Grandma fell asleep, and before that she tied up a cannibal who ate people. In our opinion, in Kerek, this is a devil. He is always attached. Two sisters live with their grandmother. And suddenly the devil says to his sister:
- Younger sister, grandma is sleeping now, untie me.
The younger sister answers:
- No, I won’t untie you. Grandma said that stop wandering around anywhere. You're bad, stupid, so stay on a leash.
Then the devil turned to the other sister:
- Little sister, untie!
The younger sister is smarter than the older one and says to her:
- No need to let go.
And the devil again asks his older sister:
- Untie me! Listen!
The elder sister listened and untied the devil. The devil immediately grabbed the iron hook and went to the Valkar dugouts where the Kereks lived. I came there, opened the smoke hole, and there, in the walkar, only women and men went hunting.
The devil shouts into the smoke hole:
- Hey, are you sleeping?!
Two old women answer from there:
- No, we are not sleeping.
- What, however, is making noise, like little children screaming?
“No, not children,” replies one old woman, “probably my breasts hurt before the bad weather.”
- Enough. So, I’m starting to catch you with a hook,” the devil shouts.
- What do you want to catch?
- Young ducks.
“There are no young ducks now, they are on the rocks in the summer.” There are no ducks here, we are people, we live in a walker.
- But it’s not in vain that I came?!
“Why are you raping,” they answer from the valkar. - If so, then let it be your way. Hook it!
- So look, I’m starting!
- Well, start! Who do you want to catch? Get started!
The devil lowered the hook into the dugout, moves it there, and himself hums:
- Tomorrow, tomorrow there will be food! Tomorrow, tomorrow there will be food! There will be food for today, for today! There will be food for today, for today! Who, who will I hook! Who, who am I going to hook!.. Well, where are the young ducks?!
- There are no young ducks now, we tell you.
“Then I’ll come in.”
- No, no, keep looking from there, and we will look for young ducks.
Meanwhile, one of the women digs a hole in the wall to get out through it.
- Look, I’m starting to catch with a hook again! - the devil shouts.
- Just start!
- Who, who will I catch! Tomorrow, tomorrow there will be food! - the devil sings.
Suddenly he picked up something, he picked up a kerker. Without looking, he pulled it out into the street and immediately tore it up. There was a wind outside, and all the dry grass flew into his eyes. The women stuffed Kerker with garbage and dry grass and slipped it under his hook.
- Oh! - the devil screamed. - He showered himself with garbage! What is it? What is it filled with? Duck? No, not a duck! This is not something!
The devil threw the scarecrow through the hole into the dugout:
- Take yours, I don’t need it. No duck.
While the devil was busy with the scarecrow, the women crawled out through the wall and ran away.
- Wait, I’m coming in!
The devil went into the dugout, and there was no one there, only a little dog sitting on a leash. Told her:
-Where are the people?
The dog did not answer, learned that it was not a man, but a devil, and scratched him in the eyes.
- Oh, oh, oh! - the devil shouted. - My eyes became dusty. What are you tearing apart? - He didn’t understand that the dog had scratched his eyes.
The devil got angry and started running around the dugout. He pulls out pillows and tears them. He ran around the dugout for a long time.
Meanwhile, the women ran to Tina’s grandmother, to the Old Lady of the Sea and said to her:
- Oh, the devil is chasing us, he wants to catch us. Would you help us escape?
- Oh, how scared you are. How scared you are! Well, let’s see,” and the Old Sea Woman stretched her legs to the other side of the sea. “Just like that, carry children right over these legs, run yourself.”
The women moved to the other side of the sea...
The devil calmed down and came to his senses. He, Pluntykanelan, began to think: “Oh, this is where they came out from,” he guessed, seeing a hole in the wall. “It was they, the women, who were screaming then, the children were with them.”
I followed the trail. He ran to the old sea woman. And the old woman washes her mud kerkers in the sea, which look like garbage.
The devil asks:
- What is this for and what are you washing, old woman?
- Yes, my clothes.
- Oh, these are not clothes. You are deceiving me. Our grandmothers only wore iron clothes, and suddenly they threw the muddy clothes into the sea. - These are not clothes, no.
- How? My life is like this, I live at sea - I wear these clothes.
-Where are the women? The tracks lead here. Where did they go?
The old sea woman answered Pluntykanelan:
“They drank the sea and crossed to the other side.”
- What about me? I can't drink the sea.
- You can. That's what they did.
- Well, I'll try to drink.
The devil began to drink the sea, but the sea did not decrease at all. I drank and drank, it became heavy, and I burst. The devil is gone, he burst.
The old sea woman threw the dead devil into the sea and said:
- Let his body (iron) turn into different things for descendants, he is the devil, Pluntykanelan - Owner of an iron hook. Let your head become a teapot, your legs become guns, your hands also guns, let your brain turn into beads. May people benefit from his body.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru