Once upon a time, a rich Kazakh, Edelbai, lived in the steppe. He had three sons. He married the two eldest. It was the turn of the youngest, Zhandaulet.
Living independently requires intelligence and resourcefulness. To test his son, Edelbay ordered him to drive forty goats to the market and, without selling these goats, buy forty arshins of calico. Zhandaulet thought for a long time, but could not solve his father’s problem. Having reached the city, he asked a poor Kazakh to stay for the night. During dinner, he spoke with contrition about his father's task. The owner’s daughter, a beautiful girl, after listening to him, said:
— Solving the problem is very easy. You need to remove the horns from the goats, sell them and buy calico.
Zhandaulet did just that. But the father did not believe that his son had solved the problem himself, and found out how it was. Edelbay did not stand behind the bride price and married his son to a wise girl, believing that a stupid husband needs a wise wife.
After some time, Edelbay went to the city. Before the trip, he asked his daughters-in-law: who should buy what?
The eldest asked to buy her a chest with mirrored walls inside, the middle one - a carpet with a beautiful pattern, and the youngest said:
- I don’t need gifts. I ask one thing - take this bag and, without looking at what is in it, bring it back.
Edelbai was surprised, but still took his daughter-in-law’s bag. On the way back, he became very interested in this bag, but when he saw the gnawed ulna bones of sheep in it, he became very angry with his youngest daughter-in-law and scattered the bones across the steppe. Now Edelbai was attacked by robbers. Edelbai offered them a ransom: sixty old camels and seventy young ones. The robbers agreed to release Edelbai and return the caravan to him.
And when the robbers went to the village for camels, their leader asked Edelbai:
“We’ve been following you for a long time, but there were forty-one of you, and it was impossible to cope.” Tell me, please, where did forty people go?
Only then did Edelbai realize that the bones in the bag were magical. When the robbers came to the village for a ransom, the youngest daughter-in-law unraveled Edelbai’s hint about young and old camels. She called sixty aksakals to her, and they decided not to give the robbers a ransom, but to send seventy of the best young zhigits to Edelbai’s rescue.
So, thanks to the girl’s wisdom, Edelbai was rescued, and the robbers were killed.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru