Once upon a time there lived a brave king named Muzarbi. The inhabitants of his kingdom had no peace from the devas - there were many of them in the dense forests. During the day, King Muzarbi walked around the mountain slopes and gorges, guarding his possessions. He sees where the deva is, shoots an arrow and rips off the monster’s head like an onion.
At night, King Muzarbi climbed a high tower and scared away the devas with a menacing war cry.
King Muzarbi was brave; he had no equal in strength; they couldn’t even lift his bow.
But then the hour came, and King Muzarbi died. There was no one to protect people from the formidable devas. People left their homes and took refuge in the mountains. The queen and her daughter went to live in a cave.
The girl collected roots, laid them out to dry on rock ledges, and her mother cooked a stew from the roots.
Days passed, months passed.
One day a girl went to get some roots, and at that time the queen gave birth to a boy - half golden, half silver. The mother was embarrassed to show her daughter her wonderful son and hid the child behind a large boulder. The girl returned and, by the look of her mother, immediately sensed something was wrong.
“What happened, mom, why so sad?” she asks.
- How can I tell you, daughter? You have a brother, but he’s very strange. I hid it behind a stone.
The girl threw away a large stone and jumped for joy - she liked her half-gold, half-silver brother so much.
The boy is growing up right before our eyes. Three days have passed, but it’s like he’s three years old. On the tenth day he hit a kite with a stone. The girl sees how dexterous her brother has become, and she made him a bow: she twisted a rope out of her hair, tied the two ends of the twig with it, and it turned out to be a bow just like a real one. The boy began to go hunting. He will leave in the morning, return in the evening, bringing game. She feeds herself, and her mother and sister.
The older the boy got, the further he went hunting. He once climbed to the top of the mountain and saw far below, in the valley, houses and a tower - high, high, right up to the sky! The boy was amazed - he had never seen such a thing. I wanted to go down into the valley, take a closer look at everything, but it was already evening, time to return home.
Still, the boy could not resist, he ran into the valley and approached a nearby house. I knocked on the door - they didn’t open it. There is no one in the house. He knocked on another house - there was no one there either. The boy knocked on the third door - again they didn’t answer. He pushed the door open and saw an old woman at the fireplace. She turned to him in fear and asked:
- Where did you come from, son?
- From the cave, grandma!
- Run back quickly. There are devas prowling around here, looking for people, they will eat you alive! All the people are hiding in the mountains. “I’m old, I’m no longer happy with life, that’s why I’m sitting at home,” says the old woman. “The kingdom of the mighty Muzarbi perished, the king had no heir left, and there was no one to protect people from the devas.”
The boy returned home and asked his mother where they came from to the cave where they lived before.
“We didn’t come from anywhere, we always lived here!” answered the mother.
She hid the truth from the boy. The queen was afraid that he would go to the abandoned palace of Muzarbi and the devas would attack him.
The next morning the boy got up at first light, immediately went down to the valley and again went to the old woman.
The old woman told the boy everything about King Muzarbi and showed him the high royal tower. The boy ran to the very top of the tower and took the royal bow and quiver of arrows. Then he went down to the old woman and said:
- Go into the house, and I’ll hide behind the house and wait for the deva.
Now the dev appeared and reached the old woman’s house. The boy fired a well-aimed arrow, and the dev fell down dead.
The old lady is glad - a brave defender has appeared! She helped the boy bury the deva in the ground.
The boy hid his father's bow and arrows with the old woman and went home. He didn't tell his mother anything.
The night has passed. Morning has come.
The boy again went down to the valley to the old woman. The old woman sat down under a tree, and the boy hid behind the house to waylay the deva.
As soon as he took cover, the deva appeared and approached the old woman:
“Tell me, old hag, where did my brother go?”
The old woman is silent, as if she doesn’t hear. The boy fired a well-aimed arrow, and the dev fell down dead.
The boy buried the deva in the ground and went hunting.
He returned home and again did not say anything to his mother.
The night has passed. Morning has come. The boy went to the valley again and killed the third deva.
So he killed the devas for six days in a row.
The boy appeared to the old woman for the seventh time and again hid behind the house. And then the earth began to tremble, shaking underfoot.
“It’s Kazhdev stomping, the twelve-headed monster!” says the old woman. “We’re lost, son, you can’t defeat him!”
The deva is approaching, yelling at the top of his lungs:
“Tell me, hag, where have my brothers gone?” If you don't tell me, I'll break your head!
The old woman is silent, as if she doesn’t hear.
The boy pulled the bowstring, shot an arrow and knocked down all twelve heads.
He knocked it down, but the deva grew others.
The boy shot another arrow, blew off the monster’s heads, and the heads appeared again. The third time the boy shot an arrow at the deva - the third time the heads grew back. The boy was confused and didn’t know what to do.
A bird, a whitethroat, flew in, landed on a tree and started chirping: “Sprinkle it with ashes!” Sprinkle it with ashes!”
The old lady began to fuss. She grabbed the kyozi, scooped the hot ash from the hearth onto it and waited. The boy again shot arrows and cut off all twelve of the deva’s heads. The old woman immediately sprinkled ash on the deva, and his head did not grow back.
The old woman was delighted, kissed the boy, and thanked him:
“The devas will hear that we have defeated Kazhdev, they will hide, and will not dare to attack people anymore!”
The boy returned to his mother and again told her:
- Tell me, who are we, whose son am I?
The mother again did not reveal the truth to her son.
Then he told his mother and sister where he spent seven days.
The girl could not resist and confessed to her brother that they were the children of King Muzarbi.
The boy persuaded his mother and sister to return back to the palace.
The sun disappeared behind the mountains. Night has fallen. The son of King Muzarbi climbed the high tower and uttered a menacing cry, the cry echoed across the mountains and valleys. The devas trembled in fear and hid in remote gorges.
People heard the click and couldn’t believe their ears! Could King Muzarbi come to life?
People came running to the palace to find out who was scaring away the devas from the tower. When they learned that this was the brave son of King Muzarbi, that he had killed the most terrible devas, they returned to their abandoned homes.
The fierce mother of Kazhdev heard about the son of King Muzarbi and realized that it was he who killed her son. She ran to look for where Kazhdev was buried. He runs through the forest, hits his head against the trees in anger - they fall one after another. Almost the entire forest was felled by the old woman. She found, faster than the wind, where her son was buried, and began to water the place with water every morning.
Three days passed, and then a voice was heard from underground:
- Rake up some earth, kind soul!
The old woman grabbed a handful of earth, and Kazhdev climbed up safe and sound.
The old woman turned her son into a fly and locked him in a chest, and she herself took small boots, went to the palace and stood at the gate. The son of King Muzarbi came out of the palace, and the old woman came towards him.
- Listen, young man, you are not the son of King Muzarbi. “You don’t look like him,” he says.
The prince was offended.
“Don’t believe me?” asks the old woman. “Look at the boots that fit King Muzarbi, but they won’t suit you!”
The treacherous old woman handed the boots to Muzarbi’s son, and the boots were ridiculously small.
And this way and that the young man tried to put on his boots. Tired, exhausted and twisted his leg. Standing there, he can’t move!
Then the old woman unlocked the box and released the fly. The fly turned into a twelve-headed Kazhdev. Kazhdev flew into the son of King Muzarbi. But the young man, even though he was standing on one leg, lifted the deva and threw him to the ground. The old woman sees that the prince overcomes her son. She sprinkled Kazhdev with bran, and he gained powerful strength. Kazhdev jumped to his feet, knocked the young man down and killed him.
Kazhdev and the old woman went home.
The son of King Muzarbi was left lying lifeless. The servants found the prince, but did not dare to tell the queen, they called his sister. The girl ordered the servants to take the young man to the cave where they were hiding from the devas.
For three days and three nights the girl mourned her brother, shedding burning tears over him. From pity for her, the leaves on the trees trembled, the branches bent to the ground. And on the fourth day the young man opened his eyes and stretched sweetly, as if he had been sleeping for a long time. He got up alive and unharmed.
The brother and sister returned to the palace. The prince climbed the tower and shouted to the whole kingdom:
- King Muzarbi has come to life! King Muzarbi has come to life!
And then he went to that kind old woman who helped him defeat Kazhdev, and told her:
“Get some hot ash, now Kazhdev will rush in to fight King Muzarbi.”
And so it happened.
Kazhdev heard the cry and rushed to defeat King Muzarbi, just as he had defeated his son.
But the son of King Muzarbi did not sleep; he shot an arrow at Kazhdev and knocked off all twelve heads of the monster. The old woman, without hesitation, sprinkled hot ash on Kazhdev. And so that Kazhdev would not come to life, they threw him into a bottomless pit.
“It would be nice, son, to finish off the other devas as well,” the old woman says to the boy. “On the full moon, they are all having fun on the hill under the old oak tree.”
The son of King Muzarbi took the chain and went to the old oak tree on the hill. He climbed a tree and tied himself with a chain to the trunk, as the old woman advised. He sits on an oak tree and waits.
So the shaggy devas gathered under a tree and celebrated. They dance and sing. From the trampling of their feet the earth trembled, a hurricane arose, and the oak tree bent to the ground. The prince fired well-aimed arrows and killed all the devas.
He returned home and told people how he dealt with the devas.
“I didn’t think, son, that you were so brave,” the queen mother tells him. “I was afraid that the devas would ruin you, that’s why I didn’t want to return to our palace.” I see that you are a worthy son of King Muzarbi. Now sit on his rashi and find Kazhdev’s mother. Deliver people from the cruel old woman. She does a lot of harm to travelers.
The son of King Muzarbi sat on the Rashi, flew around mountains and gorges and saw a house on a steep rock. He drove up and saw: an old woman sitting on the roof of the house, terrible, terrible in appearance - one of her teeth goes into the ground, the other rests against the sky. And he holds a huge spindle in his hands, spinning sheep’s wool.
The boy grabbed the cruel old woman and threw her off the cliff.
The end of the devas in that kingdom has come.
The end of the fairy tale has come.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru