Once upon a time there lived a man named Khudaiberdy. He was very afraid of foxes and, when he met them in the steppe or in the forest, he tried to get around or go around them. That's why he was known as a coward.
One day, Khudayberda’s wife and daughter wove paper cloth and instructed him to sell the cloth at the bazaar.
When Khudayberdy got on his horse to go to the city, his wife asked him to bring her halva, and his daughter asked him to bring her candy.
“Okay, I’ll bring you some gifts,” Khudaiberdy promised and left the yard.
A fox came out to meet him in the forest.
—Where are you going, Khudaiberdy? she asked.
Khudaiberdy wanted to turn the horse back, but the fox began to run around and wag its tail.
“My wife and daughter sent me to the market to sell fabric,” Khudaiberdy answered.
- Why do you need to take her to the market? - said the fox. - Better sell it to me. And when you go back, I’ll put your money in the same place.
“Okay,” agreed Khudayberdy. “Only an agreement: when I go back, the money should already be under the bush.”
- Be calm! - said the fox.
Khudaiberdy believed, gave her the material and went to the city.
At the market, he saw halva and lollipops and remembered the order of his wife and daughter. But he had no money to buy these sweets. He mounted his horse and went home empty-handed.
Having approached the place where the fox met him, Khudaiberdy found neither money, nor material, nor the fox under the bush.
He waited a long time for the fox to bring him money, but he never did and returned home with an empty saddlebag.
— Did you bring halva? - his wife asked him.
“No, wife, there was no halva at the market,” Khudaiberdy answered.
— Did you bring some candy? - asked the daughter.
- No, daughter, all the candies were sold out by the time I got to the grocer's.
— Did you bring money for the goods? - asked the wife.
“Eh, wife,” answered Khudaiberdy, “when I was going to the market, I met a fox.” She bought the cloth and promised to put the money under a bush. Only she cheated and didn’t bring the money.
The wife attacked Khudaiberdy:
- Where have you seen anyone trade with a fox? How can you trust her? Now she sits in her hole and makes fun of you. Now go find her hole and demand money or material!
- What are you talking about, wife! — Khudaiberdy was scared. “How can I go to her when she threatened?” “If,” he says, “you don’t sell me the material, then I will eat you and the horse.”
- Coward! - the wife shouted. “No wonder they call you a coward to your face!” “And she began to approach him with her fists.
“Wait, wife,” Khudaiberdy told her, “it’s easier for me to deal with devas than with foxes.” Better send me to the devas for money.
- Wherever you want, get money there! - the wife continued to shout. “Here’s another brave man!” He was about to go to the devas, but he ran away from the fox’s tail!
“You’ll see, I’ll go to the devas,” Khudayberdy repeated. “Tomorrow I’ll go and demand money from them!”
The next day Khudayberdy began to gather to the devas. People found out about this and laughed at him:
“Our coward Khudaiberdy is going to fight the devas!”
Khudaiberdy went to the chicken coop, took one egg and put it in his pocket. On the road I found a donkey's tail and stuck it under my hat. Then he went into the field to check the nets placed and saw a pheasant in them. Khudaiberdy took it and put it behind his belly, then he wound several ropes into bundles and, saying goodbye to his wife and daughter, set off on his way.
Khudaiberdy trudged to the cave where the devas lived, entered it and greeted them.
The elder dev told him:
“We would have torn you to pieces and eaten you whole if you hadn’t greeted us.” Well, tell me, who are you?
“My name is Khudayberdy the strongman,” he answered.
“Then sit by our fireplace and be a guest.” Khudaiberdy sat down, and the elder dev said to him:
— Among us there is one deva-strongman. If you defeat him, you can ask us for anything you want, and if he wins, then we will immediately eat you.
The Devas called their strongman, and he began to fight Khudaiberdy. Khudaiberda's bones immediately crackled and her eyes widened. Waiting for his death hour, Khudaiberdy threw back his head, and the strongman deva saw that he was staring at the sky and asked:
-What are you looking for in the sky? Khudaiberdy gathered his last strength and answered:
“I’m looking out for the star that I’m about to throw you under.”
Hearing this, the strongman deva released Khudaiberdy and began to run. Khudaiberdy ran after him.
- Stop, stop! - shouted the elder dev. - Don’t destroy our strong man! We will ransom him!
“Okay,” Khudaiberdy agreed, “let him live.” And give me the ransom without deception.
Here Khudayberdy sat down with the devas and said:
- Now I want to see whose fleas are bigger: mine or yours!
The elder deva took off a flea the size of a fist. Khudaiberdy pulled a pheasant from his bosom and tossed it to him.
The pheasant, noisily flapping its wings, flew away.
- What a flea! - the devas were amazed.
“A hero has heroic fleas,” said Khudaiberdy. “Now show me how thick your hair is.”
The elder deva tore a hair ten horsehairs thick from his head, and Khudaiberdy pulled a donkey's tail from under his hat.
The devas were surprised and said:
- That's the hair! And how can your head bear them?
“A hero has heroic hair,” answered Khudaiberdy. “Finally, let’s measure the strength of our legs.” Which one of you can squeeze the oil out of the earth?
The devas stood up and began to stretch their legs. Meanwhile, Khudaiberdy quietly took an egg out of his pocket, placed it on a stone and lightly sprinkled it with sand.
The devas began to stomp their feet with all their might. The ground shook, but no oil was visible.
-Where is the butter? - Khudaiberdy asked. The devas began to stomp their feet so that a five-hundred-year-old plane tree fell from their stomping, but there was no oil.
“They didn’t squeeze out a drop of oil,” said Khudaiberdy. “Now watch how I squeeze out the oil.”
With these words, he pressed his foot on the egg buried in the sand, and immediately the yolk came out of the sand.
The devas surrounded Khudaiberdy in amazement, and the eldest deva said:
- Well, what a strength you have!
“Now we’ll compete to see which of us can cut down the most trees,” suggested Khudaiberdy.
The devas agreed and began to pull out centuries-old trees along with their mighty roots from the ground.
After each deva pulled out a dozen trees, Khudaiberdy unwound his ropes.
- What are you going to do? - asked the elder dev.
“I don’t want to pull out every tree one by one!” - Khudayberdy answered. “I will tie ropes around your entire forest and immediately knock you down.”
- What you! — the devas were frightened. “Our grandfathers planted this forest!” Spare him, we will add gifts to the ransom.
“Okay, let it be your way,” Khudaiberdy agreed. “Bring the ransom and gifts here.”
The devas began to fuss, took spades and went to dig out the gold buried in the ground.
Before leaving, the elder dev said to Khudaiberdy, pointing to a forty-bucket cauldron of pilaf:
“If you get hungry, sit down at the cauldron and eat as much as you can, and when we return, we’ll eat what’s left after you.”
The Devas left, and Khudaiberdy dug a hole, dragged all the pilaf from the cauldron into it with a shovel and filled the hole with earth.
When the devas returned, they saw Khudayberdy climbing into the cauldron and licking its bottom. They opened their mouths in surprise:
“We all can’t eat as much pilaf as he ate alone!”
The elder dev stacked seven bags of gold in the cave and said to Khudayberdy:
“Go to bed, and in the morning I will order one of the devas to take you home.”
The devas made a bed in the cave and gave Khudayberda a tiger skin, and they themselves went outside and began to quietly confer.
- What should we do with this strong man Khudaiberdy? - said the elder dev. - He will take away our gold and, what good, he will also impose tribute on us.
“Now he will certainly get into the habit of coming to us for gold,” said another deva.
“Let’s kill him,” suggested the elder deva. “At night, when he falls asleep, we’ll sneak up on him and kill him.”
Khudaiberdy overheard their conversation and did not go to bed on the bed, but put stones under the tiger skin, and hid in the corner.
Late at night, the devas crept up to Khudaiberda’s empty bed and spent a long time bludgeoning stones covered with skin. Even this seemed not enough to the elder deva: he ordered the brushwood on which Khudaiberda’s bed was spread to be set on fire.
Having finished this, the hungry devas began to cook pilaf. Early in the morning, when the pilaf was ripe, they sat down to the cauldron, but at that time Khudaiberdy came out of the cave, yawning and stretching.
The devas jumped up from their seats in such horror that they overturned the cauldron and dumped all the pilaf on the ground.
“Somehow I didn’t sleep well,” Khudaiberdy told them. “At first it was like it was drizzling and small drops were falling on me, and when I wrapped myself more tightly in the skin, I was so steamed that I even sweated.”
The elder deva said to one of the devas in fear:
“Put Khudayberdy the strongman on your shoulders, take seven bags of gold and take him away from here while we’re still alive!”
Dev took the bags of gold onto himself, placed Khudaiberdy on top and rose up.
On the way, the deva asked Khudayberdy:
- Glorious strongman, you eat so much pilaf, but there is no heaviness in your body. Why would this be?
“Because,” answered Khudaiberdy, “I don’t want to burden you with all my weight.” I threw a rope into the sky and hold on to it.
Then the dev asked:
- Well, let go of the rope! I want to feel the heaviness of your heroic body.
“Okay,” said Khudayberdy, “you’ll feel it now.”
He pulled a knife from his belt and began to slowly drive it between the deva's shoulder blades.
“Hudaiberdy!” the dev begged. “Grab the rope again, otherwise I won’t be able to withstand the weight and we’ll fall!”
Khudaiberdy hid the knife, and the dev flew faster.
Finally they went down to the forest where the fox lived, who had deceived Khudayberdy.
“Let me go home, Khudayberdy the strong man,” the dev asked him. “It’s not far from your house: put seven bags of gold on your shoulders and walk calmly.”
Khudaiberdy saw a fox hole under a tree.
“No, Dev,” he said, “the agreement was that you take me home.” If you're tired of flying, let's walk. You will have to carry the bags of gold. People are used to seeing me carry several camels at a time, and if they now see these light bags on my back, they will laugh at me.
All this was heard by the fox, who stuck her muzzle out of the hole.
Dev had no choice but to carry the bags of gold to Khudayberda’s tent. Here Khudaiberdy released him, and the deva hurried to the nearest forest to rest a little before flying back.
A fox met him in the forest:
-Where are you coming from, Dev?
“I took Khudaiberdy the strongman and seven bags of gold home,” answered the deva. The fox started laughing:
- Well, I found a brave strongman! He's even afraid of me! Out of cowardice, he gave me the cloth he was carrying to the market, and you are paying him tribute!
The fox burst out laughing even more. But the dev did not believe her. Then the fox said:
“If you don’t believe me, I’ll take you to his tent.” As soon as he sees me, he will immediately run away, and you can take back all your gold. Just an agreement: you will give me some gold as a reward for a winter fur coat.
Dev agreed, tied himself with a rope to the fox’s neck and went with her to Khudaiberdy.
Seeing the fox and the deva from afar, Khudaiberdy climbed onto his wagon and shouted from above:
- Hey, fox! You lost three devas to me at dice, but you only lead one! Where are the other two?
Hearing this, the deva shouted at the fox:
- Ah, the worthless liar! You wanted to give me to Khudaiberdy the strongman by cunning!
He rushed, the fox flew up on the rope and hit the ground with such force that it shattered into small pieces, and the deva ran so fast that only his heels sparkled.
Since then, Khudaiberdy has become famous as a brave man.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru