In the old years, a terrible snake appeared not far from Kyiv. He dragged a lot of people from Kyiv into his den, dragged him around and ate. He dragged away the snakes and the king's daughter, but did not eat her, but locked her tightly in his den. A little dog followed the princess from home. As soon as the kite flies off to hunt, the princess will write a note to her father, to her mother, tie the note around the dog’s neck and send it home. The little dog will take the note and bring the answer.
One day the king and queen write to the princess: find out from the serpent who is stronger than him. The princess began to interrogate the snake and did so.
“There is,” says the snake, “in Kyiv Nikita Kozhemyaka is stronger than me.”
When the snake left to hunt, the princess wrote a note to her father and mother: there is Nikita Kozhemyaka in Kyiv, he alone is stronger than the snake. Send Nikita to rescue me from captivity.
The Tsar found Nikita and went with the Tsarina to ask him to rescue their daughter from severe captivity. At that time, Kozhemyak crushed twelve cowhide at a time. When Nikita saw the king, he was frightened: Nikita’s hands trembled, and he tore all twelve skins at once. Nikita became angry that they had frightened him and caused him a loss, and no matter how much the king and queen begged him to go and help the princess, he did not go.
So the tsar and tsarina came up with the idea of collecting five thousand young orphans - they were orphaned by a fierce snake - and they sent them to ask Kozhemyaka to free the entire Russian land from the great disaster. Kozhemyaka took pity on the orphan’s tears and shed a few tears himself. He took three hundred pounds of hemp, coated it with resin, wrapped himself in hemp and went.
Nikita approaches the snake’s den, but the snake has locked itself, is covered with logs and does not come out to him.
“You better go out into the open field, otherwise I’ll mark out your entire den!” - said Kozhemyaka and began to scatter the logs with his hands.
The snake sees imminent trouble, he has nowhere to hide from Nikita, and goes out into the open field.
How long or how short did they fight, only Nikita threw the snake to the ground and wanted to strangle him. Then the snake began to pray to Nikita:
- Don’t beat me to death, Nikitushka! There is no one stronger than you and me in the world. We will divide the whole world equally: you will own one half, and I will own the other.
“Okay,” said Nikita. “We must first draw a boundary so that there will be no dispute between us later.”
Nikita made a plow of three hundred pounds, harnessed a snake to it and began to lay a boundary and plow a furrow from Kyiv; That furrow is two fathoms and a quarter deep. Nikita drew a furrow from Kyiv to the Black Sea and said to the snake:
“We divided the land, now let’s divide the sea so that there won’t be a dispute between us about water.”
They began to divide the water - Nikita drove the snake into the Black Sea, and drowned him there.
Having completed the holy deed, Nikita returned to Kyiv, began to wrinkle the skin again, and did not take anything for his work. The princess returned to her father and mother.
Nikitin's furrow, they say, is still visible in some places across the steppe: it stands two fathoms high. The peasants are plowing all around, but they don’t plow the furrows: they leave it in memory of Nikita Kozhemyak.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru