward has overcome his fear, he will never be able to overcome it.” So it is here. Once the dragon calmed down, the chieftain overcame his fear and barked at the robbers:
- Why are you standing there, what else are you waiting for? Maybe you want me to come and visit you on a dragon?
When the robbers heard him, they ran up to the dragon from all sides, and began to throw spears and arrows at him. That's how they killed him.
Here both the king and the people rejoiced, picked up the daredevils in their arms, and carried them to the city with jubilation. There the king gave a large reward to all the brave men, and they began to prepare for the princess’s wedding. But just at this very time, the neighboring king declared war on that state. An uninvited guest arrived with his troops, and he called the king: come out, they say, to measure your strength one on one. The king informed the robbers about a new misfortune and asked whether the daring chieftain would lead his gang against the villainous enemy in order to smash him to smithereens.
The chieftain replied that, of course, he would go and defeat his enemies without fail - just let him be given a horse that is not timid. The king immediately gave him a war horse, and the young man galloped off to look at the enemy army. When I saw the darkness and darkness of enemy soldiers, I decided: it would be better to die with honor, just not to disgrace myself.
He found a dry tree, galloped up, tied his hands to it - he had ordered his legs to be chained before the battle so that he could not get off his war horse until he had destroyed all the enemies. It means that he became attached to a withered tree, and how he put spurs into the horse so that it would gallop and tear him, the chieftain, to pieces. Only it turned out differently: as the horse rushed, the dry trunk tilted, and the mighty horse pulled it out of the ground. The tree, along with its branches and butt, fell on the chieftain’s shoulder. Well, the horse rushed straight towards the enemy troops. The enemies saw that a miracle horseman was rushing towards them with a club of three girths, they were afraid that he would beat the soldiers with that club, they ran home without looking back, and in the confusion they crushed, beat and wounded their own people.
At first the chieftain did not understand that he had won the battle, he kept waiting - he was about to be torn to pieces! But still he realized it in time. Then he took off the fetters from his hands, chopped up the dead and wounded with his saber, shed a lot of blood and returned to the king.
The king received him with honor and gave his daughter to him as his wife. When the king died, the ataman sat on the throne, and the robbers became ministers.
This is how it happens: a lie led to good. The proverb says: “It’s time to come to your senses, a lie will not lead to good.” And you see, it happens just like in this fairy tale about the brave lazy man.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru