Andrey Platonov - Bashkir folk tales retold by Andrey Platonov. Andrey Platonov - Bashkir folk tales retold by Andrey Platonov Andrey Platonov children's stories read

Long ago, in ancient times, an old-looking man lived on our street. He worked in a forge on a large Moscow road; he worked as an assistant to the chief blacksmith, because he could not see well with his eyes and had little strength in his hands. He carried water, sand and coal to the forge, fanned the forge with fur, held the hot iron on the anvil with tongs while the chief blacksmith forged it, brought the horse into the machine to forge it, and did any other work that needed to be done. His name was Efim, but all the people called him Yushka. He was short and thin; on his wrinkled face, instead of a mustache and beard, sparse gray hairs grew separately; His eyes were white, like a blind man’s, and there was always moisture in them, like never-cooling tears.

Yushka lived in the apartment of the owner of the forge, in the kitchen. In the morning he went to the forge, and in the evening he went back to spend the night. The owner fed him for his work with bread, cabbage soup and porridge, and Yushka had his own tea, sugar and clothes; he must buy them for his salary - seven rubles and sixty kopecks a month. But Yushka didn’t drink tea or buy sugar, he drank water, and wore the same clothes for many years without changing: in the summer he wore trousers and a blouse, black and sooty from work, burned through by sparks, so that in several places his white body was visible, and he was barefoot; in winter, he put on a sheepskin coat over his blouse, which he inherited from his deceased father, and his feet were shod in felt boots, which he hemmed in the fall, and wore the same pair every winter all his life.

When Yushka walked down the street to the forge early in the morning, the old men and women got up and said that Yushka had already gone to work, it was time to get up, and they woke up the young people. And in the evening, when Yushka went to spend the night, people said that it was time to have dinner and go to bed - and Yushka had already gone to bed.

And small children and even those who became teenagers, seeing old Yushka walking quietly, stopped playing in the street, ran after Yushka and shouted:

There comes Yushka! There's Yushka!

The children picked up dry branches, pebbles, and rubbish from the ground in handfuls and threw them at Yushka.

Yushka! - the children shouted. - Are you really Yushka?

The old man did not answer the children and was not offended by them; he walked as quietly as before, and did not cover his face, which was hit by pebbles and earthen debris.

The children were surprised that Yushka was alive and was not angry with them. And they called out to the old man again:

Yushka, are you true or not?

Then the children again threw objects from the ground at him, ran up to him, touched him and pushed him, not understanding why he did not scold them, take a twig and chase them, as all big people do. The children did not know another person like him, and they thought - is Yushka really alive? Having touched Yushka with their hands or hit him, they saw that he was hard and alive.

Then the children again pushed Yushka and threw clods of earth at him - he’d better be angry, since he really lives in the world. But Yushka walked and was silent. Then the children themselves began to get angry with Yushka. They were bored and it was not good to play if Yushka was always silent, did not scare them and did not chase them. And they pushed the old man even harder and shouted around him so that he would respond to them with evil and cheer them up. Then they would run away from him and, in fear, in joy, would again tease him from afar and call him to them, then running away to hide in the darkness of the evening, in the canopy of houses, in the thickets of gardens and vegetable gardens. But Yushka did not touch them and did not answer them.

When the children stopped Yushka altogether or hurt him too much, he told them:

What are you doing, my dears, what are you doing, little ones!.. You must love me!.. Why do you all need me?.. Wait, don’t touch me, you hit me with dirt in my eyes, I can’t see.

The children did not hear or understand him. They still pushed Yushka and laughed at him. They were happy that they could do whatever they wanted with him, but he didn’t do anything to them.

Yushka was also happy. He knew why the children laughed at him and tormented him. He believed that children loved him, that they needed him, only they did not know how to love a person and did not know what to do for love, and therefore they tormented him.

At home, fathers and mothers reproached their children when they did not study well or did not obey their parents: “Now you will be the same as Yushka! “You will grow up and walk barefoot in the summer and in thin felt boots in the winter, and everyone will torment you, and you will not drink tea with sugar, but only water!”

Elderly adults, meeting Yushka on the street, also sometimes offended him. Adults had angry grief or resentment, or they were drunk, then their hearts were filled with fierce rage. Seeing Yushka going to the forge or to the yard for the night, an adult said to him:

Why are you walking around here so blessed and unlikeable? What do you think is so special?

Yushka stopped, listened and was silent in response.

You don't have any words, you're such an animal! You live simply and honestly, as I live, and don’t think anything secretly! Tell me, will you live the way you should? You will not? Aha!.. Well okay!

And after a conversation during which Yushka was silent, the adult became convinced that Yushka was to blame for everything, and immediately beat him. Because of Yushka’s meekness, the adult became embittered and beat him more than he wanted at first, and in this evil he forgot his grief for a while.

Yushka then lay in the dust on the road for a long time. When he woke up, he got up on his own, and sometimes the daughter of the owner of the forge came for him, she picked him up and took him away with her.

It would be better if you died, Yushka,” said the owner’s daughter. - Why do you live? Yushka looked at her in surprise. He didn't understand why he should die when he

born to live.

“It was my father and mother who gave birth to me, it was their will,” Yushka answered, “I can’t die, and I’m helping your father in the forge.”

If only someone else could take your place, what a helper!

People love me, Dasha! Dasha laughed.

Now you have blood on your cheek, and last week your ear was torn, and you say - the people love you!..

“He loves me without a clue,” said Yushka. - People's hearts can be blind.

Their hearts are blind, but their eyes are sighted! - Dasha said. - Go quickly, or something! They love you according to your heart, but they beat you according to their calculations.

According to calculations, they are angry with me, it’s true,” Yushka agreed. “They don’t tell me to walk on the street and they mutilate my body.”

Oh, Yushka, Yushka! - Dasha sighed. - But you, my father said, are not old yet!

How old I am!.. I have suffered from breast problems since childhood, it was because of my illness that I made a mistake in appearance and became old...

Due to this illness, Yushka left his owner for a month every summer. He went on foot to a remote remote village, where he must have had relatives. Nobody knew who they were to him.

Even Yushka himself forgot, and one summer he said that his widowed sister lived in the village, and the next that his niece was there. Sometimes he said that he was going to the village, and other times that he was going to Moscow itself. And people thought that Yushka’s beloved daughter lived in a distant village, as kind and unnecessary to people as her father.

In July or August, Yushka put a knapsack with bread on his shoulders and left our city. On the way, he breathed the fragrance of grasses and forests, looked at the white clouds born in the sky, floating and dying in the bright airy warmth, listened to the voice of the rivers muttering on the stone rifts, and Yushka’s sore chest rested, he no longer felt his illness - consumption. Having gone far away, where it was completely deserted, Yushka no longer hid his love for living beings. He bent down to the ground and kissed the flowers, trying not to breathe on them so that they would not be spoiled by his breath, he stroked the bark of the trees and picked up butterflies and beetles from the path that had fallen dead, and peered into their faces for a long time, feeling himself without them orphaned. But living birds sang in the sky, dragonflies, beetles and hard-working grasshoppers made cheerful sounds in the grass, and therefore Yushka’s soul was light, the sweet air of flowers smelling of moisture and sunlight entered his chest.

On the way, Yushka rested. He sat in the shade of a road tree and dozed in peace and warmth. Having rested and caught his breath in the field, he no longer remembered the illness and walked on cheerfully, like a healthy person. Yushka was forty years old, but illness had long tormented him and aged him before his time, so that he seemed decrepit to everyone.

ANDREY PLATONOV is a Russian Soviet writer and playwright, one of the most original Russian writers in style and language of the first half of the 20th century.

Born on August 28, 1899 in Voronezh. Father - Klimentov Platon Firsovich - worked as a locomotive driver and mechanic in Voronezh railway workshops. Twice he was awarded the title of Hero of Labor (in 1920 and 1922), and in 1928 he joined the party. Mother - Lobochikhina Maria Vasilievna - daughter of a watchmaker, housewife, mother of eleven (ten) children, Andrey - the eldest. Maria Vasilievna gives birth to children almost every year, Andrey, as the eldest, takes part in raising and, later, feeding all his brothers and sisters. Both parents are buried at the Chugunovskoye cemetery in Voronezh.

In 1906 he entered the parochial school. From 1909 to 1913 he studied at a city 4-grade school.

From 1913 (or from the spring of 1914) to 1915 he worked as a day laborer and for hire, as a boy in the office of the Rossiya insurance company, as an assistant driver on a locomotive on the Ust estate of Colonel Bek-Marmarchev. In 1915 he worked as a foundry worker at a pipe factory. From the autumn of 1915 to the spring of 1918 - in many Voronezh workshops - for the production of millstones, casting, etc.

In 1918 he entered the electrical engineering department of the Voronezh Polytechnic Institute; serves on the main revolutionary committee of the South-Eastern Railways, on the editorial board of the magazine “Ironway”. Participated in the Civil War as a front-line correspondent. Since 1919 he published his works, collaborating with several newspapers as a poet, publicist and critic. In the summer of 1919, he visited Novokhopyorsk as a correspondent for the newspaper Izvestia of the Defense Council of the Voronezh Fortified Region. Soon after this he was mobilized into the Red Army. He worked until the fall on a steam locomotive for military transportation as an assistant driver; then he was transferred to a Special Purpose Unit (CHON) in a railway detachment as an ordinary rifleman. In the summer of 1921 he graduated from a one-year provincial party school. In the same year, his first book, the brochure “Electrification,” was published, and his poems were also published in the collective collection “Poems.” In 1922 his son Plato was born. In the same year, Platonov’s book of poems “Blue Depth” was published in Krasnodar. In the same year, he was appointed chairman of the provincial Commission on Hydrofication under the Land Department. In 1923, Bryusov responded positively to Platonov’s book of poems. From 1923 to 1926 he worked in the province as a land reclamation engineer and specialist in agricultural electrification (head of the electrification department in the Gubernia Land Administration, built three power plants, one of them in the village of Rogachevka).

In the spring of 1924 he participated in the First All-Russian Hydrological Congress, he developed projects for hydrofication of the region, and plans for insuring crops against drought. At the same time, in the spring of 1924, he again submitted an application to join the RCP (b) and was accepted by the GZO cell as a candidate, but never joined. In June 1925, Platonov’s first meeting took place with V.B. Shklovsky, who flew to Voronezh on an Aviakhim plane to promote the achievements of Soviet aviation with the slogan “Facing the Village.” In the 1920s, he changed his last name from Klimentov to Platonov (the pseudonym was formed on behalf of the writer’s father).

In 1931, the published work “For Future Use” caused sharp criticism from A. A. Fadeev and I. V. Stalin. The writer had the opportunity to catch his breath only when RAPP itself was flogged for its excesses and dissolved. In 1934, Platonov was even included in a collective writing trip to Central Asia - and this was already a sign of some trust. The writer brought the story “Takyr” from Turkmenistan, and his persecution began again: a devastating article appeared in Pravda (January 18, 1935), after which the magazines again stopped accepting Plato’s texts and returned those already accepted. In 1936 the stories “Fro”, “Immortality”, “Clay House in the District Garden”, “The Third Son”, “Semyon” were published, and in 1937 the story “The Potudan River” was published.

In May 1938, the writer’s fifteen-year-old son was arrested, having returned from imprisonment in the fall of 1940, terminally ill with tuberculosis, after the troubles of Platonov’s friends. The writer gets infected from his son while caring for him, and from then on until his death he will carry tuberculosis within himself. In January 1943, Platonov's son died.

During the Great Patriotic War, the writer with the rank of captain served as a war correspondent for the newspaper "Red Star", Platonov's war stories appeared in print. There is an opinion that this was done with Stalin's personal permission.

At the end of 1946, Platonov’s story “Return” (“The Ivanov Family”) was published, for which the writer was attacked in 1947 and was accused of libel. In the late 1940s, deprived of the opportunity to earn a living by writing, Platonov was engaged in literary adaptation of Russian and Bashkir fairy tales, which were published in children's magazines. Platonov's worldview evolved from a belief in the reconstruction of socialism to an ironic image of the future.

He died on January 5, 1951 in Moscow from tuberculosis. He was buried in the Armenian cemetery. The writer left behind a daughter, Maria Platonova, who prepared her father’s books for publication.

NEXT

The third whistle... I enter the factory gates, pass the control booth and walk through the huge factory yard to my “first”, as our foundry was numbered. The asphalt path runs and winds around the ledges and walls of colossal buildings, where - I hear - the powerful pulse of obedient machines has already begun to beat at an even pace.

I enter the workshop almost joyful - because now it will come to life, tremble, rattle - and the game will continue until the evening...

I greet my workmates and sit down on the iron slab of the floor and the descent to the cupola furnace. We light a cigarette - there is no other way - before work and after it, before leaving, this is always done by everyone. The hand turns the paper almost automatically; slowly sharing tobacco...

We pour metal into the furnace. We start up electric motors and discover oil. And - the sun goes out behind the high windows, everything is forgotten... Clouds of yellow-green smoke burst like whirlwinds from the furnaces from the melting metal. The gas gets into your eyes, your mouth tastes bitter, it weighs on your soul...

High ceiling beams shake, floors and walls dance, flames roar under the frenzied pressure of jets of oil dust and air... The engine hums inexorably and mockingly; endless belts click insidiously...

Something whistles and laughs; something locked, strong, brutally merciless wants freedom - and will not break out, and howls, and squeals, and fights furiously, and whirls in loneliness and endless anger... And it begs, and threatens, and again shakes with tireless muscles the intricate knots of stone and iron and copper...

The hot pulses of friendly cars beat; flickering seams, snakes curl around - belts.

Ilyush, oh Ilyush! You should climb down and see what kind of thing it is. The other day, how deftly you managed to maneuver the pump... - They turn to me.

Just before the finished metal was lowered into the crucibles, the motor suddenly stopped, and the monotonously humming furnace fell silent, the heated walls darkened.

I sometimes fixed small breakdowns in cars, avoiding the need to call a mechanic. This is what happened a week ago with the air pump. At first I wanted to refuse, but, encouraged, I took the toolbox and climbed the ladder to the electric motor suspended from the wall.

The malfunction was trivial, and I quickly discovered it. A current was given from below - and the dead motor came to life, howled and clapped the drive belt.

And again a stream of flame poured onto the metal spread out in the furnaces.

Behind the jingling broken glass of the windows, the midday sun washed the earth, and for a second my heart sank painfully and passionately wanted to be in the field - to the birds, flowers, rustling grass; in the field - where, when I was unemployed, I wandered, drowning in greenery stretching to the sky, to life, to the fragile spring sun, to those free running clouds...

Liquid metal pours, snorting and hissing, blinding unbearably, brighter than the sun. We stand carefully and attentively around the fireproof pot that is filling. Then the two of us immediately grab the long rods and run to carry the sparkling casting to the neighboring workshop, where we pour the metal into the prepared molds.

When we empty the entire furnace, we fill it again with ingots of clumsy bubbly copper and wait, smoking and adjusting the oil.

Three people worked near our furnace - Ignat, an old worker, almost blind from the shine of the casting, with constantly festering, bloodshot eyes, and two of us, newcomers, I and Vanya, who had only recently arrived at the plant. We worked happily and the day flew by. Half naked, we laughed and doused ourselves with water, told stories, thought - and listened to the endless, dull song of the machines that connected the beginning with the end...

And, please tell me that this fire is not going away: he sneezes - and the Sabbath!.. - Ignat, our “elder”, was dissatisfied and grumbled. After lunch, in fact, something began to snort frequently in the stove and the clouds of stinking smoke were thicker than usual.

Well, well, bitch, well, well, bungler, damn it, talk to me, talk to me! - Ignat turned up the oil and encouraged the snorting flame. Inside the furnace, explosions and strange splashing were now heard; the metal did not heat up well.

Something wasn't going well. I walked up, not knowing why, to the engine, looked at the speed meter and listened. The machine worked wonderfully.

Turning to leave, I momentarily saw a white fiery scourge rushing high from our furnace. A dull blow echoed and was repeated four times under the arches of the workshop roof, waving upward with whistling stripes of fire and dropping them heavily around...

I stood by the engine, ten steps from the stove, and saw how Vanya rushed somewhere, how Ignat crouched down, clutching his head...

Instinctively, I grabbed the handle and interrupted the current. The motor, having turned a little by inertia, stopped.

The fallen scourges of hot metal spread out in radii from the furnace and still hissed, slowly cooling, emitting their terrible power. Like victorious and free reptiles, they boldly and defiantly stretched out on the iron floor in imperious curves, leaving whitish reflections on the black distant ceiling and beams - their reflections. People crowded together in horror. A strange, unusual silence rolled through the plant from workshop to workshop. Somewhere in the distance, machines pulsed rhythmically.

They ruined you, you damned ones,” sighed someone from the crowd of workers, “ah, damned tormentors... They, damned ones, value money, so instead of oil they want water to burn. We let water into the tank - and okay...

I guessed everything. Water, having entered the furnace for liquid casting with oil, instantly turned into steam, which tore the furnace and threw out the molten metal...

Vanya was lying face down on the floor, moving his legs and arms and gnawing iron patterns with his teeth. The white scourge fell on his back and soon - rather than on the floor - cooled down on it. Vanya’s back looked like the slag that is thrown out of the furnaces of steam boilers.

The workers stood silently; It got dark outside the windows.

The spasms in Vanya’s fingers quickly died away; the legs rested motionless with their toes on the floor, sticking out their charred heels.

Old Ignat was nearby and crying, wiping his blind eyes with rags with which he had wrapped his welded hands.

Half an hour later, all the cars were started, the stoves were refueled. Obedient engines, howling, gave away their power. The straps, connected at their ends to the beginning, snaking and snapping, ran and ran...

The bowed afternoon sun indifferently rested its rays on the heavily curved ridges of the trembling machines.

There was a courtyard on the edge of the city. And in the yard there are two houses - outbuildings. A gate and a fence with supports opened onto the street. This is where I lived. I walked home through the fence. The gate and gate were always locked, and I got used to it. Even when you climb over the fence, you sit on it for a second or two, from there you can better see the field, the road and something else distant, dark, like a quiet low fog. And then you’ll collapse straight to the ground among the burdocks and thistles and be on your own.

He will come out to meet you slowly - he knows that it is me - Volchek, he will look with gentle human eyes and think something.

I, too, always looked at him for a long time, every time there was something different in him than in the morning.

One day I was walking through the yard and saw Volchek sleeping in the grass. I quietly walked over and stood. Red Volchek snored slightly and blew out purity with his nostrils on the ground. The priest's dog was crawling through his fur.

It was a quiet, dim morning all around. The sun rose in a warm fog, which dissipated and dissipated and shrank into clouds in the blue heights.

A steam locomotive howled in the distance near a locked signal and church bells rang. The burrs stood thin and straight, there was no wind, noise, or children.

Volchek woke up and did not move, but lay as he was with his eyes open, looking into the dark dampness under the burdocks.

I leaned over and became quiet. Volchek must not have known that he was a dog. He lived and thought like all people, and this life both pleased and depressed him. He, like me, could not understand anything and could not take a break from thought and life. In the dream there was life too, only it was all writhing, twisting, frightening and was lighter, more beautiful and more elusive on the black wall of darkness and mystery.

In front, in front of him and in front of me, everything is rejoicing and glowing, but behind me there is blackness that does not pass, and in dreams it is more visible, but during the day it is further away and you forget about it.

The top was oppressed by the dream he had seen. In it he also saw these burdocks and damp darkness along the roots, but there they were both like this and not like that. And so he looked again and could not understand anything.

There was also a dog, Chaika, in the yard. And when there were dog weddings, the dogs went crazy, chasing Chaika, only Volchek was the same as always, and did not squabble over Chaika.

The owner thought he was sick and gave him more bones and cabbage soup after dinner. But Volchek was a giant and completely healthy.

He didn’t grab strangers’ kids who came to play in the yard by the ardor, but beat them to the ground with his tail and looked at them with respect and meekness.

I didn’t consider Volchok to be a dog, and that’s why he loved me, just as my mother loves me.

I, too, did not know or understand anything, and in my dreams I saw a quiet, pale vision of life. Vague clouds fluttered in the sky, and the wind bent whole oak trees like twigs, and I stood in some garden and did not hear the wind rustling, and was immediately surprised and realized that it was a dream, and woke up.

In ancient times, an old man and an old woman lived in the same village, and they had an only son, Abzalil. The old man and the old woman were very poor. They had no cattle or other wealth. Soon the old people died. Little Abzalil was left alone. All he got from his father was an armful of bast.

One day Abzalil took an armful of bast and went to a large lake. He plunged an armful of bast into the lake, wet it, made a washcloth and began to twist it: he wanted to twist a long rope. While he was twisting it, the owner of the lake came out of the water and asked:

What are you doing, idiot?

Abzalil replied:

But I’ll finish twisting the rope and drag the lake to my home.

The owner of the lake got scared and said:

Leave it alone, fuck it! Don't touch the lake. I'll give you everything you want.

Abzalil thought. What should he ask from the mighty owner of water? And he decided to ask for what he had long wanted. But he wanted to get a good horse. And this place was famous for its good horses.

Give me the best horse, then I’ll leave the lake where it is,” said Abzalil.

No, go ahead! I can't give you a horse. The horse will leave - I will have no glory, - said the owner of the lake.

As you wish, it's your business. “And I will drag away the lake,” Abzalil said and continued to twist the rope.

The owner of the lake became thoughtful. He thought a little and said to Abzalil:

Eh, hey, if you’re such a hero and can steal my lake, let’s compete! If you win, I will grant your wish. We will run a race around the lake. If you overtake me, the victory is yours!

“Okay,” said Abzalil. - Only I have a younger brother in the cradle: if you overtake him, then I will compete with you.

Where is your little brother? - asked the owner of the lake.

My younger brother is sleeping in the bushes, go there, rustle some brushwood, and he’ll immediately run,” said Abzalil.

The owner of the lake went into the bushes, rustled some brushwood, and a hare ran out. The owner of the lake rushed to run after him, but could not catch up with him.

The owner of the lake approached Abzalil and said:

Well, hey, let's compete up to three times! Now we will fight.

Abzalil agreed. He said:

I have a grandfather who is eighty years old. If you knock him down, the lake will be yours. My grandfather is lying in a talnik. Go hit him with a stick, then he will fight you.

The owner of the lake went to the talnik and hit the sleeping grandfather with a stick. And it was a bear. An angry bear jumped up, grabbed the owner of the lake with its powerful paws and immediately knocked him down.

The owner of the lake barely escaped the bear's clutches. He ran to Abzalil and said:

Your grandfather is strong! And I won’t even fight with you!

After this, the owner of the lake said to Abzalil:

I have a sixty-foot piebald mare. Let's carry her around the lake on our shoulders.

“You carry it first, and then I’ll try,” Abzalil said.

The owner of the lake lifted a sixty-foot pinto mare onto his shoulders and carried her around the lake. Then he said to Abzalil:

Well, yeah, now you can fence it.

Abzalil dropped the rope, walked up to the huge mare and said to the owner of the lake:

I see you're not that strong. You lift her onto your shoulders, and I’ll carry her between my legs.

Abzalil mounted his horse and galloped around the lake.

The owner of the lake sees that now he will have to fulfill his promise. He brought the best horse and gave it to Abzalil. The horse was a good one: savage, playful, restive, with hard hooves, shaggy bangs and a short mane. His pasterns were high, his thighs were like those of a hare, his chest was like that of a kite, his croup was narrow, his withers were high, his spine was like that of a pike, his ears were sharp, his eyes were copper, his cheeks were sunken, his chin was pointed.

Abzalil mounted the handsome Savras horse and galloped home.

Since then, they say, there are good horses in Abzalilovo, and all the horsemen there are brave fellows.

WHO IS STRONGER

Once upon a time there was an old man and an old woman, and they had a daughter. When the daughter grew up, the old man and the old woman began to think: what kind of groom should she find?

“I’ll give her in marriage to the most powerful man in the world,” said the old man.

And so, to find the strongest, the old man set off on a journey. He somehow had to walk on the ice. The ice was slippery, the old man slipped and fell. The old man got angry and said:

Eh, ice, you seem to be very strong! Otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to knock me down so quickly. Be my daughter's fiance!

Ice says in response:

If I were strong, I wouldn't melt in the sun. Then the old man went to the sun and said:

O sun! You make the ice melt. Therefore, you are stronger than him - be my daughter’s fiancé!

The sun answers:

If I were strong, the cloud could not cover me. Then the old man went to the cloud.

Cloud! Cloud! You block even the sun, be my daughter's fiancé!

Cloud answers:

If I were strong, the rain wouldn't pierce me through. The old man went to the rain and said:

Oh rain! You are obviously very strong, you can even break through a cloud. Be my daughter's fiance!

Rain says in response:

If I were strong, the earth would not drink me dry. Then the old man sank to the ground and addressed her:

O earth! You are the strongest: you even drink the rain down to the drop. Be my daughter's fiance!

And the earth says:

If I were strong, the grass wouldn't get through me. Then the old man went to the grass and said to her:

Grass! You make your way even through the ground, which means you are very strong. Be my daughter's fiance!

The grass answers:

If I had been strong, the bull would not have eaten me. The old man went to the bull:

Hey, bull, you are, after all, very strong - you even eat grass. Be my daughter's fiance!

The bull answers:

If I were strong, the knife would not stab me. The old man went to the knife:

Knife! You even stab a bull. This means you are the strongest. Be my daughter's fiance!

The knife says in response:

If I were strong, people wouldn’t twist me the way they wanted. No, I'm not strong.

The man, it turns out, is stronger than everyone else,” the old man said then and married his daughter to the man who was stronger than everyone else.

HUNTER YULDIBAI

“The one who separates from people will be torn to pieces by a bear, the one who lags behind will be eaten by a wolf,” says an old Bashkir proverb. “When you go after a wild animal, you need to go in harmony with each other, be friendly and help your comrade,” - this is what old hunters in the Urals say.

Yuldybai’s comrades were not like that, which is why the young hunter almost died. Yuldybai was the son of an old, experienced Ural hunter Yankhara. The owner of the forest - a clubfooted bear, a lover of other people's calves - a sharp-toothed, thick-tailed wolf, a lover of ducks and chickens - a cunning fox, a long-eared cowardly hare - all of them were like obedient rams in the hands of the old hunter Yankhara.

Yankhary lived on the edge of a small village with his wife; they had an only son, whose name was Yuldybai.

From an early age, Yuldybai went hunting with his father. No matter how much they hunted, the young warrior never got tired. No matter what animal they met, Yuldybai was not a coward, but boldly helped his father.

“You are a faithful and reliable comrade,” old Yankhary told his son, and this made the young hunter Yuldybai very happy.

But Yuldybai did not have to hunt with his father for long. An old hunter died. Yuldybai was left alone with his mother. They lived poorly.

Young Yuldybai took his father’s quiver and arrow and began to go hunting alone. This is how he fed himself and his mother.

One day, two of Yuldybai’s peers asked to go hunting with him. Yuldybai agreed, and the three of them went into the forest. It was summer. The hunters found themselves in a raspberry patch. Just as red beads decorate a girl’s neck, so raspberries adorned the forest edge. Not far from the hunters, near an old elm tree, someone was walking heavily. It was a bear. The bear growled in a terrible voice at the sight of the hunters.

Take out your daggers, all as one, let's attack the clubfoot! - Yuldybai said to his comrades.

He pulled out a dagger and, like an arrow shot from a bow, rushed at the bear. And Yuldybai’s companions became afraid and ran back without looking back. They ran home and told Yuldybai’s mother that her son had been torn to pieces by a bear.

This is not what friends in trouble do! They left my son to be torn to pieces by a bear, and they themselves ran away like hares! - Yuldybai’s mother shouted.

She took her husband's old sword and said:

Where is my son's body? Come along, show me! If you are a coward in front of me, then I will not rush at the bear, but at you!

They went to where Yuldybai stayed with the bear. We went through a raspberry patch. They quietly approached a huge old lonely elm tree.

They heard a weak, inarticulate groan and heavy sighs.

A dying bear lay under a large tree. A deeply embedded dagger stuck into his chest. A bloody Yuldybai lay near the bear. He was unconscious. The three of them skinned the bear and wrapped the weakened Yuldybai in it; They smeared his wounds with bear fat and carried him home in their arms.