A long time ago, a very long time ago, the peak of Elbrus was not forked, and the ice floes on it did not sparkle.
Elbrus is an extremely high mountain. Its top touches the sky, so mischievous stars fell on it and loved to play hide and seek. They fell into deep hollows and inside, like pure mercury, bathed in sparkling, clear, mountain waters.
At the very top of Elbrus, near a huge rock, there was one green mound. Not far from there, at the base of the rock, there was a spring clear as a tear. And next to the spring, in a round, smooth cave, like half a jug, lived a completely gray-haired, white-white old mountain goat with his family. The mountain goat family had water, food, and shelter. They lived enjoying life. And they were not afraid for their lives, because when they grazed with their kids, their brave father with sharp horns and keen eyes was a reliable guard for them.
The mountain goat, who had lived a lot and seen a lot, wanted to teach his children life skills; he taught them to run fast, jump from one rock to another without fear, fight, fight with packs of animals. In the mountains, the Turs had many such ruthless enemies as lynx, bear, wolf, and eagle.
The hill where they lived is the most convenient and suitable place to protect yourself from such enemies, only here you can look and not see anything, so not a single enemy can come here unnoticed.
One day, a herd of mountain goats was grazing on a hill, suddenly black clouds appeared in the sky and it began to rain. Although the summer rain in the mountains does not last long; The mountain goat always gathers his family in a cave.
The rain stopped after a while and the sky became cloudless again.
The kids, who were tired of sitting in the cave, realized that everything was calm outside and wanted to get out of it. As soon as they left the cave, they suddenly got scared of something and started jumping back and forth.
-What happened to them? – asked the old mountain goat and became wary.
“You see, there’s something huge coming towards us,” the kids answered.
The white aurochs quickly left the cave. And in truth, some huge, sparkling white ball was rolling right from the direction of Elbrus.
“Hey, horsemen, the enemy is approaching our region, get ready for battle,” he ordered. “I’ll go into battle first.” If I die, you will go out to meet the enemy.
Immediately the white auroch began to sharpen its horns. As soon as his horns became sharp, he went out onto a hill and began to dig into the ground. Small stones bounced off his feet and scattered in four directions far beyond the ravine. Then the white auroch knelt down, lowered his head down, extended his horns forward, and, jumping out, pounced on the enemy.
With huge, sharp horns, he met a white ball rolling towards him. The ball immediately split into two: one half flew into the sky, and the other half, now falling, now rising, emitting a strong sound, like a bursting ball, hit right on the top of Elbrus. Immediately, the top of the heroic mountain, pressing in, became double-headed in the middle.
It turns out that the white aurochs was fighting with the moon. That white, round ball was the moon. Since then, we have always seen a less than full moon.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru