An old man and an old woman lived. They had three daughters.
The girls grew up and became brides. And then one day three suitors came to the old man’s vezha: a raven, a seal and a wild deer.
The old man gave the grooms the task of making three carved ladles and then coming for the brides. The grooms made carved ladles and the next day came for the brides. The old man took the ladles and gave his daughters to their husbands. The eldest daughter married a raven, the middle daughter married a seal, and the youngest daughter married a wild deer.
So the old man lived alone, lived and one day went to visit his eldest daughter. He walked and walked and looked and two little crows were flying and croaking over the tree:
- Kronk-kronk, grandpa is coming! Kronk-kronk, grandpa is coming! Kronk-kronk, grandpa is coming!
This is what they tell the mother.
The old man entered the vezha. The daughter prepared a treat. What's the raven's treat? Giblets and heads. The old man doesn't know what it is.
I sat and sat and went to my middle daughter. He came closer and saw two baby seals rolling around and shouting:
- Khurgk-khurgk-khurgk, grandpa is coming! Khurgk-khurgk-khurgk, grandpa is coming! Khurgk-khurgk-khurgk, grandpa is coming!
The old man entered. The daughter began to prepare a treat. Seal treat - leftovers from salmon and various pieces from all sorts of fish, but better than that of a raven. Here the old man slept the second night, and on the third day he went to visit his youngest daughter.
I walked and walked and saw the vezha. There are two wild fawns running around the vezha. One is in his third year, the other is in his second. They play with shed horns. They saw grandfather, ran up to the vezha and started shouting: “Hongker-hongker, grandfather is coming, Hongker-hongker, grandfather is coming, Hongker-hongker, grandfather is coming.”
They will run past, only the earth is humming. The old man entered the vezha, and the mother of the fawn began to prepare food. Their vezha has two entrances: a wild deer walks through one, and the mistress walks through the other. A wild deer, leaving to hunt, warned his wife:
- If father comes, then you will receive him well. Feed and drink. Prepare everything that is best. Put him to bed at night. Just remember: do not put the skin of a wild deer under it, but the skin of a domesticated deer.
He himself was a wild deer and was very protective of the skins of wild deer.
The daughter laid the skin of a wild deer on her father. She thinks:
“Let my father sleep on the skin of a wild deer at least once in his life.” The old man ate, drank and went to bed, prepared by his daughter, and at night he began to feel sick (he ate a lot of fat and meat).
The next morning the daughter got up, cleaned the skin and hung it to air on the side where her husband, the wild deer, comes from. A wild deer was just running out of the forest. He ran and ran and looked: the bed of wild deer skin was drying, which means the old man had come and wet the bed. He ran into the wind and smelled the human scent from this skin. He ran to his children and shouted:
“My boys, follow me, it smells very human here.” Your mother failed to feed and water her father and make his bed, let her now remain in the place of our traces.
Meanwhile, the wife ran out into the street after her sons and saw how they ran after their father, and the wild deer itself had already disappeared. The mother shouts to her children:
“Guys, guys, here’s my breast, here’s the second one, come back to me!”
They run to the side and shout:
- Hongker-hongker, mommy, we won’t come, it’s hard for us to endure the human smell on the skin of a wild deer! The mother sees that they will not return, shouts after them:
- Guys, guys, beware, where the stone rises, there is a man waiting for you, where the stump thickens, there a man will catch you.
After that, she entered the vezha, cried for a long time near the fire, and began to get ready to go with her father. Harnessed their riding reindeer. My wife took the bag apart. The bones of the hind legs were the studs in the door, the bones of the front legs were cross-sectional, the door was made of sternum, the frame of the bowl was the ribs, and the bowl was covered with skins. The woman put everything in the wagon, and they went to their father's vezha.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru