татарстан - KAMYR BATYR.

KAMYR BATYR.

Very, very Ions ago there lived an old married couple. They had no children and that made them very sad.
Once they decided to make a boy out of dough and did so. After that the old woman went out to milk their cow and the old man started chopping wood in the yard. When they came back into the house they gasped : the dough-boy was playing with kids on the floor.
They called the boy Kamyr - Batyr. He was shooting up like a beanstalk. The old man made him a kind of smooth wooden bat. The boy leaned on it and it broke into two parts. Then the old man went to the black-smith who made an iron bat for the little boy. Kamyr took the iron bat and ran out into the street to play with other boys.
On the first day he broke one boy's leg, on the second — another boy's back. Then the villagers gathered and said to the old couple:
«Your boy does not behave like a child at all. He has injured our children. Do what you like but Kamyr should leave the village immedi-ately.» And the boy left the village and went roaming about the world.
He walked day and night. A month passed, then a year but he had not gone very far from his house. Once he got into a thick forest. There he met a man whose legs were tied. Kamyr asked the man:
«Why have you tied your legs?»
«To slow down my speed. If I don't tie them, I'll be faster than a bird,» he explained.
Kamyr took him along and they went on together. On their way they met a man with one of his nostrils stopped.
«Why have you stopped one of your nostrils?»
«If I open both nostrils, there will be a terrible storm,» said the man. «Even with one nostril open I can turn a windmill for five days running,» he added.
Kamyr asked him to join their company. Some time later they me-t a very old man with a white beard. He was wearing his hat on one side.
«Why are you wearing your hat on one side?» Kamyr asked him.
«If I put it on in a regular manner, a blizzard will start. It will bury everybody under the snow. And if I wear my hat very low, the earth will be covered with a cake of ice two meters thick.»
Kamyr took the old man into their company too. On their way they met one more man who was aiming his bow...
«What are you aiming your bow at?» Kamyr asked him.
«Can you see a fly sitting on the lowest branch of a thick tree growing on a high hill at a 60 kilometer's distance from here? I want to knock out its left eye,» replied the man.
Kamyr asked the archer to join them. They kept walking and suddenly saw a big fellow with a beard who was busy doing something. Kamyr asked him-.
«What are you busy with?»
«I am hiding my hands in the ground for if I strike with my left hand, there will be a mountain here, with my right hand — a mountain there,» replied the bearded one.
Kamyr took him along too. Some time later they came to a landowner and Kamyr asked him to give them his daughter. The landowner turned out to be very stubborn and offered resistance. He said:
«My daughter's standing is as high as that of a padishah's daughter, and she is too good for you. However, I am a kind man. If you can catch up with my fast runner, I'll let you marry my daughter.»
The landowner's fast runner and the man with tied less raced each other. The latter jumped and immediately covered sixty kilometers in one jump. He decided to have a nap while waitins for the fast runner to catch up with him. He lay down on a hill and fell asleep. The landowner's fast runner was already returnins while the man with tied less was still sleepins.
Kamyr was distressed. «The fast runner seems to be winnins.» And he turned to the archer. «Do me a favour and aim your arrow at him.»
The archer aimed and his arrow hit the fast runner's right lobe. The tied-legsed man woke up, jumped forward and was in the startins place ahead of the fast runner.
The landowner tried all kinds of tricks. He manased to lure the company into his bath-house made of cast-iron and lock them there. His servants put chopped wood round the bath-house and set fire to it. The landowner wanted to roast the company alive. When they began to feel heat, Kamyr put the old man's hat straisht on his head, and a blizzard started blinding all of them. Then he moved the hat lower on the man's ears, and at once it was freezins. The walls of the bath-house were covered with a thick layer of ice.
The next day the landowner opened the bath-house and was taken aback. The company were alive and sat with their teeth tattering. Kamyr said to the landowner:
«Don't play tricks on me. What are we going to do: wrestle of have a fist fight?»
«We shall do both. None of my daughters will marry you. Take one by force if you are strong enough,» suggested the landowner.
Then they started a fight. A real slaughter it was. They used so much force that the ground under their feet cracked and the surface was all distorted. They fight day and night, beat each other morning and evening. Kamyr's friend who stopped one nostril was a very deft fighter. When he breathed through the open nostril, the landowner's twenty servant went upside down. When the bearded one struck with his left hand, there emerged a mountain on his left. When he struck with his right hand, there appeared a mountain on his right burying the landowner's thirty servants under it. When Kamyr raised his iron bat, he immediately defeated forty servants.
The landowner could not stand such beating and let his daughter marry Kamyr. And there was a great feast!