There lived in a peasant family a girl who was an orphan from birth. Her unkind stepmother did not love her and forced her to work from dark to dark.
One early morning, when the sun had not yet risen, the stepmother sent her stepdaughter to fetch water. There was nothing to do, the orphan went to the sleeping lake. He draws water and cries.
She saw her reflection in the water. As if similar and different: the eyes are hers, and the hair is knee-length. Lo and behold, hands are reaching out of the water towards her, and behind them is a fish tail!
The girl grabbed the bucket and, not feeling her feet under her, well, ran to the house. She hears someone running after her. Doesn't lag behind, catches up. And he persuades: “Wait, darling, listen to me!”
The girl screamed out of fear, so much so that she woke up the whole village. People jumped out of their houses and saw that a merman was chasing a girl.
They grabbed the uninvited guest, locked her in the strongest lock and began to judge and decide what to do with her. They spent a long time deciding, but didn’t come up with anything. And the merman doesn’t seem to care about people: he preens himself, spreads his thick hair over his green shoulders and combs it with a big, big comb, and people don’t know that the mermaid is testing her witchcraft power like that.
The mermaid could not catch up with the orphan by the lake, and the girl could not resist her witchcraft. She herself will not understand what is happening to her, but only attracts her to the merman, and that’s all. I want to watch and admire how she strokes her luxurious hair, and love to listen to her insinuating voice like the most beautiful song. The girl imagines that a mermaid is calling, and her speech sounds so sweet, her voice is so tender and melodious, that the old fear is gone, but only anxiety, longing, sadness, unaccountable and boundless melancholy.
The girl crept up to the house where the mermaid was locked up, trembling all over like a leaf in the wind: she was afraid, like a thief, that one of her fellow villagers would notice her, and she passionately wanted to take at least one look at the mermaid. She found a crack in the door, clung to it and was stunned: the mermaid was right there right at the door, looking and smiling slyly. And - not a word, just stuck a comb in her hair and made a sign with her hand, as if calling her to her.
The girl’s heart began to pound and began to flutter like a bird in a net. Neither alive nor dead, she recoiled from the door and away from the terrible place. Before she had time to run through the house, she felt her legs go numb. And in her ears there is a mermaid’s voice, pitiful, as if she is saying goodbye forever. Unable to hear him, the girl turned back and ran again - now to the mermaid’s abode. She looked through the door crack: the merman was in the same place, and her eyes were sad, very sad.
The girl decided to free the captive at any cost. But he doesn’t know how. She walks around the house like a madwoman, killing herself. Life became not pleasant to her because she could not rescue the mermaid from captivity. Tears stream from your eyes, they run and you can’t stop them.
They noticed in the village that something was wrong with the girl. We watched how she secretly ran to the mermaid, and guessed her intention to free the lake witch.
They also put the girl under lock and key along with the mermaid. Yes, they firmly punished everyone not to let them go anywhere under any pretext. No matter how much the girl asked, no matter how she swore that she would obey, no one heeded her pleas.
Then the girl either said she was sick, or was actually ill. And she began to beg her older brother, who loved and pitied her more than others, to let them and the mermaid go free.
“I have no life without her,” she repeated as if in delirium. “I’m like a stranger to everyone in the village now.” Have pity on your poor sister!
What should my brother do? On a dark night he unlocked the lock and hugged his sister. He looks and there is no trace of the captives...
In the morning, a girl’s voice was heard on the shore of the lake. She wrote quietly and drawlingly. Either she said hello to her fellow villagers, or she said goodbye. The whole village came running to the lake, they looked - there was no one.
But since then, in the evenings and at dawn, the girl’s voice, thoughtful and sad, did not stop. Year after year passed, and it still sounded somewhere on the shore, confusing human souls, giving them no peace.
The villagers decided to get rid of the merman and rescue the girl from captivity. Whatever they did: they threw nets into the lake, and built dams - all in vain.
They thought and wondered for a long time in the village what to do with the water one, and finally decided to poison the water in the lake. And so they did.
Early in the morning they hear: cows do not moo - they roar. They looked - one had a dead calf, the other had a miscarriage. And not one of them has milk at all, as if someone had milked them.
No matter how much they looked after the cows, no matter how much they kept watch at night, it was all to no avail. The cattle are suffering, no milk, no offspring.
This continued for a year and another. In the end, the oldest and wisest people in the village gathered and ordered everyone, young and old, to dig a new channel for water from the springs that filled the lake. A lot of work had to be done before a new lake was formed. The mermaid liked the lake and moved to its clear water. And the cows soon produced milk - fatty and tasty.
And then one day on the shore of the old lake a girl’s voice was heard again - clear, transparent, like spring water. Fellow villagers saw a poor orphan walking towards them. No matter how much they asked, she didn’t say what happened to her. I don’t know, he answers, I don’t know.
The girl became quiet, silent. Every evening she came to the lake and sang the same song. Lullaby. And her older brother could not understand how his sister knew the words of this song, with which his mother cradled him. After all, my sister didn’t have a chance to hear her mother’s gentle voice...
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru