It was a long time ago! The rainbow sang then, and the animals talked to the children. There lived a girl with an evil and greedy shaman. Nobody knew her name, everyone called her - Girl with Buckets. The girl had little strength, but a lot to do. As soon as he sits down to rest, the shaman is already shouting:
- Why are you sitting? Take buckets, go to the taiga, bring berries, bring mushrooms! Huck! Huck! Hurry up!
“What a greedy shaman,” the animals were surprised, “he wants to eat everything.”
And the girl took the buckets and ran into the taiga. The fat shaman sat on a thick sack, ate fly agarics, his favorite delicacy, and did two things at once: he guarded the property and watched everything.
- Huck! Huck! Hurry up! - the shaman shouted to the bear. - I didn’t bring enough honey, go get some honey! Bring a lot of honey! - Huck! — the shaman’s voice echoed across the river. - Where is the fish? Let's get some fish!
And the wolves, who were fishing for him with their tails, shuddered - they were afraid they would catch little fish.
That’s what the animals called him: Shaman Gek - Shaman Faster. And they also called him that because the shaman had a flying tambourine. He will eat fly agarics, jump on his tambourine, and shout:
- Huck! Hurry up! - And he will rush in pursuit of those who do not want to listen to him. He will catch up and kill you.
The animals were afraid of him, so they fulfilled all his wishes. Only one wish of the shaman was not fulfilled by anyone - they did not stop being friends with the girl. The animals loved the girl. She played tag with the hares, found clearings with delicious reindeer moss for the deer, and showed the Blue Lake to the swans. The bear, her greatest friend, treated her to honey. Oh, how the shaman didn’t like it!
So here it is. The shaman ran out of mushrooms. He ate them all. And he sends the girl to the taiga:
- Huck, heck! Bring red fly agarics. I will play shaman, I will dance with a tambourine - I need a lot of mushrooms!
The girl went. From hummock to hummock - jump, from clearing to clearing - jump: there are no mushrooms. What to do?
The girl crossed the river, jumped over the stream, walked around the puddle and saw red hats in the clearing. She collected buckets full of fly agarics and went home. I walked around the puddle, jumped over the stream, but there was no river. The girl is looking for a river: she walked around another puddle, jumped over another stream - the river disappeared!
“I’m completely lost,” the girl got scared, “I walked around the wrong puddle, jumped over the wrong stream.”
Suddenly he hears a crunching sound from behind the bushes. Her bear friend is walking along, laughing - glad he met the girl. The tired girl sat down on the bear's broad back and headed towards the house. And along the way, the familiar hare sat on the bear. They go and sing a song of friendship.
How the shaman saw them and howled. And I immediately lost weight! He always lost weight when he saw the good deeds of his good friends, but when he did evil deeds, oh, how he began to get fat - like a hill, he became fat! Lost weight and got scared:
- Oh, I’m going to die now, I need to kill the bear quickly.
He grabbed his long knife, flew up to the bear on his tambourine and killed him.
The girl cried bitterly. Suddenly he hears a thin voice:
- No time to cry. We need to save a friend.
She sees the owner of the tundra, the mouse Pichguchin, climbing up the sleeve of her kukhlyanka and whispering:
“I heard from my grandfather that there is living water on the Moon.”
- The moon lives far away, how can I get there? — the girl sobs.
“This is where my wisdom ends, ask the wolves - they talk to the Moon all night long,” Pichguchin squeaked and disappeared.
The girl went to the river. The wolves are sitting, their tails are getting wet in the water, the shaman has attached fishing hooks to their tails. Wolves catch fish. The wolves lowered their heads and closed their eyes - they were ashamed, all the animals were laughing at them.
- Wolves! Wolves! Help me meet the Moon. The shaman killed my bear’s friend, we need to save him, we need to bring him living water,” the girl asks them.
“Okay, we’ll help,” the leader answers, “just take the hooks off our tails.” We are ashamed to fish for a shaman.
The girl fulfilled his request, and the leader said:
— When Tanagyrgyn-dawn wakes up in the morning, then the stars melt, like pieces of ice in warm water. And the Sun rides across the sky on two white deer. Maybe those deer are familiar with ours? Ask them for advice. And now jump on my back, there the shaman jumped on the tambourine, and howled the song of the chase throughout the taiga.
The girl jumped on the wolf’s back, the wolf quickly ran to the Hare Glade, where the deer were grazing, and the shaman flew even faster on his tambourine, howling:
- Now I’ll catch you, now I’ll kill you. I’ll immediately become thicker than a hill!
The wolf is already running out of strength; he has lost the habit of running fast while sitting on the shore. It’s good that the Hare Glade was not far away; the wolf managed to jump out into the clearing and get ahead of the shaman.
And then the girl was surrounded by deer. The shaman sees that he cannot get close to her: the tambourine is pierced by deer antlers.
- Deer, deer, help! Your friends carry the sun. Ask them how to get to the moon and get living water? — the girl is in a hurry.
“It’s a long way to run to them,” the deer answer, “but you need to save your friend.” We’d better take you to the swans: maybe they’ll be able to fly to the moon faster. They are now in the Reindeer Moss Glade. Sit down quickly!
The deer ran quickly. The wind can't keep up with him, no matter what the shaman can do. The shaman flies and howls a song of pursuit throughout the taiga:
- Everyone helps the girl! I'm losing weight completely. I can die. I’ll do a hundred bad things - I need to get fat!
The shaman is in a hurry, urging himself on, and the girl is already talking to the swans.
“We’re flying, we’re flying, we’re flying to the Moon,” the young swans rejoice.
And the leader says:
-No, our wings will not lift us to the moon. I heard that frogs are familiar with the moon. We’d better fly to Blue Lake, which you recently showed us.
“We’re flying, we’re flying,” the swans flapped their wings.
They picked up the girl and immediately found themselves on the lake.
- Kva-raul! Swans! Kva-raul, they'll eat you! — the frogs hid in the lake.
- We won't eat you. We will completely stop flying to your lake! Just help the girl.
- Quack, croak? — the frogs emerged.
- Here's how. They say you know Luna? - asked the girl.
- Kwa-komei! Kwak, did you guess it? Of course, we know each other. Every moonlit night we dance together on the water. Let's teach the moon to croak! - the frogs shouted in unison and suddenly dived again: they saw that the shaman was floating across the lake on a tambourine.
“I didn’t have time to save my friend,” the girl thought, “the shaman Huck will drown me.”
Just thinking that, suddenly he sees that the swans attacked the shaman, pierced his tambourine with their sharp beaks, and the tambourine sank to the bottom. And the shaman climbed out onto a hummock, hid behind a bush, listened to what the frogs were croaking to the girl:
- The Moon will dive into the lake - quickly scoop it up with a bucket, then it will talk to you.
A girl is sitting, waiting for the evening. He just sees that the lake has become shallow. And this is a shaman sitting on a mound, drinking water from the lake. He drinks and pushes himself:
- Heck, heck, there’s very little water left. The Moon will fall and split into a thousand small pieces. He won't talk to the girl. I have become fat, I have become strong. Like a hill, he became! The Moon has appeared in the sky and is about to dive into the lake.
- Don't jump! You'll fall and break yourself! - the frogs shouted.
The Moon was far away, did not hear the frogs and jumped. The girl and the frogs closed their eyes in fear. But the Moon did not break. She fell on the shaman as if on a soft pillow. The shaman burst and the water flowed out of him. There was a lake again. And the Moon floats in it. The girl scooped up the moon with a bucket and said: “Save my friend, you have living water!”
“I’ll save you,” agrees Luna, “only you will live with me!” I won't let you go to Earth. So I will test your love for your friend.
The girl agreed.
“Throw me out on your friend, he will come to life,” says Luna.
The swans brought the girl to the shaman's yaranga. She splashed moon water on the bear. He came to life. He shook himself and laughed with joy: it’s good to live. And Luna took the girl with her.
On a moonlit night, look at the sky: a girl is standing on the Moon, looking at the Earth, looking for her friends. He will see how good they feel without the shaman, he will laugh and run to the lunar yaranga to play. And her name is now: Girl-Moon - Ytrech. All.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru