Once upon a time there lived a soldier. He served for twenty-five years. When his twenty-five-year service ended, he stopped saluting the officers.
One day, when he did not salute an officer while passing by, the officer filed a complaint to headquarters. The soldier was called to headquarters and asked:
“Why didn’t you salute the officer?”
“I came to the service for twenty years, served for twenty-five years, will I, a forty-five-year-old, really salute a twenty-year-old? - the soldier answers.
“What do you want as a reward for twenty-five years of service?” - they ask him at headquarters.
“I don’t need anything, just let me go home,” says the soldier.
They sent him home and gave him a horse for his length of service. At this time there were no railways yet. The soldier saddled his horse and rode off.
He drove and drove and found himself in the depths of a dense forest. He sees a snake lying across the road about three fathoms long. Before the soldier had time to come to his senses, the snake wrapped itself around his neck.
“I served twenty-five years in the army,” said the soldier, “I’m tired.” Maybe you, snake, are tired too? Let's go together!
The snake and the soldier set off on their further journey. They see: in the middle of the forest there is a large two-story, solid house, with outbuildings around it. When the soldier reached the house, the snake crawled into the house through the gateway. The soldier rides into the yard after the snake, ties the horse to a post and enters the house.
The soldier was very hungry. “Even though there are no owners, I’ll try to have lunch,” he thought and decided to look into the stove. It turned out that the oven was full of all kinds of food: both fried and baked.
Having eaten his fill, the soldier goes out to check on the horse. He looks: the horse is not there. The soldier begins to look for her and finds her in the barn, she stands in front of a large trough, divided into three compartments: in one compartment there is water, in the other - hay, in the third - oats. The horse stands calmly and eats hay and oats.
The soldier returned to the house. He lived here for three days and decided to move on. As soon as he stepped out into the hallway, a girl called out to him from the hut:
- Hey, brother, are you really going to leave without saying a word? I want to hear your voice!
The soldier returned to the house and said:
“I lived here for three days, I had to be fed, and my horse had to be fed. Thank you for your hospitality!
- Here's to you for these words! - said the invisible girl, and someone’s hand extended his shirt.
The soldier turned to the exit, but heard the voice of another girl behind him:
- Hey, soldier, brother, you talked to my older sister, but I haven’t heard a word from you!
“It turns out there are two of you here,” said the soldier, “accept my thanks for feeding and drinking me for three days!”
- Take it, brother, soldier, for these kind words of yours! - said the same girlish voice, and someone’s hand extended a cap to the soldier.
The soldier was about to leave, but then he heard the voice of the third girl:
- Hey, brother soldier, I haven’t heard a word from you!
The soldier returns to the hut again.
- It turns out there are three of you here! - said the soldier. - Thank you for drinking and feeding me. I lived with you for three days. Maybe you need to pay for this?
“We don’t need any payment from you, thank you for your kind words!” Take this blade from me!
With these words, someone's hand extended a blade to the soldier. As soon as the soldier took the blade, all three girls appeared before him and said in one voice:
“Put on the shirt and cap that were given to you and know: as long as you have this blade in your hands, no force in the world will defeat you.” Don't mention it on the way. If you tell your wife about the secret of your strength, then you will have to return to us again against your will. If you don’t tell me, you will live happily.
He drives and thinks:
“I served for twenty-five years, but never saw the Tsar.” I don’t want to resign without seeing the Tsar.
And the soldier came to the king, told him about his service and explained that he had come in order to see his royal majesty at least once in his life.
The king really liked both the soldier’s speech and himself. He received him into his house and married his daughter to him.
After his marriage, the soldier began to go hunting. He never came home empty-handed; he always brought some kind of bird. However, although the soldier was a good hunter, his wife still did not love him. She had a lover, a prince from a neighboring state. Having married a soldier, she did not stop thinking about her beloved prince. She wrote to this prince: “Go to war against our kingdom, destroy it, and I will leave with you.”
The prince immediately descended on this kingdom with war. But the soldier went out alone against the enemies and, with the help of his wonderful sword, destroyed the enemy troops in three hours.
The foreign prince could not recover from frustration and surprise and could not understand why he could not defeat him with his army. Therefore, he wrote to the princess: “Feed him a delicious dinner, make him a soft bed, hug and kiss him. When he begins to hug you, joyful and satisfied, ask: What power does he have that defeats everyone?”
At night, the princess, hugging her husband, asks him:
- Tell me, where do you get such wonderful power? After all, you are probably not a simple person?
“It’s your luck that you ask at such a time, otherwise at another time I would have cut off your head for this question!”
The princess was surprised and wrote to her lover: “I,” she says, “did everything as you ordered, and he threatened to cut off my head.”
“Be more cunning,” says the lover. “Pretend to be sick, take a mouthful of viburnum, lie there as if you are spitting up blood. Say that you will die now anyway, but let him reveal his secret to you, so that in the next world you will tell everyone what magical power your husband possessed.”
By the time her husband arrived, the princess had taken a mouthful of viburnum and was spitting “blood.” He even shed tears of pity. And when his wife asked, as she was told, about his secret, he believed her and told her frankly:
“This shirt of mine, this cap of mine and this saber of mine give me strength that will defeat everyone in the world.” After that, the soldier lay down and fell asleep. And his wife got up at night, replaced his shirt, cap and saber, and hung others in return. She took all these magical objects to her prince lover.
The foreign prince immediately declares war on him. He, suspecting nothing, puts on a substitute shirt and cap, takes an ordinary saber and boldly goes towards the enemy.
The foreign prince chopped the soldier into small pieces, put him in an old sack, put his horse on his back and let him go.
The horse took off running not to the courtyard, but to the house of the three sisters, where the soldier had been staying for three days. He galloped up to them and neighed.
Three girls looked out the window and all three ran out onto the porch: they immediately recognized whose horse it was.
- Oh, brother soldier, what happened to you? - they shouted in one voice and began to cry. They untied the bag, and in it lay the soldier’s body, chopped into pieces.
The girls got to work: they assembled his body from the chopped up parts and poured in living water. The soldier took a deep breath and said:
- Oh, oh, I slept for a long time!
- Yes, you, brother soldier, would sleep in eternal sleep, after all, you were chopped into small pieces. Why did you ignore our advice? - They say.
“Your wife ordered you to be chopped up.” Now after this we won’t see you, you won’t see us! - all three say.
- Know that we are the daughters of a snake and there is no one stronger than us in the world. It was we who helped you all these three years because you brought your missing younger brother to us. After that, don’t get on your horse, you’re wearing a ring,” they said.
— On the way, go to the house where the old man and the old woman live.
The soldier went to the old man and the old woman. Going to bed, he asked his owners to wake him up in the morning. However, in the morning they left for the city, but did not wake up the soldier. He woke up, moved the ring from one finger to another and said:
“Let the old man’s shafts break in half!”
Then the old man’s shafts broke, and he and the old woman had to return home on foot.
They returned and woke up the soldier:
- Get up, soldier! We forgot to wake you up, and on the way, as luck would have it, the shafts broke. Help us carry the other shafts to the place where our cart remains.
And at that moment the soldier imperceptibly changed the ring from one finger to another and said:
- Grandma, grandpa, your shafts are intact. Because you didn't wake me up, it only seemed to you that they were broken.
The old men went and looked - the shafts were indeed intact. The soldier decided to help the old people and said:
- Grandmother, grandfather, you are poor people, and I will make you rich: I will turn into a stallion. Take me to the market and sell me for no less than a thousand rubles, and take the money for yourself, just don’t give up a penny.
The soldier quietly changed the ring from one finger to another and turned into a stallion.
The old man and the old woman took him to the market and put him on a leash: but no one would give a thousand rubles for him, they gave nine hundred and ninety-nine, and they could not give up a penny. Not a single merchant at the market could give a thousand rubles. Only the tsar could give a thousand rubles for him.
They decided to inform the tsar that, they say, a stallion was being sold at the market for a thousand rubles, so beautiful that in the whole world you could not find another such stallion.
The king comes to the market and buys a stallion, without haggling, for a thousand rubles. He brings him home and boasts that he bought such a beautiful horse for only a thousand rubles.
“For three years I dreamed of purchasing such a horse, and only today my wish came true,” the king boasts.
And the cook, hearing this boast, says to the king:
“Remember my word: in three days this horse will break your head.” This is your current wife's first husband. “He needs to be slaughtered no later than three hours later,” he says.
Fortunately, these words were overheard by the king’s younger sister. She went to the stallion and said:
- Oh, stallion, you are my beauty! After all, they will kill you!
- Will they really kill you? - asked the stallion in a human voice. “When they come to cut me, put on your dress, which you have never worn, come closer to me and try to get the first three drops of my blood on your dress.” Shake these drops under the apple tree,” he says.
The king's sister went to the place where the stallion was slaughtered, substituted her dress, and the first three drops of blood fell on her dress. Then she shook them under the apple tree. And at that same moment the apple tree blossomed with golden flowers and was covered with golden apples. And the king, having watched how the stallion was slaughtered, went to dinner, and during dinner began to boast:
“Even though I ordered the thousand-ruble stallion to be slaughtered, a golden apple tree grew in my garden, and it costs at least three thousand rubles.”
And the cook is right there and says to the king:
“Indeed, your golden apple tree is beautiful, on which golden apples ripen in three hours.” But if you bite into the golden apple three times, you will lose your head. If you don't cut it down, you won't live!
Then the king decided to cut down the apple tree. Again the king's sister overheard this conversation and ran into the garden. She hugged the golden apple tree and said:
- They want to cut you down!
“If they chop me down,” the apple tree answers, “put on the same dress you were wearing when they cut the stallion, take the first three chips and throw them into the lake.”
The king’s sister puts on the same dress, goes into the garden, where they are already cutting down an apple tree, takes the first three chips that fly off to the side and throws them into the lake. The wood chips immediately turned into a duck with beaded feathers.
In this lake, no one except the king had the right to shoot game. Before the king had time to go home from the garden, where the apple tree had been cut down, he was informed that a duck with beaded feathers had appeared on the lake.
The king immediately rushed to the lake and shot at the duck. The duck leaned on its side and spread its beaded wings. The king took off his shirt with joy and climbed into the water after the duck, and he even left his magic saber on the shore. As soon as he stepped into the water, the water reached his knee, and the duck began to swim further. Now the water is already up to the chest, and the duck swims even further. Here the water is up to his neck. Just as he was about to hit the duck, it perked up, flew to the shore, and on the shore turned into a soldier.
The soldier grabbed a wonderful saber. He cut the king down on the spot. He went from the lake and chopped his ex-wife into small pieces.
After this, he married the king's younger sister.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru