A long time ago, two sisters lived in the taiga. The older sister got ready to pick berries and said to the younger sister:
- Light a fire in Yurt, otherwise Kugomni will come.
She said and left.
And the younger sister collected shells from the river, sat and played. I completely forgot about Kugomni and the fire.
And Kugomni walks through the taiga and looks for yurts in which there is no fire. Kugomni is afraid of fire and smoke: from the fire his fur burns, and from the smoke his eyes burst. And Kugomni feeds on blood; When he’s full, he just rips out his tongues and puts them away for storage. His teeth are large and yellow, his tongue is sharp like an awl, his face has black fur, and his hands have bear claws. He walks through the taiga and sniffs the air. He sees Kugomni - the yurt is standing, there is no fire in the yurt. He goes into the yurt, and in the yurt his younger sister is playing with shells.
- Are you dumb, girl? – asked Kugomni.
“No,” answered the younger sister.
“Come on, show your tongue,” said Kugomni. The younger sister stuck out her tongue, and Kugomni grabbed it with his claws and tore it out.
- Ha-ha-ha! Now I’ll have a delicious dinner,” Kugomni laughed and left.
The elder sister returned from the taiga and saw: the younger sister was sitting and crying, but could not speak at all, she had no tongue. The elder sister guessed who did it and said:
- Don't cry, sit and wait for me. I'll go look for your tongue.
She walked through the taiga. Walking and walking, he sees: Tsali Kugomni is standing, and next to him is the yurt in which he lives. The elder sister looked - there was no one in the yurt. She opened the tsali, and there were many tongues hanging there. She chose the freshest one. I returned home, tried on my younger sister’s tongue, it fit just right - apparently it was hers. The younger sister was glad that she could use her tongue again, and said: - Thank you, sister, I will not forget your century of kindness.
As soon as she said this, Kugomni appeared.
-Did you steal my tongue from me? – he shouted at his older sister.
And the elder sister threw a piece of meat into the mortar and said:
“There’s your tongue, take it.”
Kugomni climbed into the mortar to get his tongue, and the sisters took iron pestles and began to pound Kugomni and say:
- Here you go, bloodthirsty Kugomni, don’t tear out people’s tongues, don’t drink human blood.
The sisters pushed so hard that Kugomni turned to dust. They took this dust and threw it into the wind. As soon as they left it, mosquitoes and midges appeared from the dust. Since then, midges and mosquitoes fly on people, drink blood, and people get rid of them with smoke.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru