Once upon a time there lived an old man named Tachkum. He was cunning, lazy and also a big liar. One rainy autumn night, when, as they say, you can’t drive a dog out of the manger, Tachkum went out into the yard. He looked at the gloomy sky and said importantly:
- The night is right... Now, if you wander around, how much stolen property could be taken from various thieves!
Tachkum’s wife heard these words and thought:
“He tired me of his bragging. This is just the right opportunity: I’ll take away his desire to chat and brag once and for all!”
Without thinking twice, she thrust an old, matted cloak and a travel bag into Tachkum’s hands. She put an awl, a circle of fresh cheese and some flour in it, then she took her husband out onto the porch and said:
- I'm tired of your chatter and idleness! Go where your eyes lead. When you become what you should be at your age, you can come back. Now - get out!
And she slammed the door in his face.
Tachkum began to repent bitterly. But it was too late: he knew that the old woman would not let him into the house again. Tachkum waved his hand and walked wherever he could.
He walked, walked, finally came to a large river and saw: on the other bank there was a giant adau. The giant looked at Tachkum and shouted:
- Hey, morel! Take me across the river!
- Look, what are you up to, you hairy blockhead! Carry me over yourself! You are no longer fit for anything else! - old Tachkum answered boldly.
And he became so bold because the river was swollen from the rains, and the ve-yakan could not reach him.
The giant heard this answer and became very angry. He grabbed a large stone on the shore and squeezed it so hard that water flowed out of the stone.
“That’s how I’ll take the breath out of you, you such an impudent one!” - he shouted.
Tachkum quietly took a circle of cheese out of his bag, bent down, as if he had lifted a stone, and squeezed the water out of the cheese.
“That’s how I’ll take the breath out of you if you don’t take me across the river right now!” - Thachkum threatened.
The giant picked up another stone and squeezed it so hard that the stone turned into sand.
“That’s how I’ll turn you into dust, you insignificant old man, if you don’t carry me across the river!” - shouted the giant.
Tachkum grabbed a handful of flour from his bag and again bent down and pretended to lift a stone. He squeezed his fingers, as if crushing a stone, and poured the flour onto the ground.
“Hey, you, while you’re still safe and sound, quickly cross the river and take me to the other side, otherwise I’ll grind you into powder!” - Thachkum threatened.
The giant was scared. With difficulty he crossed the river, put Tachkum on his shoulders and carried him, fighting against the strong current. In the middle of the river the giant said in surprise:
- However, how light you are, old man!
“It only seems to you,” answered Tachkum. “It’s easy for you to carry me because I hold on to the sky.” But I won’t hold on, perhaps you won’t even be able to withstand my weight!
- Come on, let go of the sky a little, don’t hold on to it! - said the giant.
Wheelbarrow took out an awl and began to stab the giant in the back.
- Oh, hold on to the sky! - the giant roared in a loud voice. - Oh, hold on! Otherwise I won’t be able to hold you!
Wheelbarrow hid the awl, and the giant carried it further. The giant carried the old man across the river.
Wheelbarrow and the giant set off together. The giant jumped over the mountains, and the old man held tightly to his hem. So they traveled for a long time. When they began to approach the giant's dwelling,
Tachkum says:
- Listen, we are hungry, we should have lunch. Come on
let's catch game.
When the giant stopped, Tachkum appeared in front of him. The giant was surprised; he could not imagine how the old man got ahead of him. The giant said to Tachkumu:
- Go into the forest and drive game at me, and I will catch it. Then we'll make ourselves breakfast.
Although Tachkumu felt afraid, it was even worse to refuse. He went into the forest.
There, drowning out his fear, he raised such a cry that the animals rushed in all directions. The giant caught plenty of them, tore off their skins and hung the meat from the branches under a huge tree. A little later Tachkum returned.
- Why didn’t you adjust the animals enough? Is this enough for us? - asked the giant.
Wheelbarrow was literally petrified with surprise when he saw how many carcasses the giant had hung up. However, he was not at a loss.
“It’s painful,” he says, “the animal was cowardly: it rushed headlong in all directions... Otherwise, of course, it would have driven it somewhere.”
more!
“Wait here, and I’ll go further into the forest and get some more.”
game, and you deal with it!
The giant went into the forest and began to break trees and trample bushes. The animals rushed to the edge of the forest where Tachkum was sitting. And then Tachkum sees a huge boar running straight towards him. The old man barely had time to grab the lower branch of the tree and pull his legs up. The boar slammed its fangs into the tree with a running start and crashed into it.
Then Tachkum noticed a small bird in the hollow, he caught it and sat down again under the tree. The giant returned and began to ask:
- Where is the animal that I drove out of the forest?
“And that’s all you drove out,” answered Tachkum, pointing to the boar and the bird. “I didn’t notice anything else.” I poked the boar’s muzzle into the trunk, there it stands, skin it yourself, and the bird is in my hands.
The Great One got angry:
- You caught some kind of birdie like yourself! Why
do we need it?
Tachkum released the bird from his hands and shouted:
- Look, a giant! If you don't catch it, I'll turn you into the same bird!
The giant became cowardly and chased the bird, but could not catch it.
“Okay,” said Tachkum, “so be it, I’ll forgive you this time!”
The embarrassed giant put the game on his back and led Tachkum to his dwelling. Here the giant began to hunt for game. He broke off a branch, knocked off the branches, peeled off the bark and began to skewer the game on it, and asked the old man to bring firewood.
Tachkum wandered, wandered through the forest and did not know what to do - after all, he did not have the strength to break trees. He finally figured out what to do: he unscrewed several wild grape vines, tied them up and began to tie up the trees that grew close to one another. The giant waited and waited - no old man. He went into the forest to look for Tachkum. He found it and said with annoyance:
- Why are you messing around here for so long?
-Can't you see what I'm doing? - says Tachkum. — I tie up a dozen trees so that I can drag them all at once.
- I’ll wait until you deal with this! - the giant grumbled.
He uprooted a huge dry tree, shouldered it and went home. Wheelchair sat on a tree branch, and when they entered the giant's yard, he immediately jumped off the branch. The giant noisily threw the tree to the ground.
They lit a fire, began to cook meat in a cauldron and bake churek. When the meat was cooked and taken out of the cauldron, the giant gave Tachkumu a jug and sent him to the cellar for wine. Tachkum filled the ladle - akuapei with wine and tried to lift it, but could not hold it and dropped it into a clay jug buried in the ground. He began to run around the jug. The giant, having waited for him, stood up, came to him and asked:
- Why are you delaying?
- Why carry a jug every time? Wouldn't it be better to pull the clay jug out of the ground and take it away? - said Tachkum.
“Why take out a big jug, this little jug is enough for us,” said the giant. “And he began to pour wine into it with a ladle, and sent Tachkum to look after the churek so that it did not burn.”
Tachkum came and wanted to remove the churek from the frying pan, but could not bear its weight and fell under the churek. When the giant came with the wine, he saw that the old man’s legs were sticking out from under the churek.
- What are you doing, God damned? - asked the giant.
“My fatigue is taking its toll, and I’m starting to age, I’m getting sick.” So I decided to lie down in the warmth to sweat a little,” Tachkum answered.
The giant got angry, grabbed the churek and raised it. Poor Tachkum, scratching his body, stood up, covered in sweat. The giant took the churek from the frying pan and went to get the leaves on which the meat was to be placed.
When the meat was fried, Tachkum said:
- Why should we sit in the stuffiness, let's have lunch in the air.
And the giant’s yard, as Tachkum noticed, ended in a steep cliff. They both went out into the yard and sat down on the edge of the cliff. The giant placed a whole deer in front of Tachkum and said:
- Eat!
Wheelbarrow ate several pieces of meat, and began to quietly throw large pieces down. The giant devoured the meat so greedily that he did not even notice the trick of the cunning old man. Soon both the giant and Tachkum had only bones lying in front of them.
“Eh,” says Tachkum, “I wish I could eat more, but there’s nothing!”
The giant was amazed: he had never met such an eater!
When it got dark, the giant invited Tachkum to stay with him for the night, but Tachkum was afraid to stay overnight with the strong giant and said that he always sleeps in the fresh air.
The giant could not understand the old man’s habits and decided to somehow get rid of him. “As soon as the old man falls asleep, I’ll scald him with boiling water...” the giant thinks. The cunning Tachkum guessed from the giant’s sidelong glances that he was up to something and decided to keep his ear to the ground.
At night, Tachkum took a log, put it in the place where he was supposed to sleep, covered it with a cloak, and he hid behind a tree and began to wait. At midnight the giant got up, brought a large cauldron of boiling water and poured it over the log covered with a burka, thinking that the old man was sleeping. After that, he calmly lay down, confident that he had finished with the old man. And Tachkum came to the giant in the morning and said:
“I was kind of hot that night.” I was sweating a lot and had bad dreams.
The giant was literally stupefied with surprise, but did not answer anything, and he immediately decided to finish off the old man the next night. “I’ll heat up an iron rod,” he thinks, “and pierce the old man when he falls asleep. If I don’t do this, he himself will destroy me...”
Tachkum knew that the giant would not leave him alone, and he did the same as on the first night: he put a log under the cloak and hid himself.
At night, the giant crept up to the bed and stabbed a red-hot iron rod into a log covered with a burka. “Well, this time I got rid of the old man!” - he thought and went to bed. When the giant left, Tachkum also fell asleep peacefully.
In the morning, the old man went into the giant’s dwelling, began to yawn and complain:
“The flea bit me all night and didn’t let me sleep!” The giant thought:
“What kind of outlandish person is this?! He mistakes boiling water for sweat, hot iron for a flea bite...”
The giant wondered how he could finally get rid of the old man, and sighed deeply. From this sigh the old man flew up, hit the beam, grabbed it and hung. The giant was surprised:
- Why did you jump there? What are you doing there?
“I’m hungry and I want to put you on this beam, fry you and eat you,” said Tachkum.
The giant got terribly scared, ran out of the house and disappeared into the forest.
Wheelbarrow jumped down, searched the giant's house, and found a lot of gold and silver. Having shouldered as many jewels as he could lift, he returned home.
Out of fear, the giant did not dare to return to his home. One day, while he was sitting in the forest, a jackal came up to him and asked him:
- What happened to you? The giant poured out his grief to him. The jackal laughed, and then said:
- Who did you take for a hero! When I come to them to steal chickens, his wife usually comes out of the house, but he doesn’t even show his nose, he’s so timid! Let's go and deal with him as your soul pleases!
The giant was delighted; he promised to feed the jackal the bone marrow of game for a whole month if he would lead him to Tachkum’s house.
The jackal set off with the giant and brought him to Tachkum’s house. The owner saw them from afar. When they entered the courtyard, the old man said loudly to his wife:
- Hey, quickly give me the gun with which I kill giants: I smell the smell of some giant.
The giant was frightened and, deciding that the jackal had deceived him, grabbed him by the tail, lifted him up and hit him so hard on the ground that he flew into pieces. And the giant himself ran back into the forest.
Since then, no giants have appeared in Abkhazia. As for our Tachkum, he lived richly. And the doors of his house were always wide open for guests.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru