It was a long time ago; whether it was true or not, I won’t say. I heard this from old people, and old people from grandfathers and great-grandfathers; So it passed from generation to generation and finally came to us. They say that in this old time there was one owner in the Caucasus who had such a big bull that when he drank water, the Caucasian rivers dried up: the owner had to drive him every time to a watering hole on the Black Sea.
One day the owner’s three sons drove this bull; the eldest sat on the head between the horns, the middle one on the back, and the youngest in the back near the tail. They met a horseman on the way. Seeing the monstrous bull, the rider could not stand it and shouted loudly: “What a curiosity!” His cry was heard by the eldest of the brothers, who was sitting between the horns of the bull and driving him with a twig.
“Bow,” he said to the horseman, “from me to my middle brother: he sits on the back of a bull!”
The horseman reached him only at midnight and conveyed his greetings from his elder brother. In turn, the middle brother bowed to the younger one. The rider arrived at the younger brother only in the morning at dawn and conveyed to him the bow of the middle brother.
The brothers drove the bull to the sea. Having watered the bull, they got off it and let it graze in the meadow. Suddenly an eagle descended from the sky, grabbed the bull with its claws and rose into the air with it. The brothers gasped in surprise and, having lost the bull, set off on foot through the mountains home.
After some time it began to rain. In the place where the eagle grabbed the bull, the old shepherd was grazing his goats; he hid from the rain under the goat's beard. Having eaten the bull's shoulder blade, the eagle descended to the ground and sat on the back of the same goat under whose beard the old shepherd was hiding. The rain stopped falling and the old man came out of his shelter to see if the sky had cleared. Frightened, the eagle flew into the air and dropped the shovel, which hit the old man in the eye and got stuck there. He felt severe pain and began to feel his eye, but could not find anything. When he came home in the evening, he forced his seven daughters-in-law to rummage through his eye and look for the speck lodged there. The daughters-in-law searched and searched, but could not find anything. Finally, one herder, who happened to be in the neighborhood, took the rope and, as he stood, climbed into the old man’s eye. Having searched there thoroughly in all corners, he found a shovel to which he tied a rope; He was not able to pull it out himself. He crawled out of the eye socket, drove the bulls from the entire village, tied a rope to the yoke and, driving the bulls with all his might, with difficulty pulled out a spatula of extraordinary size from the eye. Then, to prevent trouble from happening to anyone again, he dragged her farther behind the village into the steppe.
Over time, the blade became covered with dust; then a thick layer of earth formed and finally it was overgrown with grass. In this way, a real hillock grew, and since the soil on it was very good, an entire village settled there. None of the residents knew that their village was located on the shoulder blade. People had no idea, but the fox caught wind of it and got into the habit of gnawing off a piece every night. Gnawing and gnawing at this shoulder blade, she turned it with her muzzle and moved it from its place: the village residents thought it was an earthquake and began to make sacrifices to the gods. But since this was repeated every night, they guessed that it was not an earthquake, but something else, and decided to take turns guarding around the village. Finally, one guard managed to shoot the evil fox.
The next morning the whole village gathered to watch their enemy; the fox lay stretched out to its full length. They felt sorry for the expensive fox skin, and they decided to take it off together. However, they managed to do this only on the side that was facing upward; They were not able to turn the fox over, although everyone tried hard to do it. Just at this time, a woman from a neighboring village was walking to the river for water. She saw the dead fox, turned it over on its other side and tore off the other half of its skin; to this skin she added another three hundred sheepskins and sewed a hat for her boy.
A strong wind blew from the sea and scattered the bones of the poor fox across the steppe. Her skull rolled, like a tumbleweed, further and further and, rolling ever to the east, it stopped in the Kalmyk steppe, where Kabardians go for salt. Forty carts* were traveling, the front cart driver fell asleep, and the bulls, fleeing the bad weather, drove straight into the fox’s skull, and behind the first cart, of course, all the others. The arob workers woke up and, not knowing where they were, began screaming at the top of their lungs.
Not far from this skull there was a kosh in which the Kalmyks slept. The dog heard them making noise somewhere and ran, barking loudly, in that direction. Running to the skull, she sniffed it, pushed it with her muzzle and turned it over to the other side, which made the noise even louder. Of course, she couldn’t get in there: she took the skull in her teeth, brought it to the kosh and put it in the corner. The owners woke up and heard some screaming; They began to look for where they were shouting, and, to their surprise, they noticed that the noise was coming from a skull standing in the corner. Then they sent the boy to find out what was happening inside the skull, and soon he brought out forty carts.
-Where have you weirdos gone? – the eldest of the owners shouted to them.
- Yes, we’re coming to you for salt!
- What more salt do you need when you are lost in a fox skull!
With these words, he took a lump of salt from his pocket and threw it to the arob workers. This lump turned out to be a mountain for them; They broke it into small pieces, laid it out on their carts and, satisfied, went home.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru