There lived a man in a village. He was a great cunning and trickster. And although he could neither read nor write, he easily fooled even the most famous literate and wise men. And he vowed to himself never to take up work. By cunning and various tricks he obtained some food for himself and did not want more.
One day he sat down to eat. And the tray with food was covered with a whole cloud of flies. He grabbed a branch, began to beat them and beat them until he was tired. Then he called his wife and told her to count the dead flies. My wife counted thirty pieces.
“Okay,” said the husband, “from now on, call me Khan - Thirty Deaths.”
Little by little, both his wife and neighbors got used to calling him by this name.
Somehow there was a crop failure in their area. Khan - Thirty Deaths left his home and moved to another village with his wife. One day the Raja called him to him and asked:
-What do you do?
“I do what others fail to do,” answered the sly man.
“This village is attacked every night by a lion,” said the Raja. - Kill him and deliver him to me. If you kill a lion, you will receive a hundred rupees as a reward; if you don’t kill it, you will be hanged the next morning.
Khan - Thirty Deaths returned home, sat down with his head down, and began to think about how he could get out of trouble. “I have never seen a lion in my entire life. Where can I kill him? He'll probably eat me himself. If I don’t kill the lion, the Raja will hang me in the morning.”
At the thought of this, tears began to flow from his eyes. His wife began to console him:
- Is it worth crying about this? It will get dark and we will run away from here somewhere far away.
Khan - Thirty Deaths liked his wife's advice. And they began to prepare for the night escape. The day has passed. Darkness fell. Everyone in the village fell asleep.
“We have too many things,” said the wife, “we can’t carry everything.” Go outside the village, the potter’s donkeys are grazing there. Bring one donkey, we will load our luggage on it and set off.
Khan - Thirty Deaths went out of the village and came across the same lion that attacked people at night and dragged them away. Khan - Thirty Deaths had never seen a lion before, and besides, the night was completely dark. He mistook the lion for a donkey, grabbed it by the ears, dragged it home and tied it to a tree. And he ordered his wife to load the belongings onto the donkey.
The wife took things out of the house and returned to bring the lamp. Coming out with a lamp, she saw that it was not a donkey, but a lion tied at the door.
- Leo! Lion! - she screamed in horror.
Khan - Thirty Deaths almost fell unconscious with fear. They rushed into the house, locked all the doors from the inside, hid in a corner and sat there until the morning.
In the morning, as soon as it was dawn, the neighbors saw that a lion was tied in front of the house of Khan - Thirty Deaths! They ran to the Raja and reported that Khan - Thirty Deaths had caught a lion alive at night and tied it near his house. Raja was surprised and wanted to see this miracle with his own eyes. He ordered to call Khan - Thirty Deaths, but he answered from behind the locked doors:
- Let me sleep! I've been chasing a lion all night and I'm tired. Let them put the hundred rupees that I am entitled to as a reward through the crack of the door, and let them kill the lion and take it to the palace.
No matter how much Raja Khan called - Thirty Deaths, he never left the house. Moreover, he threatened that if he was not immediately given the promised reward, he would bring the lion to the palace and release it there: let the lion eat everyone in the palace! The Raja was frightened and ordered to immediately push Khana - Thirty Deaths one hundred rupees through the door crack. The tied lion was somehow killed.
And as soon as the Raja left, Khan - Thirty Deaths left the house and began to boast of his bravery to all the people.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru