There lived a farmer with his daughter. His wife, dying, left her daughter a cow, and the girl lovingly looked after her. Then the peasant married a widow, who also had a daughter.
The stepmother disliked her stepdaughter and drove her out into the steppe to graze a cow for the whole day. And one day she gave the girl an armful of cotton and told her to spin it, so that in the evening, returning home with the cow, she would bring the finished yarn.
The girl took the cotton and went into the field. All day long, without raising her head, her stepdaughter spun cotton. And by evening she saw that she had not even hidden half of it. Bitter tears flowed from her eyes.
“How will I get home?” - she thought.
Then the cow, which had been grazing not far from the girl all day, came up, ate all the cotton and immediately began to release the finished yarn from its mouth. The girl barely had time to wind the yarn onto the ball.
From then on, no matter how much cotton the stepmother gave her stepdaughter, the girl would bring home the finished yarn in the evening.
But then one day the stepdaughter and the cow walked far into the steppe. Suddenly a strong wind rose. He picked up the cotton and carried it across the steppe.
The girl ran after him. She ran and ran, reached the mountain and saw that the cotton had been blown into the cave by the wind. She entered the cave and saw an old woman sitting in the cave. The girl bowed to the old woman, greeted her warmly and said:
“Didn’t the wind bring my cotton to you?”
- Yes, your cotton is here, you can take it. Just first scratch my head and sweep and clean my place.
The stepdaughter thoroughly combed the old woman's hair and braided it. Then she swept and cleaned the old woman’s home.
- I wish you to live long, daughter! - said the old woman. - Now go into my pantry and take your cotton.
The stepdaughter entered the old woman’s pantry and gasped: there were chests of gold there. Her cotton lay right there. She took her cotton, left the storeroom, said goodbye to the old woman and left.
— Honest, hardworking girl! - Looking after her, the old woman said. - Let roses fall from your mouth from joyful laughter! From bitter crying, instead of tears, let pearls fall from your eyes! And when life is very difficult for you, let golden bricks fall from your right foot as you walk, and silver bricks from your left foot. Become a beauty like no other in the world!
Coming out of the cave, the stepdaughter found her cow and gave her an armful of cotton to eat. The cow released the finished yarn, the stepdaughter wound the yarn into a ball and went home with the cow.
- What is this, what is this? You have become an unprecedented beauty! - the stepmother exclaimed, looking at her stepdaughter.
The girl looked in the mirror and couldn’t believe her eyes. She told her stepmother what happened to her.
“It was the old woman who turned you into a beauty,” said the stepmother. “Let my daughter go to graze the cow tomorrow.”
The next morning her daughter came to the steppe with a cow. A strong wind rose again,
picked up the cotton lying on the ground and carried it across the steppe. Stepmother's daughter ran
behind the cotton and, just like the stepdaughter, entered the cave and saw an old woman in it.
-Have you seen my cotton? - asked the daughter, without greeting the old woman
stepmothers
- Your cotton is here, with me. You can take it, just scratch my head first, tidy up and sweep my place.
Reluctantly, the girl somehow combed the old woman’s hair. Hastily, she somehow ran the broom across the floor and didn’t even sweep up the dirt.
- OK. “Go to my pantry, take your cotton,” the old woman told the girl.
The stepmother's daughter entered the pantry and gasped: her eyes widened at the sight of chests of gold. She began to grab handfuls of gold and fill her pockets with it, putting it in her bosom. When the gold had nowhere to go, she took the cotton and left the storeroom. Without even saying goodbye to the old woman, the stepmother's daughter ran across the steppe to the cow.
- Greedy, lazy girl! - said the old woman, looking after her. - May a bump the size of a fist jump up on your forehead!
The stepmother's daughter returned home.
- Oh! - the stepmother cried at the sight of her daughter. - Who decorated you with such a bump? And why didn't you spin the cotton?
The daughter told what happened to her and wanted to show her mother the gold, but in her pockets and in her bosom there were simple stones.
Looking at the beautiful stepdaughter and at her daughter with a bump on her forehead, the stepmother was angry and jealous. She began to treat her stepdaughter even worse, and began to dislike her even more.
And the stepdaughter went every day to graze the cow and brought a ball of yarn.
Suddenly the stepmother announced to her husband:
- I'm afraid of this cow. Until you kill her, I won't be at peace!
— The daughter inherited the cow from her deceased mother! “I can’t deprive her of her last mother’s gift,” the farmer objected.
- Tomorrow, slaughter the cow! - the stepmother demanded.
The poor farmer knew that it was impossible to come to an agreement with her, and in the evening he said to his daughter returning from the field:
“My wife tells me to slaughter your cow, she doesn’t want to listen to anything.” What to do - you have to slaughter the cow. Don't be angry, daughter.
The sad girl went to the cow, threw her some grass and said:
- Your stepmother orders you to be stabbed. What will happen to me without you? And the cow answered:
- Don’t be upset, let them kill me. Collect all my bones, put them in a bag and bury them in a hole under the barn. When you want something, run to the barn, dig a hole, and you will get everything you need.
The next day the cow was slaughtered. The stepdaughter collected her bones and buried them in a hole under the barn.
One day, the stepmother went with her daughter to a wedding. And before leaving, she mixed two measures of rice with two measures of wheat and ordered her stepdaughter to separate the wheat from the rice before her return.
My stepdaughter had a favorite chicken that followed her everywhere.
The chicken saw that her favorite was sitting sadly over a pile of grain and did not know what to do with it. The chicken took pity on her and quickly began to take the wheat from the rice. After some time, the stepdaughter saw two piles of grain: in one pile there was rice, and in the other there was wheat.
The girl was delighted, threw a handful of grain to the chicken and thought: “My stepmother is not at home, the work is finished, let me go and look at the wedding.”
She went to the barn, dug a hole, and there lay a large bundle. His stepdaughter untied him and couldn’t believe her eyes: there were beautiful clothes with sparkling jewelry inside. As soon as she put on these clothes, a horse in royal harness immediately appeared near her. She mounted the horse and he rushed off like the wind. The horse stopped at the gate. People rushed to meet the girl.
— The princess has come to the wedding! - they shouted from all sides.
The guest was led to the women's quarters and seated in the front corner. The women vied with each other to treat her to various dishes. Among the guests, the stepdaughter saw her stepmother and daughter. But they didn't recognize her.
When the wedding was over, the stepdaughter hurried to her horse in order to return home before her stepmother. The horse ran without a path and jumped over the ditch. A gold-embroidered kaush slipped off the girl’s leg and fell into the water.
The stepdaughter galloped home, the horse was gone. She quickly took off her clothes, tied everything in a knot and put it in a hole under the barn. Soon the stepmother returned with her daughter.
- Well, there was a wedding! What a beauty there was! “We admired her,” said the stepmother.
“You didn’t take me with you, I couldn’t admire the beauty!” - said the stepdaughter.
A few days later, a rumor spread throughout the city that the padishah was going hunting, and suddenly his horse stopped at the ditch and did not want to jump over it. The padishah ordered to see what was in the water. From the bottom they took out a small bag embroidered with gold.
- Go around the yards and try this jacket on for all the girls! — the padishah ordered. “Whoever suits him, I will take her as my wife.”
The old maids from the palace went around all the courtyards, trying on the kaush for the girls, but all of them had feet wider than his, and their toes did not fit into the sock.
Seeing the padishah's maids coming to the court, the stepmother hid her stepdaughter in the tanur stove in the yard and brought out only her daughter, but the kaush did not suit her daughter.
- Do you still have a daughter? - asked the old women.
- No, I have one daughter.
The old women walk through the yard to the gate, and a chicken walks around them and cackles:
- And the beauty is sitting in the tanur stove!
The chicken headed towards the stove, the old women followed her. They approached the tanur stove, and there really was a beauty sitting there. They pulled her out of the stove covered in ash and soot, tried on the hood for her, and it fit her.
The old women returned to the padishah and said that they had found a beauty with a small leg.
The padishah sent the peasant a rich ransom for the bride. They began to prepare for the wedding.
Just before leaving for the padishah, the stepmother prepared a roast for her stepdaughter, so salty that you couldn’t put it in your mouth, and forced the girl to eat it.
The bride was placed on a cart. The stepmother and daughter went to accompany her to the palace.
On the way, the bride began to suffer from thirst.
- Give me some water to drink, mother! - the stepdaughter asked her stepmother.
- Tear out your eye and give it to me, then I’ll give you something to drink. The stepdaughter tore out one eye and gave it to her stepmother. She gave her a sip of water. They move on. And the bride again dies of thirst.
- Give me some water, mother! - she asked her stepmother.
- Tear out your eye and give it to me, then I’ll give you something to drink.
The stepdaughter could not stand the thirst, tore out the second eye and gave it to her stepmother. Then the stepmother took off the elegant dress from her blind stepdaughter and threw her into the well. And she dressed her daughter in a bride’s dress and led her into the palace under a veil.
Only after the wedding did the padishah see his ugly wife with a huge bump on her forehead.
Not far from the well where the stepmother had thrown her stepdaughter, the old man was collecting brushwood. He heard crying, went up to the well, looked into it and was amazed - at the bottom of the well a beauty was sitting and crying bitterly. Instead of tears, large pearls rolled from her eyes.
The old man pulled the beauty out of the well and, taking pity on her, took her to his home.
“We ourselves have nothing to eat, and you brought a blind woman into the house!” - his wife got angry with him.
“Don’t drive me away, grandmother,” the girl said and began to cry. Instead of tears, pearls rolled out of her eyes one after another.
The old man and the old woman clasped their hands and rushed to pick up the pearls. They wailed and gasped with joy so much that the girl laughed and beautiful roses fell from her mouth.
She walked around the room: golden bricks began to fall from her right foot, silver bricks from her left...
The old man left the blind woman to live with them instead of his daughter.
“Grandfather,” the blind woman once said, “gather pearls and roses in a basket, go to the padishah’s palace and shout: “Pearls and roses”! A woman will appear on the palace balcony and ask what you are selling. Then you tell her: “I have pearls of tears and roses of laughter in my basket. Whoever gives me his eyes, when he cries, pearls will roll instead of tears, and when he laughs, roses will fall from his mouth.”
The old man took a basket with pearls and roses, walked up to the palace of the padishah and began to shout out as the blind woman told him.
A woman came out onto the palace balcony and asked what the old man was selling. When she saw the shining pearls and the red roses, she wanted to have them.
“Give me your eyes, and then, if you cry, instead of tears, such pearls will roll from you; if you laugh, such roses will fall from your mouth.”
The woman gave him her eyes and took pearls and roses.
This was the wife of the padishah. She went into her room blind and began to cry,
feeling sorry for myself. Large pearls fell from her eyes. Then she was consoled, laughed, and roses fell from her mouth.
“Where does this come from? Isn’t it my stepdaughter’s hand here!” - thought the stepmother.
She found an evil old witch, gave her money and sent her to find out what happened to her stepdaughter.
- If you find out that she is alive, then kill her from the world as you wish! The old woman found out that in one village childless old people had a
beautiful daughter. The old woman chose a time when the old people were not at home, went in to the girl as if to rest, and asked the kind beauty to comb her hair, because as soon as the stepmother’s daughter gave her eyes for pearls of tears and roses of laughter, the stepdaughter became sighted again.
The girl put the old woman's head on her lap and began to comb it. And at that time the witch was sucking the girl’s blood. Every day she began to come to the girl when there were no old people at home. The girl grew pale and thinner day by day, and finally became so weak that she could not get out of bed.
- What's wrong with you, daughter? - the old people asked.
“Apparently, I don’t have long to live,” said the girl. “When I die, grandfather, build a house in the steppe from my gold and silver bricks and put me in it.”
The next day, as soon as the old man and the old woman left the house for a while, a witch sent by her stepmother crept up to the girl, tore out her heart and took it to the padishah’s wife. The padishah's wife put this heart in a bag and hid it on her chest.
According to the will of his betrothed daughter, the old man built a house of gold and silver bricks in the steppe and put the girl in this house.
When the padishah’s wife took the purse with the girl’s heart from her chest at night, the stepdaughter came to life in her house. When in the morning the padishah’s wife put her purse around her neck, the girl died again.
One day the padishah was driving through the steppe, returning from a hunt. From a distance he noticed a shiny house. The sun had set and it was already dark when the padishah drove up to the house. He entered and was surprised: a beauty was lying there. He stood near her for a long time, admiring her, suddenly she sighed, opened her eyes and stood up.
Just at this time, the padishah’s wife, going to bed in her palace, took the purse with the girl’s heart from her chest and put it down. That’s why the stepdaughter woke up in the house.
The padishah fell in love with the beauty. He stayed with her until the morning, until she fell dead again.
Having learned that the beauty comes to life only at night, the padishah began to come to her every evening. He called her his wife and kept thinking about how to save her from witchcraft.
But then the beauty had a son and grew by leaps and bounds. The padishah began to spend whole days with his son, playing with him, and only went to the palace for a short time.
When the boy grew up, his mother said to him:
“Ask your father to take you to the palace with him.” There you will see a woman with a bump on her forehead. She has a purse hidden on her chest. Try to snatch this purse from her and bring it to me.
That's how it all turned out. The padishah took his son to the palace. He told his wife that he had brought his friend’s son to stay. The padishah's wife sat the boy on her lap and began to talk to him. And he felt her purse on her chest, tore it off and took it away.
The padishah's wife screamed and began to call him to her, but the boy ran up to his father, asked to take him home, and the father took his son away.
The boy's mother took the purse from her son's hands and said:
“Now I will be alive during the day, I will live like all people,” and she told the padishah everything that happened to her.
The angry padishah returned to his palace. He immediately ordered forty horses to be brought, the wicked stepmother and her daughter tied to their tails by the hair, and the horses driven across the steppe.
And he brought the beauty and her son to the palace, and they lived a long time and loved each other.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru