Ossetian fairy tales in English. Александр Юрьевич Кожиев
A wolf appeared and asked the hare:
– “What happened to you, why are you crying?”
The hare told him about his grief. The wolf sympathized and sat down beside him – he could not help in any other way. The fox came, and the hare told her about his grief too. Finally, the rooster came and asked the hare:
– “What happened to you, what are you crying about?”
When the hare told him about his grief, he stood at the door and shouted three times at the top of his voice:
– cock-a-doodle-do!
The goat was frightened and flew off the stove, her legs broke, and she gave up her life.
The hare and his friends had a great feast. They ate the goat's fatty meat, leaving her legs and horns for the old woman.
The jinn king and the poor man
Once upon a time there was an old man and an old woman. They lived in poverty. The old man went hunting, and if the hunt was successful, they were fed, but if the hunt was unsuccessful, they sat in their poor shack hungry.
One day the old man hunted all day and met no one. And his wife hoped that he would bring something and they would eat.
The old man was tired and thirsty. He saw a lake and went to it to drink water. But when he reached the water, someone grabbed him by his beard and started pulling towards him.
The old man began to beg:
– “I am an old man, let me go, don't pull me towards you!”
But the one who was pulling him replied:
– “I will turn you into a young man, if only you can be useful!”
And dragged the old man after him. Out of the lake a door opened into the sea. They passed these doors and went on. From the sea a door to the land opened, and they went on land.
The Jinn King lived there. He greeted the old man with joy and said to him:
– Hello, guest! The stakes of my wattle are missing one head, and I will stake your head unless you fulfill my demand. If you do, I will give you my daughter.
The poor man looked around, and when he saw the human heads on the stakes of the wattle, his heart fell: “And my head will be cut off!” he thought.
The Jinn King gave three tasks and promised to marry his daughter to the one who would fulfill all three of them. Pointing to a field lined with stacks of wheat, he gave the poor man the first task:
– Put the wheat grain in the barns before morning, but make sure that the stacks are not moved.
The poor man thought about it and became sad:
– “He makes me do the impossible! He’ll have my head on the stake of the wattle!”
And he was no longer an old man: the one who pulled his beard made him a young man, and when the daughter of the Jinn King saw him, she liked him. She saw that he was sitting sad, and asked:
– “What's wrong with you? Why are you sitting sad?”
– “What makes me sad?” he answered. “Your father has given me a task that is utterly impossible to accomplish. I will fail, and my head will be cut off.”
– “Don't let it make you sad,” said the daughter of the Jinn King. “We shall accomplish everything! In the evening I will call all the mice I have, and they will pour all the wheat grain into the barns.”
In the evening, the daughter of the Jinn King calls the mice with a shout:
– “Mice, wherever you are, come here and pour into the barns until morning all the grains that are in the haystacks, so that not a single grain is lost and that the haystacks are not moved from their places.”
All the mice gathered, which only existed in the world, and did not leave a single grain in the haystacks, poured them into the barns, and the haystacks were not even moved.
The Jinn King got up in the morning and asked the young man:
– “Well, did you do anything?” And the king's daughter warned him:
– Your father will ask you naggingly, but don't be afraid, do your work, and let it be what pleases God.
The Jinn King, without saying anything, gave him a second task:
– “A church must appear in my courtyard overnight, but it must be made of wax and nothing else.”
The young man, poor man, became anxious and thought, “God has cursed me.” He sits sad again, and the king's daughter said to him:
– “Don't despair, it's easy to do. Today I will gather all the bees I have, and by morning the church will be ready.”
She called out to the bees and said to them:
– “Build a church of pure wax overnight!”
The evening came. The bees began to work so hard that by morning the church was ready.
In the morning, the Jinn King got up, went outside, looked around the courtyard and saw the church of pure wax.
And the king's daughter warned the young man in advance:
– “Don't wait for the third task, it's impossible, and I can't help you. We must both run away from here!”
The young man got into the boat with the girl, and they started to flee; the Jinn King found out about it when they were already far away, and sent a large chase after them.
Meanwhile, the fugitives came to the shore of the lake, and the daughter of the Jinn King, who had a magic gift, made it so that they turned into a pair of ducks, a male and a female, they began to frolic in the lake.
The chase also went to the shore of the lake – there was no one. They searched everywhere, but found nothing, and they paid no attention to the ducks.
The chase turned back to the Jinn King. He asked them:
– “Well, what did you come back with? Didn't you catch up with them?”
– “We didn't see anything anywhere!” – They answered. “We only noticed two ducks, a male and a female, in one lake.”
The Jinn King was saddened:
– “I forgot to warn you, so you did not recognize them. It was them. Chase them down, catch them and bring them here.”
And the daughter of the Jinn King had a gift of prophecy. She said to the young man:
– “Father has recognized us! There is a new chase after us, let's run!”
They ran, looking back, and saw a chase behind them in the distance. The girl said to the young man:
– “We can't run any farther. I will make a church appear here; one of us will become a priest and the other a deacon, and we will not be recognized.”
A church appeared and they became a deacon and a priest.
The members of the chase saw the church and thought that the fugitives might hide there. But seeing only the priest and deacon there, who were performing divine service, they were ashamed to interrupt them and turned back on their way. And on the way back they looked everywhere for the fugitives, but found them nowhere; so they returned home.
The Jinn King asked:
– “Well, have you found them?”
And they answered again:
– “We did not meet even local people on the way. Only in one place a priest and a deacon were performing divine service in a church, and we did not see anyone else.”
The Jinn King said:
– “It was them, but you did not recognize them. Now you won't be able to find them anymore! My daughter failed to recognize herself! She was a rascal and she ran away like a rascal! There's nothing we can do about her now, let's leave them.”
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