In times long past, there lived a certain khan. The khan had an only son. He was a stupid fool. This made the khan very sad. And the khan decided at all costs to find an intelligent wife for his foolish son during his lifetime.
The khan went around his domains. Near one village he sees three girls collecting dung. Suddenly it began to rain. The calves approached the grazing cows. Two girls ran home, and one covered the dung with a beshmet and ran to the herd to drive away the calves.
Khan drove up to her and asked why she was left in the rain when her friends ran home.
“My friends won once, lost twice, and I won twice and lost once,” answered the girl.
- What did you win? - asked the khan.
“I covered the dung from the rain and drove the calves away from the cows, otherwise they would have sucked the milk.” The only problem is that the rain wet my beshmet. But I will dry the beshmet by the fire, and I will light the fire with dry dung. And my friends’ dung got wet, and the calves sucked the milk. Only they didn’t wet their beshmets. You see, Khan, I will have both milk and fire, but they have neither one nor the other.
Khan liked the girl’s resourcefulness and decided to find out who she was.
“How can we cross this river?” the khan asked the girl.
- If you go to the right, it will be further, but shorter. If you go left, it will be shorter, but further,” the girl answered.
Khan understood the girl this way: if you go to the left, there will be a swampy ford there, you can get stuck, and he decided to go to the right.
He also asked the girl how he could find her tent in the village.
— My wagon is on the left. You will see it immediately. It has sixty windows and sixty peaks sticking out.
In the village on the left side, the khan saw a very black wagon. All the poles were visible through the holes in the roof. Khan guessed that these were sixty windows and sixty peaks.
The girl's father was in the wagon. Following the khan, a girl came with dung.
To once again test the girl’s resourcefulness, the khan suddenly asked her:
- How many dungs do you have in your bag?
“The same number of times your horse has stepped from your palace to our tent,” the girl answered without hesitation.
Before leaving the village, the khan ordered the old man to prepare kumis from bull's milk for tomorrow and line his tent with ashes.
The old man began to cry and conveyed the khan’s command to his daughter. But the daughter was not at all embarrassed and reassured the old man that she would do everything herself.
The next day, the girl covered the wagon with matting and burned it so that the ashes stuck to the felt, then she lifted and placed a long pole near the wagon.
Khan drives up to the wagon and sees that there is a pole, which means someone is giving birth in the house.
“The father is giving birth,” the girl answered the khan.
“Do men give birth too?” the khan asked in surprise.
- O great khan! In the Khanate, where kumiss is prepared from bull's milk, everything is possible.
When leaving, the khan ordered the old man to come to him on a two-headed horse and ride not along the road itself or across the steppe, and when he came to him, sit not inside the wagon and not outside.
How can the khan's order be fulfilled? The old man shared his grief with his daughter. The daughter explained to him the khan's orders. You need to arrive on a foal mare, you need to gallop not in the middle of the road or along a rut, but along a strip between them, and when you arrive at the khan, you need to sit at the threshold outside and put felt from the door on your back.
The old man did as his daughter told him...
Finally, the khan married his son to a girl.
Some time after the wedding, the khan fell seriously ill. Wanting to check whether the daughter-in-law would help her stupid husband, the khan called his son to him and ordered him to catch up with the tumbleweed in the steppe and find out from him where it would spend the day and night.
The Khan's son returned home and conveyed his father's orders to his wife. Then his wife advised him:
- Tell your father - the tumbleweed replied: “Where I will spend the day is known to the ravine, where I will spend the night - the wind knows about it.”
The Khan's son answered his father as his wife taught him.
The father was pleased and ordered his son to bring from the herd a horse with two heads and so that one head looked forward and the other looked back.
The son brought two horses to the khan and confused them so that their heads looked in different directions.
The Khan scolded his son for his stupid invention and ordered him to go to his tent.
At home his wife advised him:
- Go bring Khan a foal mare. In a pregnant mare, the foal lies head to tail in the womb.
The khan's son did as his wife advised him. Khan was pleased with his son and died calmly, knowing that his daughter-in-law would help her husband in everything.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru