An old man and an old woman lived in the Chosyjia Mountains. And they had two sons and a daughter. When the children grew up, the daughter got married and moved to another place, and the sons got married and stayed with their parents. Everyone lived well and worked together.
But then trouble came. First the mother died from a terrible disease, and then both sons. The old man was left with two daughters-in-law. He could no longer work in the field, and the entire farm fell into the hands of his daughters-in-law.
Time passed. The daughters-in-law began to treat their father-in-law worse and worse, pushing him around, sending him to hard work: chopping wood, fetching water, or even guarding sheep in a snowstorm. And they fed him very poorly: only cold and stale cakes and the dried blood of an old yak. The old man grew weaker by leaps and bounds from the backbreaking work and soon began to look like a man who was about to give his soul to God. Finally he decided to send a message to his daughter so that she would send him something to eat.
He went out onto the road along which cattle were driven and caravans walked, and sat down by the side of the road to wait for the traveler. The rays of the sun warmed him, and the old man dozed off. At this time, a caravan of yaks was passing along the road.
- Hey! Hey! - shouted the head driver. - Old man, why are you sitting on the road? Aren't you afraid that the yaks will trample you?
The old man woke up and politely asked the drivers to convey greetings to his daughter and tell her: “Your mother and brothers are dead, but your father is alive. He is now a shepherd for his daughters-in-law, they feed him stale cakes and dried blood, and he has long forgotten the taste of dzamba and rye beer!”
The caravan continued its journey and soon arrived at the village where the old man’s daughter lived. Hearing how her father lived, she cried bitterly:
- Poor, poor! And he didn’t think that in his old age he would have to endure this!
He is completely decrepit, and they send him to the mountains to herd sheep and feed him stale cakes! What kind of life is this!
She found out when the caravan would set off on its return journey, and handed the drivers a small clay brick, into which she secretly placed a large and expensive stone - turquoise.
“Tell your father,” she asked the drivers, “if he wants a better life, let him look at what’s inside, but keep it, don’t sell it!”
And the unfortunate old man kept driving his herd towards the road and waited with hope for news from his daughter. Finally the caravan arrived, the drivers gave the old man a brick and conveyed the order to his daughter. He thanked him, split the brick and found turquoise in it.
The old man felt sad: he could not understand why his daughter did not tell him to sell this stone. He returned home, looked at his daughters-in-law and suddenly it dawned on him: this is what turquoise will be useful for! “What a smart girl my daughter is!” - the old man thought to himself.
The next morning, when the younger daughter-in-law was not at home, he took out his jewel and showed it to the eldest daughter-in-law:
— My daughter sent me this stone yesterday. It is very expensive, but I will not sell it, and when I die, I will bequeath it to you!
Hearing this, the eldest daughter-in-law was delighted and thought: “The old man won’t last long, so I’ll soon get rich!”
From that day on, she completely changed her attitude towards him: she began to take care of him, did not scold him, did not send him to graze sheep, did not feed him blood.
At noon, the younger daughter-in-law returned home, and the eldest went away somewhere.
The old man again took out his stone and said:
— My daughter sent me this. Precious thing! But I won’t sell it, I want to leave this stone for you after death.
The younger daughter-in-law was very pleased. “He’s already old, he won’t live long,” she thought, “but for now we need to please him and feed him tastier food so that he doesn’t change his mind.”
And the younger daughter-in-law also began to take care of the old man. Both women tried their best: after all, each believed that she would receive the precious turquoise after the death of her father-in-law.
So a year passed. And then the old man fell seriously ill. Feeling that death was approaching, he pulled out his precious stone, hid it in a clay brick, and placed the brick on the sooty end of the beam that protruded above the hearth. Near the fireplace stood a large vat of water. The old man looked into the water and smiled at something.
When his daughters-in-law arrived, he asked them to send for their daughter:
“I’ll see her for the last time and calmly close my eyes!”
Well, if she doesn’t find me alive, tell her my words:
The dragon stretches over the water like a bridge, its tail reflected black in the water; You will see him if you raise your eyes, There is turquoise in the tail of that dragon.
The old man died without waiting for his daughter. And the daughters-in-law immediately rushed to look for turquoise. They've dug everything up, but there's no stone left! They got angry, but there was nothing to do - they had to wait for their sister-in-law. She arrived, learned about her father’s death and began to cry.
She performed the ritual of remembrance, and then asked her daughters-in-law:
“Didn’t my father tell me anything before he died?” “He ordered,” they answered, “but we did not understand his words:
The dragon stretches over the water like a bridge, its tail reflected black in the water; You will see him if you raise your eyes, There is turquoise in the tail of that dragon.
The old man's daughter was smart, she immediately guessed: she went to a vat of water, looked into it and saw the reflection of a beam in the water, the end of the beam was black, smoky from smoke. She fumbled with her hand and found a brick.
So the precious turquoise returned to the old man’s smart daughter.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru