A long time ago, poor Kurkul once lived in the tundra with his old wife. Kurkul tended someone else's flock, and his old woman sewed and mended someone else's clothes and tanned skins. Often they went to bed without eating.
One day, Kurkul’s wife fell ill, and he asked the owner of the camp for yukola or a piece of meat. The owner sent him away and gave him nothing. Kurkul gathered in a neighboring camp. He went out beyond the yaranga and began to call for deer, which he did not have. A polar bear came to his cry. Kurkul hit him on the nose with a walrus stick and asked:
- Did I call you?
The bear left. Kurkul calls the deer. Wolverine comes to him. Kurkul also hit her with a stick and asked:
- Did I call you?
Wolverine left.
Kurkul calls - the fox comes. Kurkul hit her on the nose. The fox got angry and ran away into the tundra. Kurkul calls, two birds come running.
He harnessed the Kurkul hares to a grass sled and rushed off like the wind. They arrive at the camp. The bunnies can barely move their legs.
People came out of the yaranga and laughed. The owner heard this and sent his daughter to find out what the dachshund was doing. The daughter returned and said:
- Old Kurkul has arrived there!
“Call him here,” the fist said to his daughter.
Kurkul sits, drinks tea from the owner of the camp and tells him about his need. The owner's wife enters the yaranga and says to Kurkul:
- Your reindeer are somehow not visible, they are probably covered with snow?
- We need to tell the worker to dig it up! - says the owner.
- No need, I’ll dig them up myself! - says Kurkul, and left the yaranga. The wife told her husband what kind of reindeer Kurkul arrived on and what kind of sled he had.
Kurkul enters the yaranga, sits down again to drink tea, asks for a piece of meat for his sick wife, and the owner shouts to the worker:
- Put a whole deer on Kurkulya’s sled! Kurkul doesn’t believe his ears, but the owner laughs and asks:
- What else do you need?
Kurkul remembered that his yaranga was full of holes and there was nothing to fix it. The owner shouted to the worker and ordered him to put Kurkulya on the sledge with a new yaranga.
“Well,” thinks Kurkul, “we have to go, otherwise the owner will change his mind and take it away!”
Kurkul sat down on his sled, shouted at the hares, but they were not visible because of the loaded sled. Everyone laughs at Kurkul and throws it at him - some are baggage, some are pants, some are siskins.
Kurkul urges his hares, but the hares do not move. The owner grabbed his sides, raised his head, closed his eyes and began to laugh. I took a breath, wiped away my tears, looked to where Kurkul was, but there was no trace of him! The fist goes back and forth, and Kurkul is already jumping far away. The fist was afraid for its property and shouted after Kurkulya:
- Hey, stop. I was joking!
And Kurkul flies, only the snow winds behind him! He rushed to catch up with Kurkul's fist. He ran and ran, he became hot. He took off his kukhlyanka and again set off after Kurkul. He sees that Kurkul is moving further and further - he took off the bag from his feet, ran barefoot as best he could... And he froze in the tundra.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru