There lived one raven. The raven left his people and set up a dugout on the shore of the Bering Sea.
The fox saw the dugout and began to praise the raven:
- Oh, how good you are, oh, how beautiful you are. When the sun comes up, your feathers go up!
The raven listens to the fox, and his heart rejoices. He invited the fox to live in his dugout.
- That's good! - the fox agreed, - my hole is small and dark, and your dugout is high and light.
And the raven and the fox began to live together. The raven gets food, and the fox cleans up the dugout.
The raven made a spear and a harpoon and walked across the ice into the sea. I saw a hole in the ice, and near it a dead seal. He stuck a spear into the seal and brought it home; Lisa asks:
- Did he take it away or did he kill himself?
- Killed! - said the raven. The fox began to praise him:
- Oh, how good you are, oh, how beautiful you are! When the sun comes up, your feathers go up!
They divided the seal and began to eat - the fox like a fox, and the raven like a crow. The fox ate all the meat, and the raven ate half. He gave his meat to the fox, and he himself went back to get the kill.
He approaches the vent, sees a seal rise from the water, sigh and go into the sea. The raven began to wait.
A seal emerged. The raven threw a harpoon at her. The seal dived into the water - and the raven held the harpoon strap tightly. The seal walked and walked in the sea, and again came to the outlet. The raven threw a spear and pulled the seal onto the ice. Brought it home. The fox praised him, and at night he thought: How does he catch seals? I’ll go get it myself, but I won’t give it to the crow! She quietly came out of the dugout, took a harpoon and a spear, sniffed the trail and left.
He approaches the vent and thinks about what to throw first - a harpoon or a spear? The seal emerged into the vent. The fox threw a harpoon at her, grabbed the end of the belt and held it. The seal walked and walked in the sea and came to the outlet. The fox threw a spear. But she couldn’t hold the spear and forgot about the harpoon strap - and the seal went under the ice, dragging away both the harpoon and the spear. The fox got scared and ran home. She lay down and pretended to be asleep.
The raven woke up and got ready to hunt. He searched and searched for a harpoon and a spear, and asked the fox:
- Sister, who took the harpoon and spear?
The fox answers in a dream:
“You know yourself that I never leave the dugout.”
“What should we do now,” the raven thinks, “how to get food?” I walked and walked, thought and thought, and decided to catch fish with a fishing rod.
The raven went to the shore and made an ice hole. I sat and sat. It has become cold... He feels that something heavy has been caught on his hook. He pulled the fishing rod and pulled out a miracle of the sea - everything was overgrown with mud, the head was huge, the eyes hung on the cheeks, and fish were stuck to the whole body. He took off the fish and threw the miracle into the water. He walked like this every day and always brought fish.
The fox thinks: “How does he catch fish? I’ll go try it myself!” The fox came out quietly, took a fishing rod from the wall, sniffed the trail and walked along the path to the shore.
The fox approached the ice hole, lowered the fishing rod, and something heavy came across something heavy. She pulls with all her might and thinks: “I won’t give it to the crow!” A miracle of the sea appeared above the water. The fox got scared, dropped the fishing rod, and the miracle sank to the bottom along with the fishing rods. The fox came running home. Pretended to be asleep.
The raven got up and got ready to fish. And there are no fishing rods anywhere! He shouts to the fox:
- Sister, sister, who took the fishing rods?
- Why don’t you let me sleep? You know that I don’t leave the dugout...
The hungry raven and fox remained. A raven walked and walked across the tundra, came out to the seashore and thought: “I have never gone that way.” And he went...
He walked and walked, passed a cat, and then a sheer rock. He began to cross the rock. Rising high. I began to look in all directions and saw a dugout far away on the shore.
He approached the dugout, climbed onto the roof, looked into the chimney and saw: a woman was sitting in the middle of the dugout, braiding her hair, and white and black deer were walking around her. She begins to unravel her braids - the deer turn in the other direction.
The raven cawed in surprise, and his saliva fell on the little calf - the fawn fell and died. The woman took the fawn and threw it away. The raven made a loop, put it over his head over his shoulders and went home with his prey.
The fox saw him and started her song: “When the sun rises, your feathers rise too.”
This is how the raven walked every time they ran out of food.
The fox lies and thinks: “Where does he get meat? Shouldn’t I go there and hunt?” She got up and followed in the footsteps of the raven. I came to the dugout. She looked up the chimney. He sees: a woman sits, braids her hair - deer walk around her in one direction, undoes her braids - deer walk in the other direction,
The fox spotted the largest deer and spat on it. A deer fell. The woman took the deer by the legs and threw it outside. The fox tied a strap around the deer, made a loop, put it on his shoulders, began to drag it, but he wouldn’t budge - he was tormented. She climbed onto the dugout and shouted to the woman down the chimney:
- Hey, help me raise the deer!
“I’m going now,” the woman said, and she thought: “So that’s who’s stealing my deer!” The woman took a stick, a board on which the skin is peeled, walked up to the fox, hit him on the back of the head and went into the dugout.
The raven waited and waited for the fox and thought: She must have gone to her own people! The raven went to that dugout for the fawn. He approached and saw: where the dugout stood, there lay the lower jaw of a whale, instead of a woman there was a black stone, instead of deer there were white stones around. “Who ruined this for me again?” - he thought. And he saw a fox near a deer.
- So that's who did it! - he said and buried the fox. I went home and began to live alone.
The raven became bored. “Here a fox lived with me, told me about his father, and I told her about my father, and we had fun!” – this is what the raven said to himself every day. He misses him, remembers the fox - how she waited for him, how they divided the food in half.
The crow met another fox and invited him to live in his dugout. And again the raven began to get food, and the fox began to tidy up the dugout.
And so the fox says to the raven:
- You should get married, raven!
- And that’s true! - said the raven, and went to get married. The fox got angry with him and thought: Well, wait, I’ll show you how to marry others! And the raven walked and walked on the sea ice, saw a fish on the ice and asked:
- What are you doing here?
- Yes, I want to get married, I’m waiting for the groom!
And the raven married a fish, but didn’t even think about the fox. And the fox harbored a grudge against the raven and his wife. One day the raven went hunting. The fox warmed the water in the trough, put the fish in it and splashed it out. A raven comes from hunting, sees his wife at the threshold and sings with joy that she is waiting for him. But the wife can’t say a word.
The crow brought the fish to the dugout. The fox says to him:
- Brother Raven, the fish is used to living in the open, and you put it in a dugout!
The next day, as soon as the raven went into the tundra, the fox put the fish in hot water and splashed it out on the snow. The raven returned, and the wife was barely breathing.
And the fox repeats:
- The fish is accustomed to space, but you keep it in a dugout!
On the third day, as soon as the raven went hunting, the fox boiled water, put a fish in it and splashed it out. Then she put her things in a bag: a bone needle, sinew threads, a bone thimble and fur scraps. She went to the hill, lay down on a stone and began to wait.
A raven came late in the evening, hungry, and saw his fish in the snow. I rushed to the fox, but she was not there. He jumped out, walked back and forth, and ate the fish.
The crow returned to the dugout and sunbathed - again he was left alone. And the raven decided to die: he hung a noose and jumped into it, but hit him not with his head, but with his foot.
The raven screams. The fox is dying of curiosity, but is afraid to go. Then she quietly approached and saw a raven in a noose upside down. She began to jump around him and tease him.
The raven was trapped in a noose. The noose broke, the raven fell straight onto the fox and they grabbed each other - only feathers and fur were flying in clumps. They will get tired, lie side by side, catch their breath and start again... And so they tore each other apart.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru