Once upon a time there lived a cheerful, cunning badarchi. He walked along the steppe and met an arat. A sad arat walks, holding a horse's tail in his hands.
- Why sad?
- asks the badarchi.
“I have a misfortune,” answers the arat. “The wolves killed the last horse, leaving only the tail.” I'll be lost without a horse!
“Give me the tail,” says the badarchi, “and wait for me here.” You will have a better horse than before.
Arat gave Badarchi the horse's tail and remained in the steppe to wait for what would happen next. And the badarchi went to one hot-ile, where there was a yurt of a greedy and dishonest noyon. Not far from the yurt, Badarchi found a fox hole. He stuck his tail into this hole, sat down next to him, holding the end of the tail with both hands.
After sitting for a while, Noyon rushes past on his best horse. He saw Noyon Badarchi, reined in his horse and asked:
- What are you doing, why are you holding on to the horse’s tail?
Badarchi answers:
“I let a horse graze here, and it went into this hole.” It’s good that he managed to grab her by the tail, otherwise he would have lost his horse. Now I’ll rest a little and pull him out of the hole.
- What kind of horse do you have? - asks the greedy noyon. - Does he run well?
“My horse takes me around the earth seven times a day!” His mane is like snow on mountain ranges; his stirrups break from running; You can put ten camels between his ears; when it rears up, its bangs touch the clouds!
The noyon shook with greed, jumped to the ground, pushed the badarchi, and grabbed onto its tail.
“Who allowed you,” he shouts, “to graze your horse near my yurt?” Get out of here now! Badarchi says:
- I erased my legs. I can't walk... - OK! Let me hold your tail, and you get on my horse - and so that I don’t see you near my yurt again! Get out!
The badarchi rushed off on the horse of the noyon into the steppe. There he gave the horse to the poor Arat, and he moved on.
At noon he met a rich man. There was a cauldron of meat on the rich man’s head. This man was so greedy that, when leaving the yurt, he always took food with him: he was afraid that someone would eat without him.
The rich man saw the badarch and began to laugh at him:
“They say you cleverly know how to deceive various fools.” But you can never deceive an intelligent person. Try to fool me!
“I have no time for deception,” the badarchi answers. “The whole sky is burning, but you can’t see!”
The rich man looked at the sky - the cauldron fell from his head and broke. And badarchi said:
- It turns out that you are a fool, since I deceived you.
He said so and went on his way. Soon he met one khan.
- Who are you? - asks the khan. -Where is your yurt, what can you do?
“I don’t have a yurt,” the badarchi answers. - And I can do whatever I want. Khan got angry:
- Why are you lying? I am a khan, and even then I can’t do whatever I want.
And badarchi says:
- You can’t, but I can!
“If that’s the case,” says the khan, “make me get off my horse now.”
-Your truth! - Badarchi answers. “I can’t force the khan to get off his horse.” But if you jump to the ground, I will make you jump back into the saddle.
- Come on, try, make it! - said the khan and got off his horse.
“You see,” the badarchi laughed, “you wanted me to make you get off your horse, I did it: you’re standing on the ground!”
- Well, you won’t deceive me again! - the khan shouted and jumped onto his horse.
“And now I have fulfilled my second promise - I made you get on the horse again,” said the badarchi and went on to wander.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru