Old man Gulahan had a deerskin, some hearthstones, and a gun. He valued this inheritance very much. The grandfather slept under the skin, then the father slept, the stones of the hearth warmed them, and the gun fed them.
So Gulahan went to his brother’s place to fish in the spring. And while he was walking back and forth, he lost his hearth and his deer skin. Only one gun survived, the one on his shoulder.
Gulahan looked into the yurt where the thief had been and thought: “I have a trusty gun, I’ll go with it to look for the enemy.” Gulahan began to walk through the taiga, and began to walk in the mountains. He looks - the tree has faded and turned green again, the streams have frozen and thawed again, and he still walks and walks.
He climbed the highest peak and thought: “The old people said that grief only peeks out from behind the mountain. We must watch for it.”
Gulahan sits on a high peak one night, sits the next. As I thought, this is what happened: on the third night grief appeared. Gulahan stood on the very last stone, above which there was not a single stone, and said to himself: “Help, bitter resentment and faithful gun, beat my grief.” As soon as he said, a terrible, terrible flying kite appeared over the top. That snake has fire in its eyes, sparks fly from its tail, its head hisses all over.
Old Gulahan took aim and sent two bullets into the snake. The snake's tail trembled and swayed. Then Gulahan remembered how a young lynx rushes at its prey, and, jumping, grabbed the snake’s tail. Gulahan hangs on his tail and remembers how a bear gathers strength when it bends trees. Gulahan began to pull the snake to the ground.
The serpent sensed its death, threw the deer skin out of its mouth, and threw away the stones of the hearth. Gulahan was delighted and began to pull the kite down even more.
Until then, Gulahan pulled the snake until a new day was born. At dawn, he pressed the snake to the ground and beat until all the snake’s blood went under the hill.
Although I lost a lot of strength, I got it back. And Gulahan ordered all his grandchildren not to give up the most precious thing to the enemy - their native land and their happy home.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru