Once upon a time there lived an old woman with her grandson. Uncle did not leave them hungry. If he caught three walruses, he gave two to the orphan and his grandmother.
Grandson is growing...
“I’ll go help my uncle drag the meat!” - one day the grandson says to his grandmother.
- Well, then, go help!
The boy began to help, and then he wanted to hunt himself.
“Grandma, find me some old clothes, I want to hunt too, otherwise my uncle always gets us meat.”
- You are still small!
Grandma went to see my uncle's wife. She sewed hunting clothes for the boy. His uncle made him a spear and a harpoon. And they went together. The boy fell behind, turned the other way and ran towards the sea. Approaches one rookery - empty; he approached another - then the walrus leaned out, but the boy was in a hurry to throw a spear, missed, and the walrus dived under the ice. The boy moved on. He approaches the third rookery - the walrus lies and dozes. The boy began to sneak around, but stumbled and scared off the walrus.
A snowstorm arose. The boy looked around: between the shore and the ice there was water. Snow fell in large flakes. A boy runs along the edge of the ice. He sees a naked woman sitting on an ice floe, shivering from the cold.
- Boy, give me your kukhlyanka! - What about me?
“You have second clothes under your kitchenette, but I’m completely naked!”
The boy gave the kukhlyanka, and the woman threw it into the water and took it out completely dry. She gave it to the boy and said:
- Take it. I see you are kind! I have clothes!
She took out clothes from under the ice, put them on and became a polar bear.
“I’ll take you to the shore, otherwise your family is very worried about you!” - she said.
The polar bear transported the boy. But when he stepped ashore, he was no longer a boy, but a handsome young man.
“I’ll teach you how to catch walruses,” said the bear, “and you will always have food.”
She hit the ice with her paw, the ice cracked, and walruses came out.
- You will do this with a harpoon! - she said to the young man.
The bear took off her skin, put it under ice and became a beautiful woman. They went to the camp. The young man married a polar bear, and they always had a lot of meat and fat, and they lived happily. They had a son and a daughter: the son looked like his father, and the daughter looked like her mother.
Children of relatives came to play with them. And the girl in the game was always a bear cub.
One day the husband went hunting, and the wife went to the neighbors. The children played out and made noise. Grandmother got angry with them:
- Why don’t you listen to me? And that your mother is always visiting the neighbors, and why she, like a werewolf, eats half of all the food!
The mother bear came home and saw a sad girl. And the girl told her about her grandmother’s words. The bear did not say anything, but began to get ready, took her daughter, ordered her son to stay, and left the yaranga. The boy began to cry and ran after her.
A husband came from hunting, threw a seal near the yaranga and shouted:
- Take the loot!
The children did not scream joyfully, the wife did not run out with a smile, and he realized that something had happened.
The old woman said: “She’s not here, she left with the guys.”
- What did you tell her?
“I called her a werewolf.”
“Didn’t you know that she was one of the bears?” - No, I didn’t know!
The husband began to get ready for the journey - he took a bag, put a duck skin, five harpoons, two arrows and a bow in it. And he followed the tracks - two bear tracks and one small human one.
He walked and walked and began to catch up with them. The bear stopped. The husband came up, the wife said to him:
“Take your son, and I’ll take my daughter to my place.”
- Take me with you! - asks the husband.
— It’s hard to live here. You will be killed by my ex-husband, the polar bear from whom I left for you.
“Without you, I would have died on the ice floe, let’s assume that I’m already dead!”
The bear and her cub went, and her husband and son followed her. They come across a scam, - the bear put her husband on herself, and her brother on her sister. They swam across and moved on. They come across a break - here the bear killed a seal, they ate and moved on. They come across a break - the bear killed a walrus here, ate, rested and moved on.
- Well, now our camp is close! - said the bear.
They came at night. The father recognized his daughter's steps, lifted the curtain, and everyone stuck their heads out - father, mother and five sons. Then the father closed the curtain and said:
— My daughter brought someone without fur, with a bare muzzle! The polar bear, the owner of the camp, challenged the man to single combat.
A man came to the owner of the camp. A huge polar bear lies, occupying the entire yaranga.
“I want to compete with you to see which of us can catch the most walruses!” - said the bear.
The hunter came home.
“Let’s go hunting,” he says, “the owner is calling.”
- The owner will send you to a place where there are no walruses, and he will take a good place, and if you get less, he will eat you! - says the old man. - Put on my skin: I almost defeated him once in my youth!
- Thank you, no need, she will only bother me! He took his five harpoons and went.
- Here's a crevice for you! - the polar bear pointed out to him, and he stood next to the other.
The man harpooned the first walrus, tied it, caught another - tied it again, and so he went to the polar bear - caught it and tied it. I reached the bear. He asked:
- How many did you catch?
- Five! - the man answered. The bear hung its head.
- How much do you have? - asked the man.
- Two! - said the bear.
A man came home. The old man rejoiced and said to his sons:
- Look, respect him.
The bear calls the man to a new martial arts.
Everyone went to the sheer cliff. The old man and his sons were sad.
“Put on my skin, I once in my youth almost defeated the owner in it,” says the old man.
“She will only bother me,” the hunter refused again and took the duck skin with him.
A polar bear lies at the very edge of a cliff, resting its head on its paws. When everyone had gathered, the polar bear said:
- Man, you will do what I do! “He ran and jumped off the cliff into the sea. The bear dived into the water and emerged holding a large stone in its front paws. - This is the same heavy stone you will lift from the water!
Now the man ran and jumped. On the fly, he put on a duck skin and went under the water.
A bear sits on a rock and thinks: “He will never lift such a heavy stone, I’ll take my wife back to me!”
And under the water the hunter looked for a bear’s stone for a long time, but this stone seemed too light to him; He took the stone under his arm and picked up another, heavier one, took off the duck skin and emerged. The man threw a huge stone, half the size of a rock, onto the ice, and the bear one threw it upward like a ball. The old man rejoiced:
- Respect him! - he told his sons.
The next morning the young man heard frightened voices and wanted to run out of the yaranga to look, but the old man and his sons did not let him in: “Don’t go, they’ll kill you there!”
The young man went outside and saw that the polar bears would gather and then scatter. I came closer and saw a wolf mouse. He took off his belt, hit the wolf mouse and killed it. The bears were delighted and looked at him in surprise.
On the third day, the polar bear, the owner of the camp, again challenges the man to single combat.
- Take my skin, I once almost defeated him! - said the old man.
- Thank you, she will only bother me!
The man took two arrows and a bow and went to the polar bear.
- I challenged you, man, to a duel, defend yourself! The bear ran up, rushed at the man, and the man jumped to the side. The bear rushed past, turned and rushed at the man again. The hunter jumped to the side again. He pulled the bowstring and fired. An arrow hit my right shoulder. The bear turned around. The man shot an arrow at his left shoulder. The bear stuck out its tongue, hit the shoulders with it, first to the right, then to the left, and collapsed. After this the man lived well.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru