In Altai, at the mouth of the Ini River, lived the hero Sartakpai. His scythe reaches to the ground. Eyebrows are like thick bushes. The muscles are knotty, like a growth on a birch tree, even if you cut them into cups.
Not a single bird has ever flown past Sartakpai’s head: he shot without missing a beat.
Sartakpai always accurately hit the ungulate animals running in the distance. He aimed deftly at the clawed animals.
His archemaks were not empty. They always contained fatty game. The son, Aduchi-Mergen, hearing the stomp of the pacer from afar, ran out to meet his father to unsaddle the horse. Oimok's daughter-in-law prepared eighteen game dishes and ten milk drinks for the old man.
But the famous hero Sartakpai was not happy, not cheerful. Day and night he heard the cry of the Altai rivers blocked by stones. Throwing from stone to stone, they were torn to shreds. They split into streams, bumping into mountains. Sartakpai is tired of seeing the tears of the Altai rivers, tired of listening to their incessant groan. And he decided to give. the way to the Altai waters to the Arctic Ocean. Sartakpai called his son:
“You, child, go south, and I’ll go east.”
Aduchi the son went to Mount Belukha, climbed to where the eternal snow lies, and began to look for ways to the Katun River.
The hero Sartakpai himself went east, to the fatty lake Yulu-Kol. With the index finger of his right hand, Sartakpai touched the bank of Yulu-Kol - and the Chelushman River flowed after his finger. All the passing streams and rivers, all the sonorous springs and underground waters, rushed into this river with a cheerful song.
But through the joyful ringing, Sartakpai heard crying in the Kosh-Agach mountains. He extended his left hand and, with his left index finger, drew a furrow across the mountains for the Bashkaus River. And when the waters laughed, running away from Kosh-Agach, old man Sartakpai laughed with them.
— It turns out that I can also work with my left hand. However, it is not suitable to do such a thing with your left hand.
And Sartakpai turned the Bashkaue river towards the hills of Kok-Bash and then poured it into Chelushman and led all the waters with one right hand down to the slopes of Artybash. Here Sartakpai stopped.
- Where is my son Aduchi? Why doesn't he come to meet me halfway? Fly to him, black woodpecker, and see how Aduchi-Mergen works.
The black woodpecker flew to Mount Belukha, from Belukha the Katun River ran to the west. The woodpecker rushed after the river. Not far from Ust-Koksa he caught up with the strongman Aduchi. He led Katun further and further to the west.
- What are you doing, Aduchi-Mergen? - the woodpecker shouted. “Your father has been waiting for you in Artybash for half a day.” The son immediately turned Katun to the northeast. The woodpecker hurried towards Sartakpai.
- Illustrious hero, your son was mistaken: he began to lead the river to the west, but now he has turned it to the east. In three days he will be here.
“Nice woodpecker,” said Sartakpai, “you respected my request.” For this I will teach you how to always be well-fed. Don’t look for worms in the ground, don’t climb tree branches for midges, but cling to the trunk with your claws, hit the bark with your beak and shout: “Kiuk-kiuk! Karaty Khan's son is celebrating his wedding, kiuk! Wear a yellow silk fur coat and a black beaver hat. Hurry, hurry! Karaty Khan’s son is inviting you to his wedding!” And all the worms, bugs, and midges will immediately run out from under the bark into the light.
From then until now, the woodpecker feeds the way old Sartakpai taught him.
While waiting for his son, Sartakpai held his index finger in the Artybash valley for three days. During this time, Lake Teletskoe flowed under his finger. The father led the Biya River from Lake Teletskoye, and the son Aduchi quickly fled, leading the Katun. He was not one step behind his mighty father. Together, in an instant, both rivers, Biya and Katun, merged into the wide Ob. And this river carried the waters of Altai to the distant Arctic Ocean.
Aduchi-Mergen stood proud and happy.
“Son,” said Sartakpai, “you brought Katun quickly, but I want to see if you drove it well and conveniently for people.”
And the old man went from the Ob up the Katun. Aduchi-Mergen walked behind, and his knees bent with fear. So the father stepped over the Chemal River and approached Mount Sogondu-Tuu. His face darkened. The eyebrows completely covered the eyes.
- Oh, shame, shame, Aduchi-Mergen, son! Why did you force Katun to make a turn here? People won't thank you for this. You did it wrong, son!
“Father,” Aduchi replies, “I could not split Sogondu-Tuu.” I didn’t even have the strength to draw a furrow along its ridges.
Then old man Sartakpai took his iron bow from his shoulder, pulled the string and shot a triangular arrow cast from copper.
Sogondu-Tuu split in two. One piece fell below the Chemala River, and the Beshpek pine forest immediately grew on it. The other half of Sogondu-Tuu still stands above the Katun. And people still praise old man Sartakpai for the fact that he led the road straight, like the trail of an arrow.
Then the father and son go up the Katun. Sartakpai sees: the river is destroying and tearing its banks. Its waters flow fiercely and quickly.
- How will people travel from one bank to the other, son?
At the very mouth of the Choba, the hero Sartakpai sat down on a stone and thought deeply.
“Here, my son,” he said, “is exactly the middle of the river.” It will be necessary to build a big bridge here.
Young Aduchi-Mergen said nothing. He was very tired and stood swaying from side to side like tall grass.
“Go and rest, dear,” Sartakpai allowed, “just don’t you dare sleep, and out of respect for my work, let your wife Oymok stay awake.”
“Really, father, you won’t sleep all night?”
“When you do a great deed, sleep does not dare to come,” answered Sartakpai.
He began to collect piles of stones in the hem of his fur coat. Sartakpai worked all day without rest. And when it got dark, he didn’t want to rest either.
Katun ran like crazy. The wind bent the trees. Black clouds smoked in the sky. They swam menacingly towards each other. And a small cloud, flying into a large one, struck a bright lightning bolt. Sartakpai raised his hand, caught the lightning and inserted it into the split fir trunk. In the light of the captured lightning, Sartakpai began to build a bridge. He drove stone into stone, and the stones obediently stuck to one another. There are no more than fifteen kulashes left to reach that bank. And then the bridge collapsed.
Sartakpai roared like a bear, threw stones from the hem of his fur coat, and they, rattling, woke up from the mouth of Choba to the mouth of Edigan.
Aduchi’s son woke up from a terrible roar, and Oymok’s daughter-in-law opened her eyes. Frightened by Sartakpai's anger, they turned into gray geese and flew up the Chuya River. Sartakpai threw a hundred-foot stone after them. This stone fell on the Kurai steppe and still lies there. Son Aduchi and daughter-in-law Oimok remained geese forever. Lonely and sad, Sartakpai mounted his horse and returned to the mouth of the Inya. His native village had long since crumbled. Sartakpai unsaddled his horse, threw a hundred-pound kedim onto a large stone and, so that it would dry quickly, turned the stone towards the sun, and he sat down next to him and died.
Here ends the song about Sartakpay the builder, about Sartakpay the master of lightning, about Sartakpay the hero.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru