In ancient times, there lived a girl named Shureldehen. She ate rice and millet, and that’s what she lived on. The only wealth in the poor girl's house were coral beads, which her late mother bequeathed to her.
One day an unfamiliar girl from the other end of the ulus comes to Shureldekhen and says:
– I was invited to visit Hartagai Khan, but I don’t have any jewelry. Lend me your coral beads.
And Shureldehen gave her corals to the unknown girl to wear.
A month passed, followed by another, and the unfamiliar girl still did not return. She waited for her, waited for Shureldehen, couldn’t wait and burst into burning tears: the girl felt sorry for her mother’s gift. At this time, a neighbor's farmhand comes to her and asks:
- Why are you crying bitterly?
The maiden Shureldehen answers:
- How can I not cry? I gave my mother’s gift to an unknown girl - coral booms, but she has not returned them for three months.
- If I bring beads, what will you give me, how will you thank me? - asks the farmhand.
“I’ll give you selected rice and millet,” the girl answers.
The farmhand went to the other end of the ulus to look for an unfamiliar girl. He walks, looking and sniffing everything. And then one day, looking into the goal of one yurt, a farm laborer saw a young daughter-in-law who was tanning leather, and on the right side of the yurt he noticed the coral beads of the Shureldekhen maiden hanging on a pole.
The farmhand pulled the door, it turned out to be locked. I knocked and no one answered. Then he climbed onto the yurt, stuck his head into the chimney and shouted:
- Unlock the door, mistress!
-Where did you come from, worm of the earth, unfortunate farm laborer? Get out of my sight! - his daughter-in-law answers him.
“If you don’t unlock the door, I’ll climb up the chimney and start singing songs!” - the farmhand threatened.
“It’s better for you to cry than to sing songs,” the daughter-in-law said, cutting it off, and went back to work on the skins.
Then the farm laborer climbed onto the chimney, sat down and sang:
If a woman is beautiful,
Good-natured and playful
Her braid is shining.
And the young girl’s pigtails -
Ligues and freaks -
Hangs like a bull's tail.
The daughter-in-law got angry at such a song, jumped out of the yurt and climbed onto the roof to beat the farm laborer with a leather grinder. And the cheerful guy was just waiting for this: he went down through the chimney into the yurt, took the beads hanging on the pole, and was gone.
The next day he brought corals to the maiden Shureldehen. She was delighted and generously treated the farm laborer to fatty meat and lingonberry kvass. And after the treat, she poured a measure of rice and a measure of millet into the hem of his degel, severely punishing him:
- When you return home, do not walk through the bushes and hummocks - walk along the road, stepping on flat stones.
The farm laborer took the rice and millet and went home, choosing a more level path. He walked and walked, lost the path and came across a thicket of thorny ecumenicals. I tried to look for a way around it, but couldn’t find it.
The farm laborer went straight through the thickets. But the elk thorn clung to the floors of the degel, and the golden grain spilled onto the damp ground - it could not be collected, it could not be dried.
“I’ll go to the black goats of the rich Khartagai Khan,” the farm laborer thinks, “I’ll ask them for help.”
A farm laborer came to the black goats of Hartagai Khan and said:
- Help me. Trample down and eradicate the thorny ecumenicals on the neighboring hills.
“We don’t have time to pluck and eat all the juicy wheatgrass from these hills, let alone the prickly elk,” answered the goats.
“Then I’ll go to the gray wolves.” Let them kill you all,” the farmhand threatened.
He came to the gray wolves and said:
- Go and pick up the black goats of Hartagai Khan.
“We don’t have time to cope with the slaughtered game.” Why do we need black goats? – the gray wolves answer.
“If so, then I will go to Hartagai Khan’s guards and ask them to knock out your eyes,” the farmhand threatened.
He went to the watchmen with a request:
- Help me. Gouge out the eyes of the gray wolves.
“We don’t have time to protect all the wealth of Khartagai Khan. Do we care about wolves?
Then I will go and complain to Hartagai Khan himself about you. Let him beat you with damp rods.
A farm laborer came to the khan and began to ask him:
- Father Khan, beat your guards with damp rods.
Hartagai Khan tossed and turned on his mattresses and grumbled:
“Can’t you see I can barely move under the weight of my belly fat?” Where should I throw the damp twigs?
The farm laborer went to the field mice.
“Help me,” he says. - Go and chew on the abdominal fat of Hartagai Khan.
“We don’t have time to dig up the roots of saranka (saranka is a red flower), and you’re telling us about abdominal fat,” the mice answer.
“Then I’ll go to the Khan’s maids and tell them to take away your sweet roots,” the farmhand threatened them.
He came to the khan's maids and said:
– Go and open the roots of the voles.
“We’ll start getting involved with some roots when we don’t have time to shear all the sheep and goats and collect their wool!” - the maids answer.
“If so, then I will go to the black wind,” the farmhand threatened.
He came to the black wind and began to ask:
- Help me, black wind. Scatter, scatter the wool collected by the maids.
The black wind took pity on the farm laborer and fluttered sheep and goat hair across the steppe. The khan's maids began to collect it, and at the same time they picked up the roots of the saran. The mice were deprived of their delicacy and began to gnaw on the abdominal fat of the sleeping Hartagai Khan.
Hartagai Khan jumped up and shouted: “Where are you looking!” - He began to beat his guards with damp rods. The watchmen rushed after the mice, came across gray wolves and knocked out their eyes. The wolves ran blindly into the goat herd and began to snap their teeth left and right. Out of fright, the black goats hid in the thorny elm forest and hunted down every last bush.
Then a farm laborer came, collected rice and millet and returned home. And in the spring he sowed grain and, they say, reaped a rich harvest by autumn.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru