At the edge of the blue valley, where the magpie cannot fly, at the foot of the icy mountain, where the raven cannot fly, there stood an ail as small as a heart. White smoke curled out of it like a thin thread. In the village there lived a dark-skinned boy, Yusküzek.
He fed on the milk of a brown cow, played with a yellow goat, and rode a dun horse.
One day Yusküzek woke up, called the horse, but there was no horse, no cow, and the goat was gone. The tracks of seven wolves lead to the top of the ice mountain.
Yusküzek cried loudly:
- I look back - there is nothing but a shadow. I’ll raise my hands - I can only grab my ears. I even have a father who would support me. There is no mother who would regret it. A chick that has fallen out of the nest does not care where to rot. Until I take revenge on the wolves, I will not return home!
And Yusküzek left his ail, round as a heart.
The day goes by. It's night. So he climbed the narrow edge of the mountain. He took a step and fell into the abyss. Here neither the sun nor the moon is visible. Yüsküzek shouted. This lonely cry touched the heart of the eagle Kaan-Kerede. Kaan-Kerede closed his wide wings, fell like a stone to the bottom of the abyss, grabbed Yusküzek with his clawed paw and placed him where the leaves on the trees did not turn yellow. The cuckoo crows there tenderly all year round.
Directly opposite Yusküzek, on a pink scattering of stones, lay seven gray wolves, lowering their black muzzles onto their hard paws. Yusküzek grabbed a blue ax from his belt.
- Where is my dun horse? Where is the brown cow? Where is my goat?
Yusküzek doesn’t remember what happened next. He woke up in a large cave. There are bear skins on the floor. Silk curtains are woven with a lunar and solar pattern. Seven. The wolves serve Yusküzek golden choy-choyka with strong tea, a golden tray with fatty food. Yusküzek, I ate.
“Would you like to take a look at your cattle now?” Yusküzek left the cave. A well-fed dun horse dropped its silky mane onto his shoulder. The cow came with her offspring; the goat is jumping, shaking its beard.
- What should I give you? - the wolves ask.
- If you don’t mind, give me the puppy that’s lying under your doorstep.
Seven gray wolves, as one, turned their backs and dropped a heavy tear.
- Take the dog.
Yusküzek left the pink stone scattering and the ever-blooming white bird cherry tree. He walked through shifting swamps and climbed steep mountain passes. Walked on gray steppe sand. But there is no way home in sight. Yusküzek sat down on a stump and closed his eyes.
- Come, death! You can easily defeat me, hungry.
But death did not come. Yusküzek opened his eyes. What's happened? There is a tray in front of him. There is cheese and meat on a tray. Yusküzek ate, rested, and fed the puppy. He stood up, and in front of him was a blue valley and under his arm an icy mountain, round as a heart. Yusküzek has lit a cheerful fire in the dark village and sees: pink cream is pouring over the edge of a wooden cup, thickly brewed tea is boiling over the fireplace in a copper cauldron. Who prepared this?
Yusküzek lay down on the goatskin and closed his eyes.
All night and all morning he lay motionless. The sun has long come out from behind the mountains, but Yusküzek is still lying there.
At noon, the yellow puppy whined and fussed. He howled once, howled again, shook himself, and the dog skin fell. The girl approached the fireplace. Re earrings are like two moons.
The eyebrows are velvety black. Golden braids shine gently.
Yusküzek grabbed the dog's fur, and the beauty hit
palms on round knees. Open eyes are full of tears.
- Give me my skin! Yusküzek fell to both knees.
“I can’t touch you with dirty fingers.” I don’t dare ask you why you became a dog.
- Karaty Khan wanted to take me as his wife. To get rid of him, my brothers turned into wolves, and I turned into a dog. My name is Altyn-Chach - Golden Hair. Give me my skin.
Yusküzek hid the dog skin in a golden box, locked it in an iron chest and put it all in a wooden chest.
One day, Karata Khan lost a stallion as white as milk with four ears. A herd of milky white mares ran behind the stallion. Karaty Khan himself went to look for them. Karaty Khan looked everywhere his eyes could reach: he did not see a white herd. He was already looking for a reason to turn back, but suddenly he noticed a quiet light on the edge of the blue valley, under his arm near the icy mountain.
Karaty Khan took a closer look: fire was coming out of an ail as small as a heart. Karaty Khan picked up the skirts of his fur coat and lashed his pacer with an octagonal whip. The brown horse flew like an arrow from a tight bow.
- Hey! - cried Karaty Khan. —Whose village is burning?
In his fright, Yusküzek forgot to take out the dog skin. Altyn-Chach ran out as she was.
And Karaty Khan understood: it is not the moon that is shining, it is not the village that is burning, it is Altyn-Chach’s hair that reflects the morning dawn.
Karata Khan’s eyebrows knitted together like a low mountain. Like a stormy river tears the bank, so he tore and bit his lips. He turned the reins of his horse and, without looking back, forgetting about his herd, galloped into his white palace.
He cannot sit on the throne: the throne is like a hot stone. He can't eat: it's like a bone is stuck in his throat. He took out a piece of paper from his round bag and, standing up, wrote:
“I, Khan Karaty-kaan, who owns all the peoples of Altai, countless white and red, horned and single-hoofed cattle, challenge you, horseless Yusküzek, to a great feat.
If you take the golden egg from the eagle's nest, then my peoples, who speak sixty different languages, will be yours. I will give you my cattle of sixty colors.
But if I, Khan Karaty-kaan, find you in the village, Altyn-Chach will become mine. I’ll cut off your head and put it to your feet, I’ll cut off your legs and put it to your head.
This letter was written by me, Khan Karaty-kaan, riding a dark brown horse."
There were always two hawks sitting on the edge of the chimney in the palace.
- Fly faster than words! - Karaty Khan told them. The hawks, grabbing the letter in their beaks, rushed to the small village, threw the letter and flew away.
Altyn-Chach read the letter. Her face darkened twice, whitened twice.
- Karaty Khan tells you to go to the eagle's nest for the golden egg.
From that day on, Yusküzek walked without rest during the day and without sleep at night. The days melted like snowflakes. The years crawled like snakes. In the summer the sun burned his shoulders. When the snow fell behind the gate, he recognized winter. He walked and walked, and suddenly the black cloud melted. A bronze poplar with ninety-nine branches stands in front of Yusküzek. From under the roots of the poplar the eyes of a snake look out. At the top of the poplar tree there are two eaglets in a large nest.
Yusküzek averted his warm eyes from the icy pupils of the snake. He pulled a black bow. The ends of the bow met. Yusküzek released the arrow. Three snake heads rolled to the three ends of the earth. The black sea filled with snake blood. Like an eternal big mountain, the body of a snake lies on the shore.
—Who stoked the extinguished fire? Who revived us dead? - the eaglets shouted.
Yusküzek came out from behind the poplar.
The eaglets shed their bare wings. Yusküzek grabbed them, and the eaglets lifted him into the nest.
The moon was rising - Yusküzek was cooking meat with the eaglets and smoking a pipe. The moon was melting - Yusküzek and the eaglets sang songs. They did not count how many times the sun rose. Only when a terrible wind blew did the eaglets fall silent.
- This is our father and mother flapping their wings. Thick, violent rain poured down.
“It’s our father and mother who are crying for us.” Over the mountains, over the rivers, over the entire wide Altai, two wings are spread out, this is the Kaan-Kerede eagle flying. And two more wings over the whole earth opened from
from the eastern end of the sky to the western: it was Kaan-Kerede’s mother flying.
“What does the nest smell like?” shouted the Kaan-Kerede birds.
As if released from a bowstring, they rushed upward.
-Who is sitting in the nest?
- Father, mother, look under the poplar! - the chicks ask.
Kaan-Kerede saw the corpse of a three-headed snake under a poplar tree. They fell down like swords dropped from above.
They swallowed the dead snake three times and spat it out three times.
- Which hero defeated the enemy?
- Until your heart calms down, until your stomach
“We won’t show it until our beaks are dry,” the chicks answer.
- Our faithful eaglets, show us the hero! We won’t touch it with our claws, we won’t touch it with our beaks.
The eaglets slowly spread their wings. Yusküzek looked at the big eagles with timid eyes, Kaan-Kerede's father ruffled his feathers. Kaan-Kerede's mother screamed with a terrible squeal. With a terrible beak she tore at Yusküzek’s fur coat and saw four deep scars on his bare shoulder. Kaan-Kerede moaned four times.
“I once saved you from a deep abyss, Yusküzek.” There's a mark of my claws on your shoulder. Now you have saved our eaglets. What do you want? Why did you come?
- Karaty Khan ordered me to steal a golden egg from your nest.
“Karaty Khan and I were not friends,” answer Kaan-Kerede. “Would he really store his goods in someone else’s nest?” We don't have a golden egg.
Here Yusküzek’s young bones grew stronger. His voice became masculine. His dark face turned blue with anger.
“If you allow me,” the father said to Kaan-Kerede, “I will take you to your camp.”
Yusküzek sat on the broad back of his father’s Kaan-Kerede. Grabbed the dark feathers. I didn’t see how I was flying. I didn’t understand how long I was flying. He doesn’t know where he ended up. I have never been to this camp.
In an empty field, only one collapsed hut stands. In the hut there is a black, rotten old man. The old man's front teeth fell out. The mustache turned white. The legs are tightly bound with a tight belt. The neck is clamped with a wooden block.
-Where did you come from, dear boy?
The old man gave Yusküzek a piece of kurut and treated him to milk. Late in the evening an old woman approached the hut. I wanted to chew kurut, but I couldn’t find it. I wanted to drink milk - the cup was empty. The old woman picked up a wooden crutch and hit the old man on the head:
- I gave the last piece to the rogue! How are we going to live now?
“Don’t scold me too much, old woman.” We don’t know whether our son is alive or dead. I fed this hungry man - maybe people won’t leave our son.
At midnight the old man fell asleep.
But the old woman, thinking about milk and kurut, cannot fall asleep.
—Kurut is a cheese made from the curd left over from the araki race. A block of this cheese is dried over a fire in smoke.
She looked angrily at Yusküzek's bare back. I saw a birthmark. The old woman stood up and poked the old man with her pipe. The old man woke up, his dull eyes filled with tears.
- Hey, boy, young man! Wake up! You are the fire of our eyes. You are the blood of our chest. You are our only son. You were only a year old when we were unable to pay taxes to Karaty Khan. We were caught, tied up, and taken far away. Haven't heard from you since then. We delayed our death by nine years. We wanted to see you at least before we died. Yusküzek kissed the wrinkled one with hot lips
father's mouth, mother's black lips. He stroked their white hair with firm palms.
The old people sat as if they were sleeping in eternal sleep. Yusküzek left the house as a child. The young man flew away from the eagle's nest. Now Yusküzek clenched his teeth and straightened his shoulders. He matured, matured, became a man.
Karaty Khan does not sleep at night. Doesn't sleep during the day. All the time
lives on the go. He is waiting for news of the death of Yusküzek, he wants to marry Altyn-Chach as soon as possible.
- Hey, slave! Go to the heart-shaped ail. Look,
Altyn-Chach is crying or laughing there. Come back that same day and tell me the truth.
Backing away, the slave left the palace. Faster than a dark brown pacer, he rushed towards Yusküzek’s village. On the same day, Karaty Khan ordered him to return. The slave was in a hurry. The slave didn't stop. The slave wanted to take one look and run back. But he only saw Altyn-Chach with half an eye - and forgot why he was going. His mouth opened wide, looking at Altyn-Chach without blinking.
Her hair is golden, like autumn birch trees. Eyelashes -
thick needles.
The slave sat day and night at the open door. He did not know why he was going. I forgot where I was supposed to go.
On the second day the earth and sky shook. A black whirlwind struck. Yusküzek’s village flew up like a dry leaf. Karaty Khan, riding a dark brown horse, grabbed a slave by the braid. “How dare you look at Altyn-Chach?”
Karaty Khan wrapped the slave's braid around his copper hand and threw him over two mountains...
With a heart as cold as an eternal stone, with a black heart, Yusküzek returned home.
- Oh, it’s you, Yusküzek! Where is the golden egg? Karaty Khan hit Yusküzek with a belt whip. Karaty Khan, feeding on human blood! - Yusküzek shouted. “Boasting strength, do not hit the weak.” Do not insult the silent with an evil tongue. A good horse walks under a thin saddle. Under a torn fur coat there may be an invincible hero.
Here Yusküzek grabbed Karaty Khan by the sable collar
and pulled him off his dark brown horse.
Karaty Khan grabbed Yusküzek with both hands. A great struggle began. We fought for seven years. Their feet sank ankle-deep into the ground on the hard stone. We were knee-deep in loose soil. Not a single one fell. Not a single one touched the ground with his hand. We fought for nine years. The ground shook from their struggle. The mountains jumped like sarlyks, and the hills like deer. The lakes overflowed their banks. Rivers rushed from stone to stone in different directions.
Now Yusküzek has already touched the ground with his left hand and right
touched with his knee.
- Hey, wolf brothers! Oh, eagles of Kaan-Kerede, help! The eagles flew in with their wings spread over the mountains and valleys. Gray wolves, like gray whirlwinds, devoured the dark brown pacer in seven gulps and spat them out seven times. The eagles of Kaan-Kerede picked up Karaty Khan with their iron claws, carried him to the bottom of the sky and threw him from there onto the eternal mountain glacier. There was no piece of meat left for the dogs from Karaty Khan's body. With just a single pry of a needle there was not a piece left of Karata Khan’s skin. The wind scattered his ashes like dust.
How Altyn-Chach and Yusküzek lived since then, what became
with seven wolves, where the birds of Kaan-Kerede are now, no one could tell me.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru