A raven walked along the seashore,
watched the progress of the whales. The crow neighbor was collecting medicinal herbs in the tundra.
So they met.
Raven says:
- Will you soon think of giving your daughter to my son?
- Tell me where the whale camp is, then you will get your daughter.
“Why do you need whales?” asked the raven. He was going to hunt himself.
“I need whale oil,” answered the crow.
- Go to that island over there, there’s a lot of whale oil there! - the raven showed.
The old crow called her son-in-law, and they sailed on a canoe to the island. And the raven stands on the shore and laughs after them.
We arrived on the island, and there was a camp of seagulls. The guests ask about whale oil, and the seagulls laugh at them. Evening came, the old crow went to sleep in the canoe, and the son-in-law went to the yaranga.
In the yaranga, the raven saw the owner’s daughter, a beautiful girl, “white as snow. He liked her, and he made a match. The father agreed, took a ransom for his daughter and gave her to the raven.
The next morning, the raven hid the seagull on the bow of the canoe, and put a canopy in the canoe, which the relatives gave to the seagull as a dowry.
They are going home, and the raven who sent them to the island shouts to the crow from the shore:
- Woman, do you have a head? Who are you carrying in your boat?!
The old crow hears ‘badly’, turns her head, listens, and her son-in-law says to her:
“Hurry up and start singing a song, like a wolf catching up with a hare, otherwise our canoe can barely float.”
The old crow sang:
- No way, no way.
“You see how quickly we swam!” - said the son-in-law and began to row with all his might.
And the old raven does not lag behind, runs along the shore and shouts again:
- Hey, woman, do you have a head?
- Wait, don’t row, he’s telling me something! - And the old crow listened to what the raven was shouting to her.
- Sing, sing quickly, otherwise we’ll never get home! - her son-in-law shouted to her.
“No-no-yok!” sang the old crow and suddenly saw something white behind her son-in-law’s olive tree.
“We need to see what’s white there!” said the crow. The raven shielded the seagull. The crow got angry and threw the curtain into the sea.
A raven and a seagull arrived home and were greeted by their raven wife.
“Here is my second wife,” the husband tells her, “you are good, I love you, but you only give birth to daughters, and I want sons!”
- Fine! - said the wife.
...The old crow offends the seagull every now and then. The son-in-law had to tie the old woman to a large stone on the seashore.
A seagull will go to the sea, look at the island where it came from and sing:
- Di-higi-di, di-higi-di! - And cries, misses her family.
- Why are you looking there? - asks the crow.
- It smells good from there, a lot of whales are caught there! - the seagull answers and sings again: - Ri-gi-ip!
Once a seagull was carrying water from a stream, and a crow asked for water. The seagull scooped up a full cup, and the crow grabbed the cup and broke it.
The husband makes an oar near the yaranga and says to the wives:
- Let's eat here, I don't want to go to the yaranga. The crow brought out a wooden tray with meat, and the seagull brought out tea.
- Where is my cup? - asks the husband. The old crow shouted to her son-in-law:
“A seagull broke your cup and threw it here, come take a look!”
The husband got angry, and the old crow started talking about the seagull: she was homesick for her island and said that it smelled good from there, but her husband smelled bad! The husband grabbed the oar, hit the seagull, and broke its wing.
At night the seagull went home.
She walks along the shore, closer to the island where the seagulls are resting. She tied her wing with grass and began to wait for her relatives from the island... A seagull gave birth to two sons on the shore; the wing began to gradually overgrow. A whale was washed ashore by a storm. The seagull healed with its sons. The chicks began to fledge, and the seagull taught them to fly.
Sends a crow to look for his seagull. The mother and first wife went, came across some berries and forgot about the seagull. They come home in the evening and say to the raven:
- She is nowhere! The raven went to look for himself.
The seagull's sons have learned to fly, the seagull sends them -
mother to the island to join her brothers. They flew for a long time across the sea, their wings were tired. They see a large catalog resting on the waves, seagulls and seashells walk along it, and a sperm whale turns from side to side. The sons of the seagull sat down, rested, and set off again.
We flew to the island and found my grandmother and grandfather. They told everything how it happened.
The entire camp gathered and flew after the seagull. They fly up, and the husband has found his seagull wife and asks her to return home. I saw my sons and began to ask even more.
- You are not good, I will not return to you! - said the wife.
The seagulls took her under their wings and carried her across the sea to the island.
But the raven remained.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru