Читать книгу Ossetian fairy tales in English онлайн

– “Drop the dead man!” – he said to him. “You'll miss the girl!”

The sorceress's son was doubtful: perhaps it was true. But still he did not leave the boy.

When the sorceress's son was carrying the boy across the sixth river, Sirdon, taking on a different appearance, again overtook him and said:

– “What a madman you are, good man! You keep carrying a dead man! The girl will obviously go to one of the Nart people, and you will be left with nothing!”

This time the sorceress's son believed Sirdon and said to himself:

– “Indeed, if it came to that, where am I carrying this dead man? And I'm also losing a girl!”

He put the dead man on the ground and turned back to the tower.

Then the sorceress's son guessed:

– “It's all Sirdon's fault! And I have ruined the boy and achieved nothing!”

He came back, stood over the dead man and thought: “What else should I do? Take him to his mother? But what shall I tell her?”

Suddenly he remembered:

– “We have a felt whip, let me try it out! He came back and told his mother what had happened.”

– “I've come back for the felt whip”, – he said to his mother. “Will she be able to help the boy or not?”

His mother said to him:

– “You must try it, take it with you!”

The sorceress's son took the felt whip with him and hurried back to the place where he had left the dead man. He arrived there, struck the dead man several times with the felt whip and said:

– “May God turn you into what you were before!”

The boy raised himself up and said:

– “Oof, oof, how long I slept!”

The sorceress's son told him how it was, what had happened to him. The boy said to the sorceress's son:

– “If so, carry me across two more rivers, otherwise my case will be bad.”

The sorceress's son took the boy and carried him across two more rivers.

In the meantime, Sirdon tells the Narts:

– “I made him put the boy on the ground, and now, if it pleases the God, the girl will be ours.”

The Narts rejoiced and were happy.

Then the son of the sorceress appeared with the boy and asked the Narts: