When warm days come and the ferns darken under the summer sun, mountaineer farmers, according to ancient custom, lead their herds to the mountains, to summer pastures. There they unlock the doors of their summer huts and live in them until it is time to return home.
Many years ago there lived a farmer named Donald McGregor. His pilot stood in a remote place, on the slope of a mountain, at the foot of which lay a large lake. Donald McGregor's hut was small, white, and surrounded by heather, and below, under the mountain, lush grass grew. There was rich pasture for his cattle. However, people did not envy McGregor. Moreover, they shook their heads with condemnation and told him that it was in vain that he built himself a hut in such a place. And in the evenings, when it was already getting dark, not a single person even dared to step on the path that led to it. After all, everyone knew that in the depths of the large lake lived a terrible monster - the Water Horse - and it prowled the surrounding mountains. Nobody knew what kind of monster it was. Those who happened to see the monster rising from the dark waters of the lake died of fear and could not tell anything about it. When the monster scoured the mountains, it took on different guises and appeared either in the form of an old woman, then in the form of a black raven, or in the form of a fox with cunning eyes. And in its real form it appeared only when it sneaked up on prey in order to grab it and mercilessly tear it to pieces.
There were rumors that the Water Horse was huge and black, that two sharp satanic horns protruded from his monstrous head, and when he rushed through the heather, not even the wind could catch him.
There were many stories about this monster, and every year it killed new victims. But, in spite of everything, Donald McGregor did not listen to his neighbors when they said that it was dangerous to live so close to the lake. He was advised to move his flyer to the other side of the stream that flowed nearby. After all, it was known that the Water Horse could not step over flowing water, which means that the entire area beyond the stream was inaccessible to him. But to all persuasion
Donald MacGregor replied that he wanted to graze his cattle on the best pasture, and the best pasture was right on the shore of the lake.
“As for the Water Horse,” he said, “I won’t believe in him until I meet him.”
When they reminded him of the monster’s ill-fated victims, he objected:
“If these people are missing, it means they were too busy with their neighbors.” We were returning home drunk, stumbled somewhere in the dark, and fell into the abyss.
But in the end he had to admit that he was wrong, and this is how it happened.
Donald MacGregor had a daughter, Moreg, and her father loved her dearly. Every year she went with him to the summer pastures and spent all the long bright days sitting at the threshold of the hut at the spinning wheel. When dusk came and the purple shadows on the heather thickened, the girl went down to the shore of the lake and called her herd. She ran barefoot down the mountain, convincing herself that there was nothing to be afraid of, because her father had told her more than once that there was nothing scary here. But still, a shiver ran through her body when she looked at the dark waters of the lake, licking the grassy shores, and cautiously peered into the shadows of the coastal rowan trees. But she always returned home safely.
And during the day all her fears disappeared. She even sang songs as she sat in the sun at her spinning wheel.
One clear morning, when Moreg was carefree turning the wheel of her spinning wheel, something dark suddenly appeared in front of her and blocked the sun from her. The girl stopped the song and screamed.
- I didn't mean to scare you! - a gentle voice was heard.
Moreg looked up and saw that standing before her was a young man, tall, handsome, broad-shouldered, and must have been very strong. But he seemed somehow strange. His hair and clothes were dark and so wet that water was dripping from them.
- How did you manage to get so wet? - Moreg asked him. - After all, there is not a cloud in the sky!
“Yes, I was walking along the shore of a lake, high in the mountains,” the young man answered without thinking, “I slipped and fell into the water.” It’s okay, I’ll soon dry out in the sun.
He sat down on the ground at Moreg's feet and began chatting with her, so cheerfully that she even stopped spinning. However, despite his kind manner, and kind words, and tender glances, there was something strange about him, and Moreg felt it, but tried not to think about it.
But then the sun shone on the young man’s head, and he ran his hands through his wet curls.
“Put your head on my lap,” said Moreg, “and I will smooth your hair.”
The young man laid his head on Moreg's lap and she began to carefully comb his dark curls with a comb. But suddenly she froze in horror. She saw that thin green algae and mud were stuck between the teeth of the comb. They were well known to her - exactly the same algae and mud got tangled in her father’s nets when he fished in the large lake under the mountain. And now they were in the stranger's hair. “Come on, is he really a man?” thought Moreg. “No, this is a terrible Water Horse. He came out of an underwater lair and pretended to be a handsome young man in order to enchant and destroy me.”
Then the Water Horse noticed the horror in the girl’s eyes. And Moregh, with a terrible cry, pushed the dark-haired head off her knees, jumped up, overturning the spinning wheel, and began to run. Not remembering herself, she ran down a steep slope, and a huge shadow was chasing after her, terrible in the light of the sun. And this shadow was darker than the deepest waters of the large lake.
But Moreg turned out to be happier than the other victims of the Water Horse. He failed to catch up with the girl - she managed to run to a stream that gurgled near the lake. And as soon as she jumped over the flowing water, the danger was over. Since then, not a single person has crossed the threshold of the white hut that stood on the mountain slope above the witch's lake. The owner himself, Donald McGregor, did not enter it either. He was so frightened when his daughter almost died that from that day he no longer made fun of stories about the Water Horse. And the ruins of the white hut still stand in the thicket of curly ferns.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru