Miracle. Once upon a time there lived in one village a young horseman named Hagor. When Hagor entered his years, he began to think about marriage. He liked a beautiful and young girl; he married her. Hagor's wife had a magic whip. A week later she got tired of her husband, and in order to get rid of him, she hit him with a whip, saying: “Be a dog!”, and at that very moment he turned into a dog.
Having gotten rid of her husband, she took on a lover. The poor dog stayed in the house and sadly saw his wife enjoying life with her sweet friend. Finally, it became unbearable for him: he abandoned the house and trudged wherever his eyes led him.
One day he wandered into a hut where shepherds were sitting. The shepherds had mercy on the stray dog, who was emaciated from hunger, fed it, and one of them took it to his home. This shepherd had a sick wife who had not gotten out of bed for seven years: no medicine could help the poor woman. The shepherd returned home, and it became known in the village that he had brought some kind of dog: immediately the neighbors gathered at his house to look at it. Everyone noticed something special in her: they began to judge and tell her what to do with her. Then the old people advised the owner to let her into the room at night to see the sick woman: maybe she would help!
The dog climbed under the bed and began to wait to see what would happen. At midnight a witch flew into the chimney with a serrated fork in her hands; rushing at the patient, she began to stab the unfortunate woman with this fork and suck her blood. The dog saw everything, but that night it did not bark. When the family woke up in the morning, they found the patient even paler and weaker than the day before.
The next night, some of the neighbors advised the dog to be sent away since it was of no help, while others insisted on letting it in again. At midnight the witch flies in again and does the same thing as last night. The dog lies quietly under the bed and waits for the witch to finish. When the witch was about to fly away, the dog grabbed her leg and, grabbing it with his teeth, began to drag her and tear her body.
- Let me go, Hagor, I know you! I will be useful to you in trouble!
“I won’t let you in until,” said Hagor, “until you restore the strength of this patient!”
Then the witch took a basin standing in the corner and began to cough up blood: the basin was full of blood! Having done this, the witch said:
“Tomorrow bathe her in this blood; your patient will be healthy!
Then the dog released her, and the witch flew away the same way she had arrived.
The next morning, the owner, entering the sick room, found a basin full of blood. He wondered what it was; but then the dog ran up to its owner, began to squeal joyfully, shaking its head in the direction where the basin stood, and even wet its paw with blood and circled it around the sick one. The owner guessed what was going on, called Unautka* and ordered her to bathe the sick woman. When she was bathed in blood, she immediately recovered. The owner did not know how to thank the dog, he began to caress it and even kiss it, and when the neighbors gathered, he told everyone about his wife’s miraculous healing, thanking fate that she had sent him such a smart dog.
In the village it became known that the shepherd's wife had recovered. Everyone wanted to look at the healed patient. While people were crowding into the shepherd's house, the dog disappeared unnoticed: she ran to her village.
When the wife saw the dog returning, she hit it again with the whip, saying: “Be a rooster!” Instantly the dog turned into a rooster. Flapping his wings, the rooster ran out into the yard with a cry of “crow”. Mixed there with the chickens, he began to peck grains. It happened just at this time that in the neighboring yard an old witch was sifting millet in the wind. The rooster flew up to her. She recognized him immediately and said:
- Suffer one more night!
In the evening, when Hagor's wife went to bed with her lover, the witch flew through the pipe and, having stolen a magic whip, hit Hagor with it and returned him to his human form. Hagor rushed to warmly thank the witch. In response to this she said:
– I promised to be useful to you in trouble; here is a whip with which you can do whatever you want to your wife!
Entering the upper room, Hagor tore the blanket from the sleeping people and, hitting them with a whip, said:
– Be a donkey and a donkey!
Immediately they turned into a donkey and a donkey and with their heads down they trudged into the stall.
Hagor remarried. The farm went well: during the day he worked on his pair of donkeys, and at night he drove them into a stall, which he never cleaned.
One-Eyed Cave. Many years have passed. One day Hagor went hunting. Carried away by hunting, he got lost and had to spend the night in the forest. The next morning he began to look for his way home. He was tormented by terrible hunger. Wandering in the forest, he descended into a deep ravine, where he found a cave. In this cave he saw a cup of milk and a piece of cheese. Having satisfied his hunger, he lay down in the corner to rest. In the evening the owner returned with the sheep; it was a giant with one eye in his forehead. Seeing the guest, he blocked the entrance to the cave with a huge stone; then he lit a fire, caught a ram and, tearing it into pieces, began to roast it on a spit. When the kebab was ready, he threw a piece of meat to the guest, and greedily swallowed the rest himself in whole pieces. Heavy from the abundant food, the giant stretched out by the fire:
“Today I fed you,” he said, yawning, to his guest, “tomorrow you must feed me: I will eat you!” - With these words he began to snore.
A happy thought flashed through Hagor's head: he took a large iron spit, which he managed to lift only with difficulty, and put it on the fire. When the spit became red hot, Hagor approached the sleeping giant and gouged out his only eye. Having done this, Hagor hid. Roaring in pain, the giant jumped to his feet and groped to look for his enemy, but, deprived of sight, could not find him.
The next morning, the blinded owner began to drive his sheep out to pasture and at the same time felt the back of each ram, assuming that the guest who had gouged out his eye would escape from the cave, sitting astride the ram. Between the sheep there was a huge goat. Hagor noticed that the goat had long hair, grabbed it and hung it under its belly. The giant felt the goat's back and, making sure that there was no one on it, let him out of the cave. Thus Hagor escaped the hands of the one-eyed man; when he recovered a little from his fear, he found the way and arrived safely home.
The gluttony of one eye. From his second marriage, Hagor had eight sons and two daughters. Hagor told his sons about his adventure. Hearing this, they began to pester him with a request that he take them to the giant’s cave.
“We,” they said, “will measure our strength with him.” Yielding to the request of his sons, Hagor took them to the cave. They found the giant not far from the cave: he was grazing sheep. Hagor, approaching him, said:
“Giant, here I come to you with my eight sons!”
Without answering a word, the giant pointed his hand towards the cave, where they entered. There they ate some cheese that stood in the corner and began to wait for the owner to arrive. In the evening, as usual, the blind giant drove his sheep and blocked the entrance with a stone, not noticing that he had left a hole through which a person could freely crawl. Hagor took a nap at a distance from his sons and watched what the giant would do. The giant, without saying a word, grabbed all eight of Hagor’s sons at once and squeezed them in his hands so tightly that the bones jumped out of the body: the meat of the unfortunates remained in his hands, which he began to greedily devour; Meanwhile, Hagor jumped out of the cave into the hole. It was hard for the old man to return home alone!
Fight with one eye. In another village there lived a young hunter who was distinguished by his extraordinary strength. Once he went hunting, he shot a doe, cut it lengthwise, skinned it and hung it on a tree. When he lit a fire to fry pieces of meat from the killed game, suddenly the skin fell from the tree to the ground and - lo and behold! - becomes alive again and runs away.
- What a miracle! - exclaimed the amazed hunter.
- What else is that! – turning around, the doe said. “And the wonder is what happened to the other hunter, Hagor.” Go to him: he will tell you himself!
Hearing this, the hunter decided to find Hagor at all costs to find out what miracle happened to him.
The hunter searched for Hagor for a long time. He was already desperate to find it! Finally, by chance, I stopped by the very village where Hagor lived. They pointed him to his house. Driving into the courtyard, he saw an old man with a venerable beard, leaning on a stick and, as it seemed, deep in memories of the past. The hunter greeted the old man. Awakening from his reverie, the old man invited the guest to the kunatskaya and cordially treated him to what God had sent. Then he asked the guest what he had to do with him. Then the hunter said:
– Before answering your question, I’ll tell you what happened to me while hunting.
Having told him about the adventure with the doe, he asked the old man to tell, in turn, what happened to him. The old man initially refused, but when the hunter began to insist, he told him about the incident in the giant’s cave.
“Lead me there,” said the hunter, “let me die there too, where your sons are!” Without hesitation they went to the giant.
The giant was grazing his sheep in front of the cave. When they approached him, Hagor said:
- I came to stay with you with a friend.
- Go to the cave! - said the giant in a dissatisfied voice.
Approaching the cave, the hunter saw a huge stone with which the giant usually blocked the entrance to his home; He grabbed this stone with one hand and threw it far away from himself. Then he caught the fattest sheep, slaughtered it and roasted it on a spit. Having eaten well, the hunter and Hagor began to wait for the owner to arrive. When the giant returned, Hagor greeted him with the following words:
“You know what, master, we ate the fattest of your sheep: it was a nice kebab!”
The giant, hearing this, burst out with terrible curses. Then the hunter, rising from his place, said to the giant:
- Blind cudgel, I’ll eat you too, like your sheep!
-Are you such a glutton? – asked the giant, smiling, but not in a very confident voice.
– Yes, I love food just like you; and my strength is no less than yours!
– If so, then let’s measure our strength: let one drive the other into the ground with a wedge!
The hunter agreed. The giant drove the hunter into the ground up to his knees. Then the hunter grabbed the giant and drove him into the ground up to his waist. In turn, the giant beat the hunter to the waist. Then the hunter drove his enemy to the chest. Here the giant could no longer get out, and the hunter drove him into the ground up to his neck. Unable to even move, the giant prayed to his conqueror, asking him to spare his life, and promised to do everything he wished.
“I wish you to bring the eight sons of Hagor back to life.”
“In the corner of the cave,” said the giant, “there is a chest in which lie the bones of his sons; I, who am blind, will not find them. Take these bones out and put them in order!
The hunter did everything exactly.
“Now get me out of the ground!” - said the giant. The hunter pulled it out, one eye began to vomit, and he watered the bones with vomit. A minute later the bones became a body, and the eight sons of Hagor stood before him alive, as if awakening after a long sleep. However, the hunter did not spare the giant: he took out his saber and cut off his head. Having finished with him, he stole all his sheep and went with Hagor and his eight sons to his village. They returned home by sunrise.
Doe girl. The youngest daughter of Hagor, noticing people walking towards the house, said to her elder sister:
“Here comes the father, and with him our brothers; the young man who accompanies them is their savior: he rescued them all from trouble!
“What nonsense,” says the eldest, “the father and the guest also died in the giant’s cave, like the brothers.”
The younger sister's guess turned out to be true.
There was a huge feast on the occasion of the happy return of the eight brothers. The dancing began: young people, gathered from all over the village, were having fun until they dropped. When the guests began to leave, the hunter also wanted to go home, but the old man began to restrain him:
“I can’t let you go like this,” said the old man, “let’s become related: choose one of my daughters as your wife!”
Without even allowing the guest to come to his senses, Hagor led him to his daughters, saying: “Take any, dear savior of my sons!” The guest was immediately blinded by the beauty of his youngest daughter, and his choice settled on her.
They played a wedding. In the evening, the newlyweds were taken to the bedroom. When the young wife undressed, the happy husband noticed many scars on her body, as if from healed wounds; What caught his eye most was the straight line running from the neck to the bottom, as if from a cut with a hunting knife. This made him ask his wife:
– What do these cuts on your body mean? In response to this, she said with a smile:
“I am the same doe that you killed in the forest.” When I learned about your extraordinary strength, I, turning into a doe, turned up to you on the hunt to force you to find your father and save your brothers.
Having learned about this, the happy husband embraced her. And I was at the wedding, drinking honey, which did not stop me, however, from eavesdropping on the conversation of the newlyweds.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru