Читать книгу Ossetian fairy tales in English онлайн

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.