One night a badger was hunting. The edge of the sky brightened. A badger hurries to its hole before the sun. Without showing itself to people, hiding from dogs, it stays where the grass is deeper, where the ground is darker.
Brrk, brrk... - he suddenly heard an incomprehensible noise.
"What's happened?". The dream jumped out of the badger. The fur rose to the head. And my heart almost broke my ribs with a pounding sound.
“I’ve never heard such a noise: brrk, brrrk... I’ll quickly go, I’ll call clawed animals like me, I’ll tell the zaisan bear. I don’t agree to die alone.”
The badger went to call all the living clawed animals in Altai:
- Oh, I have a scary guest in my hole! Who dares to go with me?
The animals have gathered. Ears pressed to the ground. In fact, the noise makes the earth tremble.
Brrk, brrk...
All the animals' hair went up.
“Well, badger,” said the bear, “this is your house, you go there first.”
The badger looked back; large clawed beasts order him:
- Go, go! What happened?
And they put their tails between their legs out of fear.
The badger was afraid to enter the main entrance to his house. He started digging in from behind. It's hard to scrape rocky soil! The claws have worn off. It’s a shame to break his native hole, Finally the Bursuk entered his high bedroom. I made my way to the soft moss. He sees something white there. Brrk, brrk...
It is the white hare, folding his front paws across his chest, snoring loudly.
The animals couldn't stand on their feet laughing. They rolled on the ground. —
- Hare! That's it, a hare! The badger was scared of the hare!
- Where will you hide your shame now? “Really,” the badger thinks, “why did I start shouting to the whole Altai?”
He got angry and kicked a hare:
- Get out! Who allowed you to snore here?
The hare woke up: there are wolves, foxes, lynxes, wolverines, a wild cat all around, and the zaisan bear himself is here. The hare's eyes became round. He himself trembles, like a talnik over a stormy river. Can't say the words.
“Well, come what may!”
The poor fellow crouched down to the ground and jumped into the badger’s forehead! And from the forehead, as if from a hill, he again leaps into the bushes. The white hare's belly turned the badger's forehead white. From the hare's hind legs a white mark passed along the badger's cheeks.
The laughter of the animals became even louder.
"Why are they happy?" - the badger cannot understand.
- Oh, badger, feel your forehead and cheeks! How beautiful you have become!
The badger stroked its muzzle - the white fluffy thief stuck to its claws. Seeing this, the badger went to complain
to the bear.
- I bow to you to the ground, grandfather zaisan bear! I was not at home myself, I did not invite guests. Hearing snoring, he got scared. How many animals have I disturbed because of this snoring! He destroyed his own house because of him. Now you see: the head and jaws have turned white. And the culprit ran away without looking back. Judge this matter.
The bear looked at the badger. He walked away and looked again and how he barked:
-Are you still complaining? Your face used to be black, like the earth, but now even people will envy your whiteness. It’s a shame that it wasn’t me who stood in that place, that it wasn’t my face that the hare whitened. What a pity! This is it for real
very sorry!
And, sighing bitterly, the bear wandered off to his warm, dry village.
But the badger remained to live with a white stripe on its forehead and cheeks. They say that he is used to these marks and even boasts very often:
- That's how hard the hare tried for me! We have now become friends forever and ever.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru