Many years ago there lived an old widow. She had four children: three sons and a daughter. Sons are good-looking, daughters are even better. You can’t find such a beauty a thousand miles around. Whoever saw this girl at least once remembered her beauty all his life.
Her mother and brothers loved her deeply, valued her more than their own lives, cherished her like the apple of her eye.
The hunter brothers, strong and brave, keen-sighted and fast, never returned home without abundant prey.
One day, fellow brothers gathered for a long hunt. We decided to make a supply of meat, stuff various animals, and get fur for the winter for our mother and sister. We ate ayrik [Ayrik - curdled milk], took a lamb thigh with us, said goodbye to our mother and sister, and went.
Mother and daughter remained.
In the evening the mother came out of the wagon. While the old woman was doing housework, a terrible mangus [Mangus is a fairy-tale monster that devours people] flew into the orko [Orko - smoke hole in the wagon] and carried away the beauty.
The mother came in, and the tent was empty. No daughter. I searched and searched and couldn’t find it. The mother guessed what had happened. She fell to the ground, crying. The night dragged on for a long time. The old woman did not close her eyes and shed bitter tears.
In the morning the brothers returned from the hunt, happy and cheerful. I met the mother of her sons at the entrance to the tent. How to talk about misfortune? The old woman greeted them and said:
- My beloved sons! Like your father, you are brave, strong and dexterous, you will not yield to him in kindness and honesty! Only good people can suffer misfortune. I would like your mother to know what each of you is capable of if you have to help a loved one!
The eldest son said:
“There is no such thing in the whole world that I could not find.” I’ll see a needle in the steppe, I’ll find the head of a pin at the bottom of the sea, behind a stone wall in a chest with seven locks locked for seven, I’ll find a sharp pinhead.
“And I can kill any bird with one shot at any height, I can hit a raindrop under a cloud, I can kill ten birds with one stone while moving,” the middle son said to his mother.
The youngest son did not lag behind his brothers.
“I,” he says, “catch everything with my own hands, I can hold it.” I’ll catch a stone from a mountain, I’ll grab a rock on the fly. If a huge and heavy mountain fell from the sky, and I caught it whole, the lump of earth would not fall away.
The mother hugged her sons one by one and confessed her misfortune to them.
“I no longer have a daughter, and you no longer have a sister.” Woe to us, my sons! Look quickly for your beloved sister, forgive me, old one, for not looking after your only daughter.
The brothers' weapons and hunting spoils fell from their hands to the ground. No sister...
The elder brother said first:
- Well, there’s nothing to do! There is no need to waste time. Let's say goodbye to our mother and go around the world to look for our sister. Until we find it, we won’t be home. If only we could find some mangus before it eats our sister.
Gone.
Not a day had passed before the elder brother found the cloud in which the mongoose had hidden.
The middle brother took aim, pulled the string so that the ends of the bow came together, and shot a singing arrow into the air. The evil monster stabbed right into the heart of the mongoose, striking it to death. The mangus released the girl. My sister collapsed like a white stone. There were three quarters of a step left to the ground - the younger brother picked up his sister and set her down unharmed.
The rumor about how the brothers rescued their sister from a terrible misfortune, saved them from the mangus itself, spread throughout the whole earth.
Old Kelmerchi from different Khotons gathered and decided to award the award to the brother who deserved it most.
“Give the middle one a reward - he killed the dragon,” says one.
- Well, what did he kill? If the elder brother had not found the dragon, the middle brother would have had no one to shoot at, others say.
“The younger brother deserved more,” still others insist, “if it weren’t for him, the girl would have been killed, and neither the older nor the middle brothers would have helped.”
“The youngest wouldn’t have had to catch it if it weren’t for the older and middle brothers: the mangus would have devoured the girl long ago, and he would have been looking for his sister all his life until he died,” some object.
So the Kelmerchs argue to this day - they still can’t decide which of the brothers should be given the reward.
What do you think? Everyone knows how to listen to fairy tales. Help me decide which of the brothers should be given the reward.
All three? It is forbidden. Not according to the rule. The Kelmerchi will be against it. One of the three? So who?
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru