It was a long time ago, when the taiga and the mountain echo, the golden-horned deer and the fluffy sable had not yet heard shots from a gun, did not know the clang of iron traps...
Arrows and a bow, a wooden snare - shergei - that’s all the hunter had with him when going after the animals and birds.
In the taiga, on the banks of the fast-flowing Mras-Su, lived three brothers-hunters - Shor-Anchi. The prey of the two brothers was rich - the squirrel and sable seemed to run at the hunters themselves. But the third brother was not lucky. He returned to his hut with an empty bag. He ate only kandyk roots and rhubarb stems.
“Apparently, the owner of the taiga is angry with me,” the hunter thought and treated his wooden god Shalyg, the evil spirit of the taiga, with the leftover food. It was not for nothing that the kind Ulgen once drove Shalyg underground along with his wife and blocked the exit from the underworld with a heavy stone. But underground Shalyg gave birth to a son-hero, and the son rolled away the stone. Shalyg appeared on earth again, and since then he has become even angrier.
Son of Saryg Khan
With a yellow acacia stick,
With a yellow beard
With bulging yellow eyes,
Honorable Khan Shalyg,
Why are you angry with me?
Why did you deprive me of luck?..
This is how Shor-anchi persuaded the evil god. He sprinkled the rest of the tea on the fire so that Mother Fire would not be angry with him. But after prayers, luck did not come to the hunter. Shor-anchi was completely saddened. One night, having lit a big fire, he sat and, sad, played the komys, sadly sang:
My komys made from cedar has dried out,
It will soon completely fall apart.
My quiet voice will soon fall silent.
I'll fall face first into the ground...
At midnight the wind swept through the taiga. Near the Shor-anchi fire, a stranger suddenly appeared - with green hair, green eyes and stone boots. The unknown stranger sat down by the fire and said:
- Sing your songs, I’ll sit and listen. The hunter became scared, but he slowly began to sing.
“You can’t get birds and animals, that’s why you’re sad,” said the stranger. “Come with me, you’ll be rich...”
The hunter followed him. They climbed to the top of a mountain, and stone doors opened in front of them. “Apparently this is the Lord of the Mountains,” thought the hunter and was completely frightened.
The owner of the mountains led him inside the mountain. They came to the underground palace. On one half of it hung a lot of sable, fox and ermine skins, on the other half there were piles of shiny stones. And in the middle stood a large cauldron filled with intoxicating water. The owner of the mountains, having treated the hunter with burning water, took a large bag, poured shiny stones, red as blood, into it and said:
“This gift of mine will give you strength and glory.” The hunter looked at the animal skins and thought
to himself: “If he had given even a little of these furs, I would have immediately become rich. Why do I need stones? Do stones give you wealth?
The owner of the mountains gave the hunter a second bag and ordered it to be filled with furs. Shor-anchi filled a bag with sable skins - there were more of them on the walls of the palace.
“Will you take both bags?” asked the Master of the Mountains.
“Am I not a man, so as not to carry it away, I will carry it away!” answered the hunter.
“Make sure you don’t throw away the bag of stones, the stones will give you great strength,” said the Master of the Mountains and led the hunter out of the underground palace.
“I’d like to carry furs to my camp, why would I carry these heavy stones on myself, aren’t there enough of them in the mountains, I can always pick up as many as I want!” thought the hunter and threw a bag of stones along the way.
Having arrived on his land, the hunter sold the furs, immediately became rich, and began to trade various goods himself. I didn’t even remember about the bag of stones, I didn’t tell anyone about it. He himself had lost the habit of going hunting - poor Shor-Anchi brought their prey to him to pay off their debts. From a hunter he turned into a merchant.
The owner of the mountains, having found a bag of stones given to him in the taiga, became very angry with the hunter, took the bag to the mountains and again hid it deep underground. On the way, he dropped one pebble.
One day, a young Shor-Anchi, wandering through the taiga, came across this pebble and picked it up. “I have never seen or lifted a stone as heavy and red as bull’s blood,” thought Shor-ai-chi and brought it to his camp.
When people saw this pebble, they were also surprised. They decided to test it with fire.
The young hunter threw a stone into the hot fireplace, and soon a fiery liquid flowed from the white-hot stone. And having frozen on the ground, it became flexible and hard and no longer melted.
Then people realized that it was a stone that gives birth to iron, from which everything can be made: an ax to chop down wood, a cauldron to cook food in, and an arrowhead to kill animals and birds, and many other useful things.
People went to the mountain, near which the hunter picked up a wonderful stone, and began to hammer and dig this mountain, looking for iron. The owner of the mountains, hearing this, became angry, hid his wealth even deeper, and covered it with a solid stone, before which human hands were powerless. But people continued to stubbornly hollow out the mountain, digging passages deep into its depths. The owner of the mountains unleashed strong winds on the people in order to blow them off the mountains, he brought down rock slides from the peaks on them more than once - he could not force the people to retreat, to give up the search. They finally got to the underground storeroom, which hid the stone that gives birth to iron.
And this mountain was called Temir-Tau - Iron Mountain.
The owner of the mountains, seeing the strength and tenacity of the people, realized his powerlessness before them; He collected his animals and birds and took them deep into the taiga from Temir-Tau. Or maybe he completely hid somewhere, because people stopped believing in him and are not afraid of him.
And at the foot of Temir-Tau there now thunders a fiery city, from which a fiery river of iron flows.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru