There was one girl in the tundra. Her parents wanted to marry her off, but she didn’t listen, got angry with them and went into the tundra. One day goes by, then another and a third. She was exhausted and walked like an animal on all fours. Her bag and siskins were torn. She wrapped the food around her arms and legs and started walking again. And then she saw a yaranga in the tundra.
She crawled to the yaranga. In the yaranga, he sees boiled meat in a cauldron and a kettle hanging over the fireplace. She ate meat, drank tea and began to examine the yaranga. He sees that there are a lot of undressed skins lying around. “Only men live!” – the girl thought.
She took the skins and went into the tundra. So, he thinks, I’ll sew for people for food! And in this yaranga lived two brothers. They came home and saw that someone was eating meat and drinking tea. Who could this be? If it was a bear, it would scatter things. Probably the spirit. Well, who drank tea?
“We should find out,” the older brother says to the younger, “who came to the yaranga?”
The next morning the older brother went hunting, and the younger brother remained to guard. He sits in the yaranga with a knife in his hands and is afraid... Suddenly he sees someone with long hair crawling along the yaranga. The younger brother tore open the wall of the yaranga with a knife and rushed into the tundra to look for his brother.
- Let's go! The kele is crawling towards the yaranga!
While the brothers walked, the girl ate, drank tea, took a skin for the siskins and went into the tundra. The brothers came home, looked around, saw new pants on the floor and were delighted - how soft and comfortable they were. In the morning the elder brother said to the younger:
- Go hunting, and I will watch the yaranga. I'll see who comes to us.
The brother is sitting in the yaranga, making arrows and looking out into the tundra. He sees someone crawling towards the yaranga. He began to take a closer look: “Yes, this is a woman. Does an evil spirit walk during the day?” The fellow hid in the canopy and waited.
The girl entered the yaranga, threw back her hair, sat down near the meat and began to eat. The fellow saw how she cut the meat near her lips with a knife and thought: Eh, yes, this is an Eskimo! He came out of the canopy, the girl dropped the meat in fright.
- Who are you? – the young man asked the girl, “Woman.”
- Where?
- From the seashore. - And I am a man!
- One?
- No, I’m with my brother, my father kicked my mother out of the house. My mother took me on her shoulders and went into the tundra, and a few days later my brother was born. Our mother raised us and died, and since then we have lived together with my brother.
- And I left home. They gave me away in marriage, but I didn’t want to.
- Tell me, do you like me? - Don't know.
– Do you want to be my wife?
- Don't know! - the girl laughs.
The younger brother is coming back from hunting. He approaches the yaranga. No smoke rises from the yaranga, and the hearth does not burn. He stayed overnight in the tundra not far from the yaranga. All night I listened and looked at the yaranga, and then the morning came, but my brother was still not there.
“Well, apparently the evil spirit ate my brother and his bones lie by the hearth!” – thought the younger brother.
And he gasped - his brother came out of the yaranga so cheerful as his younger brother had never seen him before, and with a woman. Her braids went down to her knees, bright beads were woven into them, and the girl smiled well. The younger brother just opened his mouth.
- Oh, I'm a coward! - the younger brother finally said and never took his eyes off the girl.
“After all, now she would be my wife,” he thought. – The older brother began to stay at home more often and send his younger brother out hunting more often. This time the younger brother says:
- Go hunting. I have no arrows today!
- Take mine! - said the older brother. - That's all I am!..
“Well, okay, I’ll go today,” the elder agreed.
As soon as the older brother left, the younger brother sat down next to the girl and began to flirt - now catching her hand, now hugging her, now kissing her. The girl says:
- Don't stop me from working!
The girl began to cut the skin with a knife, and the younger brother snatched the skin from his hands. The girl swung a knife at him, but miscalculated and stabbed him in the throat. She accidentally killed her brother-in-law.
- Oh, what have I done! I didn't want to hurt him. Will my husband believe me?
She got scared - she hid the body and covered it with skins. My husband arrived and asked:
-Where is brother?
“He seemed bored with me, and he left after you.”
Another day has arrived. In the evening the husband asks again:
– Didn’t come?
- No.
Three days passed, fourth. On the fifth day, the husband began to plan the board for arrows, and it was covered in blood. He went to the hangers where the board lay, lifted the skin and saw his brother.
Hey! - he thought, - apparently it’s my turn now? He dug a deep hole, began throwing meat into it, and raised large worms.
A girl sews a kukhlyanka for her husband, and a spider descends along the web in front of her. The girl waved it off.
- Ai, go away, don’t bother me, it’s hard for me without you!
- I came to help you! - said the spider. “Your husband has fed the worms and tomorrow he will have a party near the pit.” He will push you into the hole, but you raise your hands up and hold tightly what you catch.
The girl sewed white tote bags for her husband. He took it, sighed and thought: “It’s a pity to ruin such a craftswoman!” The girl handed him red tobazas. The husband looked at her work and decided: “We need to quickly throw her into the hole, otherwise I won’t be able to do it at all.”
He pushed his wife into the hole. She closed her eyes, raised her hands above her head, firmly grabbed the thread that the spider had lowered to her, and suddenly she rose up and disappeared from her husband’s eyes.
The spider lifted the girl to the sky. She came to the old god and his old wife. She sits in a large yaranga near God and drinks tea. God asks her:
– Do you want to see your family?
“I don’t even know which side they are on.” God pulled the skin off the floor and said:
- Look!
The girl bent down, saw the earth and sea far below, and on the shore her yaranga, near the yaranga - her mother was walking, drying skins. The girl began to cry and it began to rain on the ground. The mother ran in, the brothers jumped out of the yaranga and began helping their mother remove the skins.
“Enough,” said God and closed the hole in the sky, “otherwise all the mother’s skins will be lost!”
The girl cried all night. In the morning, God said to the girl: “We must go home and get married!” And the girl descended from the sky along a spider's thread straight into her yaranga.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru