The poor old man and the poor old woman lived alone. The old man no longer has the strength to go hunting, so they don’t have food every day in the yurt. The clothes were all frayed, even the old man’s hat was torn. One day an old man went to the river to fish. He caught her with a hook. I changed the bait twice and pulled out an empty hook.
The old man was about to return home, but he thought: The old woman is sitting at home hungry. I'll try again!
I tried it. As if something had caught him, his hand was being pulled. He pulled out a large carp. I wanted to stun him with a mallet, but suddenly I saw that this was no ordinary fish. Its scales do not lie from head to tail, but from tail to head.
- Hey! - said the old man. - I won't kill her. I myself have never seen a fish with reverse scales, but people say they have seen it, but they just couldn’t catch it. They say this fish is magical. I’ll take it to the old woman, whatever she says, I’ll do.
He brought carp to the old woman. The old woman was scared at first.
“Didn’t you bring a water devil?” - said.
“Probably not a devil,” the old man answers. “I also heard from my grandfather: it’s good to catch such a carp that you can ask him if you want.”
“Then we’ll ask our son!” - said the old woman.
The old man made a log house for the fish. He felled a large cedar and made this frame from its thick branches. With honor, he placed a fish with reverse scales there and said goodbye:
- We ask you for a son!
He and the old woman went into the yurt and went to bed. The old man fell asleep, the old woman couldn’t sleep. As soon as it was light, she ran to the log house. There is no carp fish there, a boy in beautiful clothes and a handsome face is sleeping in the log house. The old woman was delighted and ran to wake up the old man.
- Get up quickly! - shouts. - We have a son.
Then the boy himself entered the yurt.
- Father, mother! – so he spoke. - We will live together now. I released my mother fish into the river as she ordered.
They began to live together. They have a good life. There is a lot of fish, a lot of meat - the son gets it all.
So time goes by. The boy grew up and became a guy.
One day he says to the old man:
“It’s time for me to get married, father.” Go to the neighboring large village and woo the rich man’s daughter for me.
“Okay, I’ll go,” the old man answers.
It took two days to reach the neighboring village. He came to a rich yurt and said to the rich man:
“Will you give your daughter for my son?”
“We’ll ask her,” the rich man replies. He sat the old man on the skins behind him, clapped his hands, and shouted:
- Hey, slaves, call my daughter!
My daughter came. Not beautiful, not bad - very proud.
Her father tells her:
- Look at the one sitting behind me. Will you marry his son?
My daughter looked and grinned. She hit herself on the knee with a carved birch spoon and cried out:
- No match for me! - And she left the yurt. The rich man also grinned and said this to the old man:
– Did you hear what your daughter said? – He clapped his hands again, the slaves came running. – Throw this old man out of the yurt, kick him away. Next time he will know in which yurt his offspring will look for a bride!
The old man began to cry out of resentment, crying - he came home and told his son everything. And the son laughs.
- Eat, relax! You'll go again tomorrow. The old man says:
- Why am I going? Tolerate the insult again? The son answers:
- Don't be afraid! Now everything will be different. The next morning he took an old stick, hit it lightly on the pole of the yurt - the stick became a silver club. Then he shook the old skin - it turned into a sable fur coat. The son threw it at his father and gave him a silver club in his hand. Again the old man went to the neighboring village.
He entered the rich man's yurt. Whether the rich man recognized the guest or not, he jumped up and began to bow - he had never worn such a rich fur coat, he had never held such a silver club in his hands. He sat his dear guest on his right in front of the fireplace and called his daughter.
The daughter came in, the rich man said to her:
- Look at the one sitting to my right. My daughter looked and smiled. The rich man says to her again:
-Will you marry his son?
- I will fulfill your will, father! I'll be happy to go. The old man stood up.
“Well,” he says, “I’ll go back home and tell my son that you agree.” Wait for us, we'll come together soon.
The old man was in a hurry to bring the good news to his son; he even choked from walking quickly. The son listened to everything and laughed again:
- Let them wait now for as long as they have enough patience. I will find a bride for myself so that she will not marry a sable fur coat, but me.
The next day I began to pack. He put on a new shirt, a red robe, a black one over it, a seal skirt, multi-patterned knee pads, soft boots with colorful tops... He came out of the yurt, holding a spear in the air, carrying a bow in a sling. A cuckoo flew from the tree and landed on his shoulder. So the guy set off with a cuckoo on his shoulder. He doesn’t know where or why he’s going – either to hunt or to look for a bride.
I left early, the sun was just rising, on its golden chain it was just beginning to rise into the sky. Our guy climbed onto the chain of the rising sun and is walking along the chain. Then the mountain appeared ahead. When he reached her, he said to the cuckoo:
“I won’t climb to its bald peak, I’ll stay here.”
A guy jumped off the chain of the sun and found himself halfway up the mountain.
I looked around. There are trees all around, a little higher up a spring emerges from under the stones, and a stream runs down from it. The place is deserted, apparently people don’t live here, but there must be a lot of animals.
- Well, I’ll hunt! – our guy said.
The first thing I did was build myself a birch bark yurt, so that I would have somewhere to go and come to. He made a hearth out of stones.
Then he went to alert the birds and animals with snares and traps. I was a lot worried. In the evening he returned to his place and began chopping wood for the fireplace. Then his cuckoo, which was sitting on a tree nearby, crowed three times.
Why is she crowing? – our guy thinks.
The cuckoo fell silent - a woman’s voice was heard.
- That's what I was crowing about! - the guy said to himself.
A singing voice comes from above, descending closer and closer from the mountain. Our guy looks: with a carved rocker on her shoulder, a woman walks to the stream, sings. Now the noise of her clothes, the clink of trinkets can be heard. Oh, oh, she has so much jewelry, oh, how rich her outfits are! Oh-oh, what a beauty she is! Black eyebrows like two sables, eyelashes like the tassels on the ears of a winter squirrel, two braids like two tails of a black fox. The guy stands, throwing the wood, leaning on the ax, watching how she goes down the mountain, how she approaches the stream, how she takes water.
So she took the water, attached the buckets to the rocker... Now she’ll leave!..
Our friend threw away the ax and ran up to her. He grabbed the beauty by the hand, was afraid of his own courage, and closed his eyes. He holds her hand and doesn’t let her leave. It stood like that for a long time. When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was grabbing a broken spruce branch, and that woman with a yoke, that beauty with many ringing decorations had already risen high up the mountain, only her singing voice could be heard from afar.
The guy returned to his place, did not chop wood, did not light a fire, and did not cook food. He lay down in a birch bark yurt, sleeping, not sleeping, waiting for the morning.
In the morning, he didn’t go to inspect the traps; he was afraid to leave the stream - maybe the woman would come again for water. He waited all day, kept asking the cuckoo if he would see the beauty today. The cuckoo did not answer him. And when the sun set behind the mountain, without his asking or questioning, she cuckooed three times again.
The cuckoo fell silent, and then the beauty’s singing voice was heard again. Like yesterday, she went down to the stream, collected water, and placed full buckets on the bank. Doesn't go away. She took out a long pipe, took out a pouch hung with chains, took out some tobacco, struck a fire with a flint, and lit a cigarette.
Our friend looks at her and thinks: My heart will break in two if I don’t hug her, if I don’t say words of love to her!
He began to creep up on her like an arctic fox on a partridge. She doesn’t turn her head in his direction, smokes her pipe, lost in thought. He got very close and hugged her. The woman rushed out of his arms and rushed so hard that they both fell into the stream. However, our friend did not let go of the beauty; he pressed her even tighter to his chest. I wanted to look into her eyes, and then I saw that he was not hugging a woman, but a white stone at the bottom of the stream.
Somehow I made it to shore. He hears a woman already on the mountain clinking buckets and singing her song again. The guy didn't run after her. Angry, offended. He climbed into the birch bark hut and hung his wet clothes by the fire to dry.
- I'll leave at dawn! I'll look for another place to hunt. Should I, the son of a fish mother, wait and languish and endure ridicule from a woman!
His clothes dried out and he went into the forest to get traps. Nothing was caught in them. The guy got even more angry. I removed all the traps and took them to a birch bark yurt. He decided to leave, but his heart was restless, everything was yearning for the beauty. He doesn't sleep all night.
As soon as it began to dawn, the cuckoo crowed three times. The guy shouted to her:
-Why are you bothering me? Cuckoo, don’t cuckoo, I won’t go out! And when I go out, I’ll leave completely!
He turned to the birch bark wall, closed his eyes, and pretended to fall asleep.
Suddenly, behind the yurt, the handles of the buckets clanked and the decorations began to jingle. Quietly the woman came in and sat down at the guy’s head.
The guy doesn’t turn around, he says to her:
-Why did you come?
She doesn't answer. She asks:
- Do I need water from the stream now? Ah, the cuckoo gave you news. Why didn't you come?
Our friend jumped up.
- Why did you torture me? She deceived me and mocked me!
“You tormented yourself, you mocked yourself!” I am a free Mountain woman, when I fall in love, I will come myself. So she came.
- I don’t need you! – the guy shouted. - I don’t want to see you! I don't want to know you! Because of you, my traps are empty, the game does not run towards my arrows.
Quietly the woman came out of the hut. Then the guy started crying:
- What have you done?! Why did you send him away? I pushed away my happiness with my own hands.
But the beauty did not leave, sighing behind the thin birch bark wall. Then she began to pronounce these words:
“If you leave, if you leave, I’ll only think about you.” Where your feet have gone, there mine will go many times. Your shadow fell into the stream, and now it lies on the water. I will drink by that dark place. Of the many trees in the forest, the tallest one can be seen far away. So, of all people, you are the best, the most beautiful. Take me with you! I want to become your bag with flint that always hangs at your belt. I wish I could become the oar of your boat, the arrow in your quiver, the pattern on your clothes...
Here our friend could not stand it, forgot the insult, ran out of the hut and approached her.
– Was this song composed by someone? – asked. – Or did you say these words to me?
The beauty looked at him slyly and replied:
– As your heart says, so it is.
– How long will it take you to get ready for the journey? - asks the guy.
- So, as I’m standing in front of you, will you take it?
- I'll take it!
Let's go together. They came to the old man and the old woman. They began to live there. Our friend married a Mountain woman, and there was no hunter more successful than him... He killed all kinds of game and brought home plenty of prey.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru