Kulak

(a fairytale of kazakh people)

Once upon a time, there was a hunter. One day the hunter's wife asked him to find the lion's ear.

For hunting, the hunter went to the forest. He spent several days in the forest, cutting off the ears of lions. So he returned home with a bag of ears. He cooked and ate the ears that his wife brought to him.

One day the hunter's wife gave birth to forty ears. Seeing this, the hunter and his wife cried so much. One day the two of them decided to consult and destroy the ears without showing them to the public. With that, the hunter picked up the forty ears and threw them to the dog, where one ear was hidden suddenly. One day the hunter and his wife were talking at the fire.

— It would be great if we had children, we would spend them on the fuel and water, here and there, — says the hunter's wife.

Then the closed ear said:

— “Auntie, I'm here, if you send me to work for the fuel and water”, — he says.

Then, the hunter and his wife were amazed.

- Who is here, who is this? — they look around, no one notices them. Then the hunter's wife:

— “Who are you?” — she asks.

— I am your child. I am Kulak; — he says.

— Where are you?

— I am closed.

They take Kulak off. Then he sent her to pick the grass.

When Kulak picked up the weeds and returned home, it started to rain. Kulak is attached to the large leaf. He ate a camel grazing on the leaf. It swallows Kulak along with the leaf. He clings to the camel's neck and drives it home. The hunter and his wife slaughtered the camel and examined its intestines, but could not find Kulak. Here the camel's trunk is cut off and thrown into the field.

The wolf comes and eats the camel's head at night. When he tells the sheep to run, Kulak shouts inside.

- Cattleman, cattleman! The wolf is about to kill your sheep! — he says.

The cattleman adds a dog and kills the wolf. In this way, the wolf will not be able to graze the sheep for many days. He is very hungry, tired and dying. Then the wolf went to the fox:

- “I have something inside me. If I try to kill a sheep, it screams. I'm going to starve. How can I get rid of it?” — he says.

The fox replied to him:

- “Run and sweat, put your tail on the ice and you will get rid of the trouble inside”, he said.

The wolf does what the fox says. He runs to the sky, sweats profusely, and sits on the ice. The wolf's fur clings to the ice and freezes to death.

The hunter sees how the wolf is dying. He immediately kills the wolf and begins to skin it. When the hunter kills the wolf, two horsemen passed by there. He listened and got into the saddlebag of one of them and sat down. The passengers arrived to the village in the evening. They came to the house as a guest and talked to the host:

— We are guests! — they say.

— How many of you? — says the owner of the house.

— We are together, — say the passengers.

- No, the three of us, including me, — says Kulak.

- “If there were three of you, the house would be cramped”, — says the mistress of the house.

The passengers will be amazed.

— Who is this third one, where? — he looks around. Nobody is visible. —Unfortunately, now remember, — they say. So they go to another house and talk.

— We are the guests.

— How many of you?

— The three of us.

- Well, get down, — says the hostess. The guests are coming. Kulak comes along with them. But no one sees him.

“Where is the third guest?” — asked the host, and the passengers wondered, “Where is the three of us?” He is very stingy and does not slaughter animals for his guests, but only cooks porridge. This makes Kulak very angry. A wolf attacks the rich man's sheep at night. Kulak locks all the doors in the barn. The wolf eats all the rich man's sheep. The next day, the guests will be fed with meat from the whole village.