This happened many, many years ago.
There was a small village among the mountains and forests. People lived there cheerfully and richly. They made friends with white herons: they were visible and invisible in those places. They will fly in, circle over the village and land by the river. The peasants and herons lived in peace and harmony.
But one day a big disaster came to that village - there was a drought. Rivers and ponds have dried up. There wasn't even a drop of water left in the wells.
People were sad. “Now the harvest will be lost,” they think, “there will be a great famine in the village.” They went to the elder to ask for advice.
“We must pray to the heavenly gods,” the elder decided. “Maybe they will take pity on us and send rain to the earth.”
The elder began to pray fervently to the gods. Suddenly he hears people running towards his house.
- Water! Water! Look - water! - they shout. “Water is pouring from heaven!”
The elder ran out of the house; he couldn’t understand what people were talking about. He looked into the distance and his mouth opened in surprise. There is a white pillar standing above the forest that lies behind the village itself, swaying, neither give nor take - the river has risen from the ground to the sky, and that’s all!
The peasants rushed to the forest, ran closer, and it was not a river at all, but white herons. They stretched out from the ground to the very clouds and flapped their wings.
“It’s not for nothing that the herons are circling here,” said the elder. “As if they were pointing us to something!”
“I remember my grandfather told me,” said one old woman, “that there is a wonderful swamp in our forest - the water in it never dries up.” Maybe the egrets will help us find him.
The peasants went into the forest thicket. They walked through the forest for a long time until they came to a large swamp. They look - and the swamp is also dry. The peasants were completely at a loss. They stand there and don’t know what to do.
And the elder keeps repeating:
“It’s not for nothing that the white herons were circling over the swamp!” Oh, for good reason!
He walked around the swamp, and suddenly it seemed to him that water was murmuring somewhere nearby, a stream was singing, and was flooding. The elder touched the high rock, but it was wet!
“Apparently, there’s a spring flowing inside the rock,” he guessed, “or maybe a river is flowing.”
Everyone was surprised:
- How can a river flow inside a rock? Where does it flow and from where?
But the elder still stands his ground:
— The river flows and that’s it!
He ordered to call a stonecutter and break that rock. The stonecutter hit once, hit twice, but the rock was like iron, all it did was hum—not a single piece flew off of it. The stonecutter called for assistants. They began to beat together, but they still couldn’t break it.
It was already getting dark. Then the elder came closer to the rock and began to ask:
“Have mercy on us, Lady Rock, open your waters to us, give our children something to drink.”
Here the rock swayed, and everyone saw a small crack at its very foot. That crack began to grow, grow, and push the rock apart.
The elder was frightened and shouted:
- Get away from the rock! Move away!
The peasants scattered, hid behind the trees, watching what would happen next.
And the rock swayed and stopped. And then how he takes a deep breath, how he coughs, and how he spits out a stream of clear, ringing water from his insides! That jet flew high into the sky and sparkled in the moonlight!
The peasants' mouths opened in surprise, they looked and couldn't take their eyes off. And then the white herons appeared - circling near the water, then flying closer, then touching with their wings, or even exposing their heads to the spray!
Everyone became happy, happy. That ringing stream watered both the forest and the field, and filled the river, ponds and forest swamp with water.
“I was right,” said the elder, “it was not without reason that the white herons were circling over the swamp.” Apparently, these are not ordinary birds, but messengers of the Spirit of the forest swamp. The owner of the swamp heard our prayers, so he sent us salvation.
The peasants bowed to the herons. And the birds circled above the forest and flew away.
They say that the inhabitants of that village built a temple on the edge of a forest swamp and called it Saginomiya, which means “Temple of White Herons,” and since then they began to worship the Spirit of the forest swamp, and they didn’t forget about white herons - they were always welcomed in that village.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru