K38f4. Fire-breathing monster, B11.2.11, B19.1, B742.3, B742.4. .12.14.-.17.21.-.23.25.-.33.37.40.44.-.46.61.

Flames burst from the mouth and/or nostrils of the monstrous, hostile character; its breath is fire.

Mosi [vulture], Ancient Egypt [serpent], Portuguese [dragon], Italians (Piedmont) [griffin], Ladins [serpent], English [dragon; serpent], Scots [monster], Irish [dog], French (Upper Brittany, Upper Marne, Franche-Comté, Ain, Provence) [lioness, giant, monster, dragon, unicorn], Bretons [seven-headed serpents], Dutch [dragon], Frisians [dragon], Germans (Rhineland, Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Brandenburg) [dragon], Germans (Harz) [toad], Akkad [lion-headed bird Anzu], Old Testament [Leviathan], New Testament [lion-headed horses], Arabic written tradition [serpent; ifrit; sea ​​crone], Tibetans [frog], Thais [Yak monster], Ancient India [snakes; mare], Nepalese [snake], samal [dragon], Ancient China [nine-headed beast], Ancient Greece [Typhon, Chimera, bulls, horses], Greeks [horse; snake/worm], Serbs [snake], (Croats [snake]), Romanians [scorpion; snake; witch], Moldovans [dragon], Hungarians [dragon], Transylvanian Saxons [dragons], Gagauz [five-headed Goguzhu-Moguzhu], Bulgarians [snake], Macedonians [snake], Serbs [snake], Slovaks [snake], Poles [dragon], Russians (Arkhangelsk) [snake], Russians (Pechora) [six-headed Idolische Poganoe], Pskov [snake], Moscow (?) [snake], Voronezh [snake]), Ukrainians (Transcarpathia, Galicia, Kiev {Cherkassy}, Poltava, Yekaterinoslav) [snake], Crimean Tatars [bull], Ossetians [mares; giant-uaig], Ingush [dragon, eagle, horse], Chechens [dragon], Dargins [dragons], Laks [azhdakha], Georgians [devi], Turks [monster], Tajiks [dragon], Uzbeks [dragon], Turkmens [ajdaha], Dards (kho) [demons], Finns (Kalevala) [horse], Scandinavians [Fenrir wolf], Norwegians [horse], Latvians [snake], Lutsi [king], Komi [snake], Mordvins [snake], Kazan Tatars [ajdaha], Bashkirs [sorceress], Dungan [monster], (Northern Selkup [iron duck]), Manchu [dragon; three-headed lynx], Asian Eskimo [whale], Inupiat of Northern Alaska [whale], Western Ojibwa [snakes], Delawares [toad], Pawnee [skull], Kandoshi [anthropomorphic character].

West Africa. Mossi [a woman had a son, Raôgo, and a daughter, Poco; she fell from a tree and was killed; a hawk brought them to its nest, raised them; gave them an iron club: if a hawk flies from the east, it was not me, kill it; one day, by chance, one flew from the east, R. killed him; the children came to the chief, who adopted them, loved them very much; R. set fire to the palace, the chief was in despair, thinking that the children were dead; sat down to cry under the tree they had climbed; R. relieved himself on it; the chief understood everything, ordered the tree to be cut down; when it was ready to fall, the salamander said ko-ko-ko, the tree became whole; R. cut off the salamander's head, ate the salamander, gave the head to P. to put in his cheek; the tree was cut down, the children were killed, the chief ordered the bodies to be abandoned without burial; but they came to life and went away; they saw people – they had gathered so that a huge fire-breathing kite would eat them all at once, and not one by one; R. ordered them to disperse, killed the kite with an iron club; the people asked what R. wanted as a reward, he answered that the sky; the blacksmiths built a ladder, R. and P. climbed it, became thunderers; when thunder is heard, P. asks his brother to be more careful, but he answers that he has neither children nor a wife on earth and strikes with all his might]: Sissao 2010, No. 28: 75-78.

North Africa. Ancient Egypt (New Kingdom) [in the Book of Gates, the fire-breathing serpent "Fiery One" punishes the damned; the fire-breathing serpent guards the mummies; in the Book of Amduat (New Kingdom), cobras, the uraeus, are mentioned that shoot fires from their mouths ; they do this for Osiris passing by; after his departure, the uraeus swallow their fires; the spirits of Akh and the dead cannot pass near these serpents; the inscription near the upright serpent from the Book of Caverns: "With the fire of the flame on the tip of his mouth has he filled the cavern"]: Darnell, Manassa Darnell 2018: 32, 217, 252, 255, 308, 316, 381, fig. 3.102, 4.72, 4.84.

Southern Europe. Portuguese [a princess is given to a dragon to be eaten – a fire-breathing , seven-headed dragon; when the hero cuts off the heads, they grow back overnight; having killed the dragon, the hero cuts out the tongues and shows them, exposing the impostor]: Cardigos, Correia 2015(1), no. 300: 129; Italians (Piedmont: Montferrat) [the king began to go blind; an old man came: a feather from the head of a fire-breathing griffin is needed ; the two eldest sons came to the Meadow of Love under the mountain where the griffin lived; there was a hermit's hut in the meadow; both princes went and died; the younger brother set off; the hermit gave him a 7-bladed sword, he cut off the 7 heads of the griffin, cut off and hid the 7 tongues, took the feather; found the brothers' horses and their bodies, revived them with a magic wand given to him by the hermit; when he fell asleep, his brothers killed him and brought the feather to their father; the father began to look for the body, found it, took it to the castle, where his son's body turned into a reed; the shepherd made a pipe, and it began to sing: O shepherd, dear shepherd, I was killed in the meadow of Love for getting the griffin's feather (O pastore, o bel pastore, / I've got the little bird's feather in my mouth. / Nel prato dell'Amore, per la ragione / Ch'ho pigliato la penna del grifone); the old man advised the shepherd to go to the king of Babylon, who would reward him; the king-father touched the reed with the griffin's feather and the youngest son came to life; the king banished the older sons]: Comparetti 1875, no. 28: 112-114; Ladins [in the forest a poor knight gave a gold coin to an old man; he gave him a fox for this, which immediately jumped out of the forest; the knight rode up to a cave, in it was a huge fire-breathing serpent ; the knight threw a spear, it split; the fox distracted the serpent's attention, the knight managed to grab his sword and cut the serpent down; the fox led the knight deep into the cave, where the princess and 99 other girls were; the knight married the princess; if he didn't die, then he's still alive]: Decurtins 2002, no. 24: 78-79.

Western Europe. English [Lord Robert's son catches a snake, his sister calls him home, on the way he throws the snake into a well; soon leaves with his father for war, returns after 5 years; the snake grows in the well, crawls back into the river, becomes a fire-breathing dragon ; R. chops it up, but the pieces grow together; on the advice of a fortune teller, the young man chops the snake in the river, the water carries away the pieces, the snake dies]: Kharitonov 2008: 253-257 (=Dennys 1876: 114); English [William Blake's watercolour Moses Raising the Brazen Serpent depicting two flying fire-breathing snakes]: Wick 1957; Scots [Scottish Antiquary 1892, VII: 117; a man named Thorodale in the Orkney Islands, he has a wife; the dark Fin-man took her away in his boat; T. hears her song: you will not find me, but you will have revenge if you turn to the healer on the island of Hoy; the healer explained how to see Hilda-land; T. crawled around Odin's stone for 9 months; saw land where there was none before; told his three sons to take salt with them, they sailed in a boat; a whale is ready to swallow it, they threw salt into its mouth; two sirens sing, but T. tells his sons not to listen; a fanged fire-breathing monster; T. threw salt in his eyes; in his place there was a Fin-man with a sword in his hands; he wanted to hit, but T. threw a cross of goose-grass in his face, he screamed and ran away; T. told his sons to scatter salt around the island; The Fin-folk leaped into the sea in terror; each youth scattered salt around the perimeter of the island three times, but one sprinkled too much in one place, and there was not enough salt, and the ninth circle remained open; therefore rats, mice, and cats do not live on this island {not entirely clear}]: Montgomerie, Montgomerie 2023: 132-134; Irish [MacDougall (ed.): 17-; while hunting, a tall lad approached Finn; he hired himself out to serve for a year and a day; payment: after that, to go with him to a feast at the King of Lochlan; when it was time to go, Finn's jester advised him to take Bran's chain (this is the brother of Grey Dog); at the King of Lochlan's, they discussed how to execute Finn; they decided to send him to the valley where Grey Dog was; to be torn apart by the dog was the greatest disgrace; Grey Dog came towards him, the flames from his mouth scorched everything around; Finn rattled the chain; the dog immediately calmed down and licked the burns on Finn's body, they immediately healed; the elderly couple see someone leading Grey Dog; the old man: only Finn is capable of this; Finn lives with the old people; a year and a day later the Fenians arrive, greet their king; Grey Dog and Bran are also happy to meet each other]: Montgomerie, Montgomerie 2023: 165-168; Bretons [a young man named Tag has 12 mares; 11 gave birth to normal foals, and the last one was blue; he asks his owner to slaughter the others so that he can suck the milk of 12 mares; becomes a heroic horse; asks to sell his property and buy a silver currycomb; when the owner began to scrape the horse with it, the blue wool came off, the horse turned white; orders to sell the rest and buy luxurious harness; go to the king of Brittany; T. is exalted; the horse heals 12 royal stallions and as a result becomes even stronger himself; the spy of the king of France persuades T. to send to get the Horse of Peace (Cheval du Monde); the horse orders to shoe him well and ask the king for 90 skins; T. arrives where the Horse of Peace is, puts the 90 skins on his horse; The horses are fighting: the Horse of Peace is tearing off skins, and the horse T. is gnawing pieces of flesh from his rival; the Horse of Peace has given up, T. has brought him to the king; the spy says that T. boasted of getting a golden-haired princess from a silver castle; on the advice of the horse, T. feeds the hungry wild geese; throws into the water the fish that found themselves on dry land; the queen of the geese and the fish promise to help; a silver castle on an island in the middle of a stormy lake; the geese harness themselves to a boat and carry T. to the island; the princess (even her maids are beautiful) asks permission to enter the boat; T. tells the geese to take the boat away; the princess promises to marry the king only if he brings her her castle, chest, clothes and jewelry; but the castle is under lock and key she dropped in the lake; the spy orders to send T.; the fish sends others to look for the key; The last to arrive was the bleak; it was late because its head was stuck in the ring of the key; T. brought everything; the princess: the king is too old; to rejuvenate him, dead and living water are needed; let T. bring it; the horse tells T. to kill him, climb into his belly and catch one of the two ravens that will fly in; give the second one two bottles and send him for living and dead water; a female raven is caught; but the raven returned: both springs are guarded by 7-headed snakes, they spit fire; then T. told the raven to change places with the female raven; she brought water; T. revived the horse, and he turned into a prince - the princess's brother; both returned on foot; the princess killed and revived the dog, it became young; the king wants the same, they did not revive him; T. is killed and revived by a handsome man; became the new king]: Brekilien 1999: 191-208; French (Upper Brittany) [a prince of heroic height and strength, and with him a small but brave soldier; across the river a castle, and in front of it either windmill wings or razors rise and fall; the soldier puts the prince on his back, goes around the obstacle; in the castle a woman, and up the stairs a sleeping giant; the prince stabs him three times with his sword, but the giant thinks that fleas are biting; seeing people, threatens to burn them with his breath; then wants to swallow the prince, but the soldier hits him with his magic knife, and he is cut into small pieces; {further about their adventures in America; thanks to the little soldier, the prince becomes king}]: Sébillot 1882b, no. 17: 172-179; French(Niverne, late 19th century) [a mother told her son (hereinafter his name is Jean-des-Oiseaux, Bird Jean {hereinafter simply Jean}) that there is a pond in which three girls are bathing; the one whose clothes she hides will become her wife; her father's castle is guarded by lions, tigers and other creatures; Jean bought iron shoes and went to that castle, but the shoes wore out, and he returned; he bought others, more expensive, in them he walked to the pond; the girl (her name is Fichotte) promised to be faithful to the young man; her father is the devil; Jean threw the nuts that his mother gave him to the predators; the devil orders him to kill a fire-breathing unicorn by tomorrow evening; F. teaches him to hide behind a tree; the unicorn will rush and plunge its horn into the trunk; she gave Jean a hammer: let him finish off the unicorn with it; the devil gave a wooden axe to cut down the topmost branch of the tallest tree in the forest; F. gave an iron axe; orders to chop it into pieces and climb them like a ladder, sticking them into the trunk; then collect the bones in the same order; keep the little toe; everything is done; the devil orders to bail out the pond with a basket by evening; this time F. with difficulty got out of the house in the form of a mouse; gave Jean her magic wand; with its help it is necessary to order the frogs, snakes, etc. to drink the pond; the devil orders Jean to blindfold himself and choose a bride; he felt her by the missing little finger; F. put a pea and a bean in the bed so that they would answer for Jean and for her; they answer that "no, I'm not sleeping"; J. and F. run away; the devil chases in the form of a black cloud; F. turned herself and Jean into two stones on the sides of the road, the devil returned; the wife sends again (same: a rose garden and a gardener); flies herself; it is clear to her that the seller of brooms and the broom is Jean and F., but they are already beyond the devil's power; all is well]: Drouillet 1973: 91-96; the French(Haute-Marne) [the English king was hunting in France, chased a bird, did not catch it, spent the night in a poor house; the mistress had just given birth, the king agreed to be the godson, named the boy Eugène (E.); left a letter - let the young man come with him when he turned 17; E. set out on a journey; before that, the godmother (marraine) warned that if he met a hunchback or a one-eyed person, he should return; E. returned twice, but the third time he was met by his hunchbacked classmate Adolf, E. went with him; at the inn A. stole his horse; when E. caught up with him, he made E. swear that he would say that he, A., and not E., was the king's godson; the king believed him; promised to give his godson his daughter, but she was kidnapped; all the courtiers loved E. (who was called A.), and hated A.; A. says that E. boasted of getting the giant's mule; the old man teaches: the giant has a thrush, it sings loudly, we must cross the sea when the thrush sings; the giant gave the mule on the condition that E. would return it later; A. persuades the king to tell E. to get the giant's thrush; the giant gave the thrush on the same condition; the giant's lantern (ditto); find and return the king's daughter; the old man teaches to ask the giant for help; he orders to build a ship without using iron, to take with him a mule, a thrush and a donkey, 300 virgins; along the way the giant weaves, the virgins spin; on the way there is a castle of fish, they need to crumble some bread, the fish let the ship pass; the king of the fish gave his fin to call him; then the ants - E. gave them millet, the king of the ants gave his paw; then the rats (gave bread - a strand of wool); ravens (meat - a feather); giants (E. gave a lot of bread - a hair from the king's beard); the princess in the queen's castle with silver legs, turned into a lioness breathing fire ; the lioness is glad; the queen orders to bring 300 measures of linen woven by virgins (E. gives); further tasks: 1) a garden in place of the mountain (the giants removed the mountain, the rest of the assistants laid out a garden); 2) bring living and dead water; the crows gathered, but no one knows where the water is; two old drunken soldiers appeared; the first was put in prison, but released at the request of the second - otherwise he will not bring water; they went underground, collected water; the queen sent doves to overturn the cups, but the crows drove them away; the giant teaches: first, demand that the queen return the princess to human form, then kill her by splashing dead water in her face; returning to her father, the princess asked to postpone the wedding for 8 days; said that she dropped the ring in the sea; the fish did not know where the ring was, the same two drunken soldiers got it; the princess asks for her castle, in which she lived with the queen; giants, ants and others delivered; then A. called E. to hunt, shot him, threw him into a pit; the princess saw ravens, revived E. with living water; E. showed the king his letter, married the princess; A. was burned alive]: Cosquin 1886, No. 3: 32-43; the French (Upper Brittany, 1879) [the golden-haired daughter of King Dangobert refused the sorcerer; he turned her into a scorpion and placed her in a castle hanging on chains somewhere in the north between heaven and earth; D. promises the throne and the princess to her savior; those who volunteered for this sailed on a ship, but only the woodcutter noticed something hanging in the sky; together with the sailors he climbed {it is not entirely clear how} to the gate, which was guarded by a winged snake; he threw her meat, but she did not eat it; he himself drank living water and gave the snake a barrel of intoxicating drink; having gone mad, the snake fell asleep and the woodcutter and two sailors killed it with a spear; the second gate is guarded by a lion, spewing flames from his nostrils ; they gave him meat soaked in strong alcohol, and the lion fell asleep; they began to spear him, but finished him off only on the fifth day; at the third gate, a seven-headed creature; the captain decided to cut off the last head alone, but was bitten in half; then the head was cut off; at the fourth door, a giant; one man {a woodcutter?} hid in a sack of rags; when the giant turned against the others, he shot him; in the room, on the table, a scorpion; when the one hiding in the sack touched it, the scorpion became a princess; she was taken away on a ship, and the castle was towed along; the one in the sack of rags received the hand of the princess]: Sébillot 1880, no. 25: 164-169; French (Franche-Comté) [the irresistible strength of the dragon in its tail; the dragon spews fire and poison]: Beauquier 1910: 13; French (Aisne, west of Lake Geneva) [The Thrush saw diamonds and gold jewelry from the Magpie; she explained that all this could be obtained from the underground prince; only nothing could be taken without permission; the Thrush flew there, but, seeing the treasure, began to grab; a monster appeared, breathing smoke and fire ; the Thrush escaped, but turned black from soot]: Kabakova 1998, No. 55: 72-73; French (Provence: Arles) [during famine, a peasant woman abandoned her child in the forest; a she-bear picked him up and nursed him; he grew up, hunters met him, brought him to the village; his name is Jean the Bear (JB); he was sent to school, where he beat up the teacher and students; broke down the door of the prison where he was put; went wandering; hired himself out to a blacksmith, but broke everything; made himself a huge iron club from the fragments; met and took as a companion a man who uprooted trees; threw up millstones; JM pulled out a stuck cart pulled by 12 oxen with one hand; redirected a river to put out a fire in the city; they stopped in an empty castle; they cook in turns; the dwarf ate everything twice, beat up the cook; JB himself began to beat him; he confessed that there was a passage down in the castle, three princesses were languishing below; the oak-puller wants to go down, immediately asks to pull him out; the same with the second companion; JM went down; a dragon breathing fire by the river ; ЖМ killed him with a club; in the pavilion a princess with a golden apple; in the neighboring ones - with a silver one; with a copper apple; their companions lifted them up and cut the rope; ЖМ chased the dwarf; the giant grabbed him, but he killed him with a club; he met two girls, they fed him and gave him food to take with him; he fed the old woman; she gave the key that opens everything; so ЖМ went out to earth; there his companions take as wives princesses with a golden and with a silver apple; ЖМ took the one with the golden one, and gave the princess with the copper apple to the oak-puller; the companions turned to the witch; she gave a stupefying powder, they put МЖ and his wife to sleep, put them in a bag with ants; ЖМ woke up, opened the bag with the key, and disappeared into the forest with his wife; they saw the companions who were hanged by their hair; this was done by the spirit of the Golden Apple; JM freed them and they ran away; but the spirit with the Black Beard carried off the princess of the Golden Apple and was going to cut off her head; she bit her apple, the spirit of the Golden Apple (SG) appeared and cut off the head of the spirit with the Black Beard; SG gathered all the birds: who knows where JM and his companions are? The old eagle arrived last of all; he explained that he had come from afar, where he had seen three people who were searching all the forests and caves; SG ordered the eagle to fly after them and bring them to him; after that they all returned to the city, where JM and his companions married the three princesses]: Carnoy 1885, No. 6: 23-38;; the Dutch [three princesses, a prince and all the people are bewitched in a castle; only an innocent youth can disenchant them; the youth entered: the castle is empty, there is wine on the table; as soon as he drank the wine, the glass was filled again; in the second room there is food (the same); from the sixth room there is a staircase down; there are three princesses, the youngest is more beautiful than the others; the eldest explained how to save them; you need to go to the glass mountain, on the top of which there is a dragon; he is sleeping, and a woman is taking insects out of him; you need to pluck three feathers from him, the woman will help; the young man came to the mountain, the woman hid it under the bed; when she was plucking a feather, the dragon woke up, but she calmed him down; the young man took the feather to the castle; the next day he came to the glass mountain again (the same); the third time the dragon woke up and began to spit fire, but the young man managed to escape; for three nights from 11 pm until midnight, spirits came to tear the young man to pieces; on the first night there were 12 of them, then 24, then 30; but the young man endured everything; each time the old woman (it was one of the young princesses) healed him and revived him; the middle princess explained that they must now take a bath, but the youth must not spy on them; but he looked through the keyhole; the princesses: now he must come to the pond every afternoon for 6 years and try to hit the middle of the three ducks; only in the sixth year will he be able to hit it; and so it happened; the ducks disappeared, and when he went back to the castle, the three princesses came out to meet him; the castle was disenchanted, all the people and domestic animals came to life; the youth married the middle princess and they began to reign]: Schanbach, Müller 1855, No. 2: 257-260; Friezes[after the death of her father, the daughter chose a house for herself, and the son - three sheep; he went wandering; a man offered him to exchange the sheep for dogs; the smallest one is called Bring-Food, the second - Rip-to-Tatters, the strongest - Break-Iron; having received the dogs, the guy ordered the first to bring food and she immediately brought a basket of viands; the guy met a carriage draped in black material; they are taking the princess as a sacrifice to the dragon, this happens every year, now it is her turn; the dragon came down from the mountain to meet him, burning sulfur from its mouth; the guy let Rip-to-Tatters go at him, she tore him apart and ate him, two teeth remained, the guy took them with him; he promised the princess to return in three years; the coachman announced that he had saved the princess; she persuaded her father to postpone the wedding for three years; on the wedding day, the guy showed up with three dogs; called the coachman a deceiver, thrown into prison; [Break-iron gnawed through the door; the lad sent Bring-food to the palace, the princess recognized the dog, the lad produced the dragon's teeth, married the princess, the impostor was thrown into prison; the lad sent for his sister; convinced of their master's kindness, the dogs said goodbye, became birds and flew away]: Montalve 1849: Montalve 1849: 329-338; Germans (Rhineland) [in 1303 Count Henry had a dragon depicted on his coat of arms: with silver wings and spitting out golden tongues of flame; and now they show a cave in the rock where the dragon lived, to whom people were sacrificed; then a long narrative about how Siegfried freed Florigund, who had been kidnapped by the dragon; [during the battle the dragon spit blue and red flames , but in the end Z. cut it in half]: Pröhle 1885: 187-199; Germans (Westphalia) [a young man hired himself out to a man who allowed him to read all books except one; but he read it secretly and learned magic; he came to a city in mourning; the princess lost her ring and (for this) was imprisoned in a tower; the young man turned himself into an ant, got to the princess, there became a man again, found out from the princess what the matter was, returned and received from the king an agreement to receive her if he found the ring; killed a dove that swallowed the ring; but the king now demands that he kill a seven-headed dragon that lives in a cave; on the wall is a sword, next to it is wine and an inscription: in order to lift the sword, one must drink of this wine; the young man did so; the dragon spat fire , but the young man cut off all 7 heads; received the princess]: Kuhn 1859a, no. 2: 222-223; Germans (Lower Saxony) [a shepherd's wife was looking for a cow, got lost, spent the night in a cave; a bear came there; when leaving, he blocked the exit with a stone; she gave birth to a boy, at 9 months he had already grown up, was incredibly strong; they went down to the village, people drove the bear away; the boy was christened Peter - Peter Behr ("bear", PM); he forged himself a huge iron club, went wandering; the one throwing boulders replies that he is weak compared to PB; he says that he is PB, takes him as a companion; another strongman ties and unties an iron stake with a knot (ditto); a third one uproots trees (ditto); they settled in a house in the forest, stay in turns to cook; a long-bearded dwarf asks for food, eats everything and beats the cook; when it is PB's turn, he tied him to the bed with his beard; companions arrived, everyone began to eat; The dwarf tore off his beard, ran, and hid in the well; PB ordered him to be lowered down in a basket; there is an old woman there; a castle is visible through the window; the old woman: in it is a princess kidnapped by four giants; PB killed them with his club; the princess gave her a handkerchief and a ring; another castle is visible through the window, where the sister of the first princess is, with her are 8 giants; (all the same); through the window you can see a castle where the younger sister is, she is guarded by a fire-breathing seven-headed dragon ; PB killed 4 giant guards, then a dragon, then 12 more giants sitting at a table in the hall; he cured the wounds with an ointment that the old woman gave him; the companions pulled out the princesses; the fourth time PB put a stone in his place, just in case; the companions dropped a stone from above and broke the rope; PB makes the old woman tell her how to get out; she has a dragon, but he needs to be fed in flight; he cut off the last piece from his leg; healed the wound with an old woman's ointment; the king promises a thousand ducats to anyone who brings the rings the rescued princesses had when they were kidnapped; PB hired himself out to a jeweler, drank and ate all night, and gave them the rings in the morning, as if he had made them; the princesses learned from them that their savior was nearby; then he appeared disguised as a beggar, showed the handkerchiefs; the king married him to his youngest daughter, and after his death PB inherited the throne]: Colshorn, Colshorn 1854, No. 5: 18-30; Germans (Hartz) [two brothers divided an inheritance, but then agreed that the one who was right would get everything; the younger: there is gratitude in the world; the elder: there is only ingratitude; the younger protects a girl from her fiancé, who is beating her - both begin to beat him; separates two fighting charcoal burners - the same; beats a snake from a bear - it begins to strangle him; the elder brother saves him each time, and then blinds him and goes off to collect the entire inheritance; at night the blind man climbed a tree; a lion, a bear and a fox came; in the morning the bear will have dew, which restores his sight; lion: in the city a rich man has fallen ill through the fault of his wife; there is a crust of bread behind the cupboard; it must be boiled and given to him to eat - he will recover; fox: the king's well has dried up; there is a toad sitting there; it must be killed, the water will flow from the spring again; in the morning the man washed his eyes, collected precious moisture, cured many blind people in the city and they gave him gifts; he cured a rich man; took a dagger from the king and went down into a well; there a toad spat fire , but he pierced it with the dagger; the king gave him the crown; he arranged a shelter for poor wanderers; one day the elder brother was among them; he went to that tree; the bear hit the fox, believing that it was she who gave away the secrets; but the fox, falling, saw him hiding in the tree; the lion and the bear tore him apart]: Pröle 1854, No. 1: 1-8; Germans (Brandenburg {in dialect, but the general meaning is clear}) [the elder brother inherited the farm, and the younger Hans 5 sheep; in the forest a hunter gave a gun and a violin for them, to which everyone danced; Hans began to play, and the Jew danced until he gave the money; Hans came to the old woman; she is the mother of robbers; only he who drinks strong water can lift the sword; the robbers came, Hans played until they fell, drank the water, took off his sword, cut off their heads and left; along the way he did not kill, but took as assistants a hare, a fox, a wolf, a bear; {something happened, but they revived everyone; the animals helped}; there is mourning in the city: the 12-headed dragon demands the princess; Hans went out with the sword, which he took from the robbers; the dragon spews flames from its mouth; Hans chopped off all the heads, cut out their tongues; the coachman cut off Hans's head and ascribed the feat to himself; the animals put the head back - first backwards; then correctly, they grew everything together and revived with living water; Hans came to the coachman's wedding with the princess, stuck out their tongues; married the princess; the coachman was torn to pieces by four oxen]: Engelien, Lahn 1868, no. 14: 155-162.

Western Asia. Akkad (Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh) [The fifth dream of Gilgamesh on the way to Humbaba is best preserved on the Old Babylonian tablet from Nippur (OB Nippur). Gilgamesh sees the bird Anzu in the sky, which, like a cloud, hovers above the heroes. Her face is strange, “ her mouth is fire , her breath is death.” A man of unusual appearance also appears in the dream, who takes Gilgamesh by the hand and throws the bird Anzu down at his feet; (Shamash?)]: ; Old Testament [about Leviathan: “When he sneezes, lightning flashes, his eyes are like the eyes of Dawn; flames burst from his mouth, fiery sparks scatter; smoke rises from his nostrils, as from a cauldron boiling over a hearth; his breath ignites the coals, flames burst from his mouth!” (Modern Russian translation)]: Job 41: 10-13; New Testament [“This is what I saw in the vision of the horses and their riders: their armor was fiery red, blue, and yellow like sulfur; the heads of the horses were like the muzzles of lions; out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and sulfur. From these three plagues perished a third of all men—from the fire, from the smoke, and from the sulfur that came out of their mouths” (Modern Russian translation)]: Rev. 9: 17-18; Arabic written tradition (epic poetry of the time of Muhammad) [“the horses fled when they saw the dragon {spewing} flame”], 169 [“we found ourselves before a huge ifrit, throwing {streams} of fiery sparks”]: Bellino 2006: 168; Arabic written tradition (late 13th – early 14th century) [the king of Khorasan has a hundred concubines but no children; a man brings a new one: he bought her at sea from the king of Qumr; she is silent for a year and then says that she is pregnant; she is the sea maiden Julanara (J); quarreled with her brother and went ashore; could have returned, but she liked the king; summoned her parents, sisters and brother by magic; J.'s mother wants her daughter to return, tongues of flame erupt from her eyes and mouth ; but J. calmed her down; gave birth to a son named Badr; her brother Salih and his parents often carry him out to sea; the king is afraid, Salih promises not to do this anymore; B. grew up and the king handed over the throne to him; Salih says that there is no one more beautiful than Jauhara, but her father Samandal is a stupid tyrant; B. hears; goes in search; Salih gave him a ring that allows him to live under water, went with it; Samandal refused; Salih defeated his army and put him in chains, but Jauhara escaped and turned B. into a bird with red legs and beak; ordered a slave to nail the bird to death on some island; but she released it on another, where there is much fruit; he was caught in a hunter's snare; he sold the bird to a courtier, and the courtier sold it to the king; the dove eats meat and drinks wine; The queen realized that it was B., whom Jauhara had bewitched; she disenchanted him; he sailed home on a ship, the ship sank, B. swam to the island; an old man took him in; he explained that the island was ruled by Queen Lab; she takes a man for 40 days and turns him into an animal, there are many of them; Lab promised the old man that she would not do this to B.; the old man teaches how to destroy Lab's spell and turn her into an animal; B. turned her into a mule and rode on it to another city; they forced him to sell the mule, the old woman gave a lot of money; they turned into clay circles; the old woman was Lab's mother and disenchanted her; she turned B. into an ugly bird; the slave girl flew to J., told him everything; Ld. and Salih came with an army, disenchanted B., killed Lab, her mother and all their people; B. marries that slave girl, and then the princess Djauhar]: Osmanov, Yusupov 1962: 197-223.

Tibet - Northeast India. Tibetans [A little frog {or rather a large male frog} asks a widow to make him her son; at the market he jumps on the back of a mule carrying cheese, brings the mule to his foster mother; says he will go and fetch a wife; finds a suitable girl; when her father, then her mother, try to refuse him, he "coughs" (the house collapses from thunderclaps), cries (everything is flooded), laughs (he spits fire , the house burns); each time, having received consent, he restores everything to its original state; brings his wife to the house of his foster mother; she says that all the people are going to the races; when the women leave, the Frog takes off his frog skin, turns into a handsome man, wins the races; each time the wife suspects something; on the fifth day he returns early, burns the skin; The frog remains in human form, lives with his wife]: Hyde-Chambers, Hyde-Chambers 1981: 169-186; (cf. Tibetans (Amdo) [a female rabbit and a yeti woman live together, dig wild tubers, each has a son; the yeti takes the largest tubers from the female rabbit; she does not want to give up the last one, the yeti kills her; the rabbits tell the little rabbit about this; he offers the yeti's son to lift the millstone, licks the flour under it; the yeti's son also wants flour, the little rabbit crushes him to death with the millstone; runs away; the shepherd hides him among the sheep, but at the sight of the fire-breathing yeti tells him to run further; also a herdsman; a wild yak hides in his nostril, pierces the yeti to death with his horns; the rabbit does not want to come out, the yak blows his nose at him; the rabbit promises to praise the yak; calls his nostril golden; hiding in a hole, he screams that he has shit there; the yak tries butt a hole, dislocated his back and died; a baby rabbit stops at a married couple's place; they ask how he will be able to herd their cattle, take care of their child; he first gives absurd answers, then says how he will caress the child; he boiled it, hung up its intestines, puts a pigeon in his bed; the parents returned and ate their child; the rabbit comes every day and cries about it; they smeared a stone with glue, the baby rabbit stuck; he asks if they want to kill him in a kind way (smash his head with a stone) or in an evil way: make a fire around, pour dust in his ears, hit him on both sides with sticks; they want to do it in an evil way; dust got into the couple's eyes, they killed each other with sticks, the glue melted from the fire, the baby rabbit ran away; but the tail came off, that's why rabbits have short tails]: Kajihama 2004, No. 21: 82-88.

Burma - Indochina. Thais [the king and queen cannot decide on a girl suitable as a bride for their son, a prince named Suthon; the seven daughters of the king of birds fly to a pond to bathe; the hunter Boom saw the feathers removed by the maidens, asked the naga to lend him a noose, caught the youngest maiden named Manora and presented her to the king for the prince; after the wedding, M. asks S. not to leave her alone; but he had to go to war; leaving, S. asked a friend to protect M.; but a courtier overheard; explained to the king his dream as a sign of disaster; only M.'s execution can avert it; she asked the queen to help; the queen gave her wings and M. flew away; gave the hermit a ruby ​​ring: let her give it to S. when he goes to look for her; S. returned, came to the hermit; he gave the ring and also a monkey; during any meal, she must be the first to taste everything; endowed with the ability to understand the language of birds and animals; S. met the monster Yak; flames spewed from his mouth , smoke from his nostrils to the sky; S. uttered spells and Yak knelt down; a fiery river; S. uttered spells, the boa constrictor carried him across the river; there is a huge tree ahead; S. climbed up; he hears a conversation between two birds with gold and silver feathers; tomorrow the birds will fly to the festival of the king of birds in honor of his youngest daughter; S. hid under the feathers of one; the maids came for water, S. threw the ring into the jug of one of them; M. recognized the ruby ​​ring; M.'s father proposes tests; lift a stone bench; S. turned to the gods in his thoughts and lifted it; recognize M. among 7 girls; the same (a butterfly sat on M.); shoot through boards made of palm, fig, copper, iron - all 7 each and 7 more carts with sand; the prince's arrow flew through and disappeared into the sky; S. and M. remained to live in the kingdom of birds]: Toth 1971, no. 14: 106-115.

South Asia. Ancient India [And that bird, assuming a golden form, shining like a sheaf of sunbeams, swiftly entered there (where the amrita was kept), just as a stream of water (flows) into the ocean. And it saw near the amrita a wheel with sharp edges, sharpened like a razor, which was constantly revolving. That mighty structure, terrible and terrible in appearance, shining with fiery rays, was skillfully constructed by the gods for the destruction of the abductors of soma. Seeing in it a space between the spokes, the bird circled for a minute. And, having reduced its body, it instantly penetrated (that) space between the spokes. And there under the wheel she saw two most excellent snakes (posted) for the guarding of amrita, equal in brilliance to blazing fire, terrible in appearance, with tongues like lightning, with mouths blazing with flame , endowed with great strength, constantly angry and swift. Their burning eyes contained poison. They constantly burned with anger and never blinked. And it was enough for one of those (snakes) just to look at someone, as he immediately turned to ashes. Suparna quickly covered their eyes with dust, and invisible (to them) he rushed at them from all sides. Attacking them, the bird Vainateya and without tasting it, the mighty bird flew tirelessly, eclipsing the brilliance of the sun]: Mkhb. 1, 29, 1-5 (Kalianov 2006: 101-102); Ancient India (Shatapatha Brahman) [Indra is the seventh son of Aditya, the eighth is Vivasvat; he was armless, legless, like a ball; his brothers cut off everything unnecessary from him, thus creating the first man, the progenitor of mortals; later V. became the sun Surya, from the cut off pieces an elephant arose; Tvashtar gave his daughter Saranya to V. against her will; she gave birth to twins Yama and Yami; left her image to her husband, and herself, in the form of a mare with a fire-breathing mouth, went to the north; the image of S. gave birth to Manu from V., from him all people are descended]: Temkin, Erman 1982, No. 6: 23; Nepalese [if the son of King Sattalsingh shoots an arrow, it will return to him; the vizier's son remembers what he saw forever; the son of a Brahman can throw any object far and return it; the blacksmith's son can restore any object to its original appearance; they go off on a journey; the prince hears a noise, shoots an arrow, it does not return; it turns out that he killed his favorite elephant, it fell on the arrow; the prince falls asleep next to the elephant's body, the companions leave in the morning; the prince comes to a city where a monster has eaten everyone, the princess remains; she hides him, finds out from the monster where his soul is; in a cave in the west there is a fire-breathing serpent , he has a precious stone on his head; you have to pierce the snake's throat with an arrow so that it doesn't fall to the ground; the prince does everything, kills the monster, marries the princess; she drops the hair into the river, another prince finds it; his father sends an old woman in a magic boat to get the owner of the hair; the old woman persuaded the prince's wife to tell him what his death was; in the west there is a tree, you have to tear off some kindling from it, burn his sword and shield on them, they will become small, he will die; and so it happened; the prince's wife manages, as he asked, to put his corpse in a golden vessel, pour oil over it; the prince's friends found out, the Brahmin's son carried them to his body on an antelope skin, the blacksmith's son returned the shield and sword to their original appearance, the prince came to life, returned his wife, everyone returned home]: Heunemann 1980, No. 4: 53-67.

Taiwan - Philippines. Samal [a giant fire-breathing dragon destroyed everyone, leaving behind a married couple with a small son; they climbed a mountain and asked God to deliver them from the monster; the dragon rose into the sky and stood there, leaving smoke and fire behind; on a starry night it can be seen stretched out in the sky; it is a naga; at the end of time it will descend to earth and devour those who do not obey and fear God]: Ziegler 1973: 116-117.

China – Korea. Ancient China [“Huainanzi”, chapter “Ben jing” (2nd century BC): the archer Yi went north to the Xiongshui River to kill the monster jiuying; jiuying was a beast with nine heads, from each mouth it could spew fire and water; Yi killed it and threw it into the waters of Xiongshui; commentary by Gao Yu (1st-2nd centuries AD): “Juying is a monster [spewing] fire and water. It caused harm to people”]: Yuan Ke 1987: 144-145, 312; (cf. [“The Book of Mountains and Seas”, section “Haiwai nan jing”: “The Country of Yanhuo – the Country of Fire-breathing People” is located to the south. Its inhabitants are black, and their bodies are those of beasts. They breathe fire from their mouths”]: Yuan Ke 1987: 204, 336).

The Balkans. Ancient Greece : Hes. Theog. 319-320 [Hesiod's Theogony (8th-7th centuries BC): "And she {Echidna} also gave birth to a flame-breathing Chimera , / A powerful, large, swift-footed Chimera with three heads" (trans. V.V. Veresaev)]; Hes. Cat. Fr. 43 (MW) = 22 (Gasparov). 87 [The Catalogue of Women (6th century BC), attributed in ancient times to Hesiod and preserved in the form of a number of excerpts on papyri: "With this horse he overthrew the fire-breathing Chimera " (trans. O. Tsybenko)]; Apollod. Bibl. I. 6. 3; I. 9. 3, 23; II. 3. 1 ["Mythological Library" by Pseudo-Apollodorus (1st-2nd centuries): "After the gods had won a victory over the giants, Gaia, inflamed with even greater anger, mated with Tartarus and gave birth in Cilicia to Typhon, who had a mixed nature of man and beast. He surpassed all the creatures that Gaia gave birth to in height and strength. The part of his body up to the hips was human and its enormous size towered above all the mountains. His head often touched the stars, his arms extended one to the sunset, the other to the sunrise. They ended in a hundred dragon heads. The part of his body below the hips consisted of huge coiled snakes, which, rising to the very top of the body, emitted a loud whistle. His whole body was covered with feathers, his shaggy hair and beard fluttered widely, his eyes sparkled with fire. Being a creature of such a form and size, Typhon pelted the sky with red-hot rocks and rushed about with a terrifying noise and whistle. A storm of fire burst from his mouth "; "Sisyphus, the son of Aeolus, having founded the city of Ephyra, which is now called Corinth, married Merope, the daughter of Atlas. They had a son Glaucus, whose son by Eurymede was Bellerophon, who killed the fire-breathing Chimera "; "Aeetes had a pair of these fierce bulls, of enormous size, a gift from Hephaestus. They had brass legs and fire-breathing mouths "; "The front part of the Chimera's body was that of a lion, the tail that of a dragon, and of its three heads, the one in the middle of its body was the head of a goat and spewed flames . The Chimera devastated the land and destroyed cattle" (translated by V.G. Borukhovich)]; Nonn. Dion. II. 561-563, XXXVI. 151, XLVIII. 60-63 [“The Acts of Dionysus” by Nonnus Panopolitanus (5th century): Typhon, wounded by Zeus , “stretched out his entire spine on his mother Gaia, / And his serpentine limbs stretched out in a circle in the dust, / Spewing fire from their throats” ; “May Phaethon not turn his fire-breathing horses towards the sunset »; from the description of the battle of Dionysus with the Giants: “Here is a snake {δράκων}, half-dead, with a flame in its throat, / Wants to belch fire, hisses, curling up from the heat, / But only exhales smoke, not poison from its deadly mouth!” (translated by Yu. A. Golubets)]; Quint. Smyrn. VI. 220-226, 236; VIII. 237-244, 348-349; XIV. 453-456 [“After Homer” by Quintus Smyrna (3rd century AD): “Then a furious boar with jaws covered with foam, / was shown as a real one, by the wondrous Alcides / brought alive without effort to the house of King Eurystheus, / and a swift-footed doe, whose hooves trampled the lush fields of the unfortunate peasants, incessantly bringing destruction: / the son of the Thunderer seized her by the golden horns, terrible to mortal men " breathing flames from its nostrils "; " The fire-breathing bull from Crete was among other wonders"; "Today the sons of Troy would have retreated beyond the city gates, / like calves before a lion or pigs fleeing from a downpour, / if the ardent Ares, hoping to support the war-loving Trojans in war, had not descended from the heights of Olympus / secretly from the other immortals. They carried him into battle horses / Aethon and Phlogius, and also Conabus together with the terrible Phobus, / whom Erinyes with noisy Bores brought into the world / breathing out terrible fire ... ”; from the description of Athena’s armor: “ Two fiery snakes on a strong shield, causing trembling, / breathed out fire from their mouths ... ”; “Athena immediately put on the aegis, blinding the eyes, / indestructible, which even the gods are amazed by, / with the terrible head of Medusa, skillfully fixed on it, / whose gigantic snakes furiously, together with their breath, / spew out unquenchable fire from their gaping mouths” (trans. A.P. Bolshakov)]; Pind. Pyth. IV. 67-69, 224-250 [Pindar's "Pythian Songs" (c. 522 – c. 443 BC): "But I will entrust Arcesilaus to the Muses / Only with the pure gold of the ram's fleece, / Wandering after which, / The Mininian men were filled with honor from the gods"; “And when Aeetes {King of Colchis} brought out into a circle / The steel plow / And the bulls, / Breathing scorching fire from their red jaws , / Beating the ground with a copper row of hooves, / When he himself brought them under the yoke / And drove them, stretching out a straight furrow, / And ripped open the back of the lumpish Earth a fathom, / And thus he cried: “Helmsman king, / Complete my work / And accept the imperishable cover / Of the fleece sparkling with gold,” - / Then at these words Jason, / Relying on the god, threw aside the saffron cloak, / Came to the task, - / And the fire did not burn him , / Taught by the potions of the Colchian woman. / He leaned upon the plough, / He yoked it with bridles to the bulls' backs, / He overtook their broad sides / With a sick goad, / And he toiled, a mighty, measured lesson. / Aeetes let out a cry through his voiceless grief, / Marvelling at his strength; / And his comrades stretched out friendly hands to the mighty one, / Clothed him with green foliage, / Welcomed him with the honey of words; / And at once / The wondrous son of the Sun {i.e. Aeetes / Spoke to Jason of the shining fleece, / Where it had stretched out from Phrixus' knife, - / But he had hope / That Jason would not raise a second labor: / It was in the thicket, / And it was held by the insatiable jaws of a serpent, / Whose length and thickness / Was more enormous than a ship with fifty blades, / Knocked together with iron blows… <…> He {Jason} slew the dragon with his skill, / The serpent with the gray eye, with the variegated back, / He carried off Medea in her hunt / To the destruction of Pelias" (trans. M.L. Gasparov)]; Diod. Sic. IV. 15. 4; 32. 1; 46. 5; 47. 1-3; 48. 1-5 [“Historical Library” by Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC): 1) having obtained Diomedes’ mares, “Hercules set off on a ship with Jason on a quest for the Golden Fleece to the land of the Colchians”; 2) “When, during Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece, Heracles killed a sea monster, Laomedon refused to give up the mares promised by agreement”; 3) having arrived in Colchis, “the Argonauts set off with Medea for the Golden Fleece”; 4) “Phrixus, the son of Athamas, fled from Hellas because of the intrigues of his stepmother, taking his sister Helle with him. When, by the grace of the gods, they were crossing from Europe to Asia on a golden-fleeced ram, the girl fell into the sea, which was called the Hellespont after her name, and Phrixus sailed to Pontus, reached Colchis and, in accordance with a certain oracle, sacrificed the ram and hung its fleece in the sanctuary of Ares. After this, Aeetes, who reigned in Colchis, received a prophecy that he would lose his life when foreigners who arrived on a ship took the golden fleece with them. <…> rumor had it that the sanctuary was surrounded by fire-breathing bulls , and the fleece was guarded by a sleepless dragon, and the word “Tauri” itself began to be used in a figurative sense, calling mighty bulls that way, and the myth calls them fire-breathing because of the ferocity with which they killed foreigners”; 5) “Medea led the Argonauts to the sanctuary of Ares, which was seventy stadia from the city called Sybaris, where the palaces of the Colchian kings stood. Approaching the gates, which were locked for the night, she addressed the guards in the Taurian dialect. The warriors willingly opened the gates of the king’s daughter, the Argonauts rushed inside with naked swords, killed many of the barbarians, and the rest, taken by surprise by the unexpected attack, were driven out of the sanctuary and, taking the fleece, hastily returned to the ship. Medea, who was helping them, killed the fabulous dragon that guarded the fleece, coiling itself around it, with potions, and hurried to the sea with Jason. The Taurians who had fled reported the attack to the king, and Aeetes and his warriors rushed in pursuit of the Hellenes and overtook them by the sea. <…> When the king was killed {he was killed by Meleager} and the Hellenes regained their spirit, the Colchians took to flight, and very many of them perished during the pursuit. At the same time, Jason and Laertes, who had distinguished themselves in the battle, as well as Atalanta and the sons of Thestius, were wounded. Medea healed them in just a few days with some roots and herbs, and the Argonauts, having collected provisions, sailed away” (translated by O.P. Tsybenko)]; Apollod. Bibl. I. 9. 1, 16, 23 ["Mythological Library" by Pseudo-Apollodorus (1st-2nd centuries): 1) "Of the sons of Aeolus, Athamas, who reigned in Boeotia, fathered by Nephele a son Phrixus and a daughter Helle. Afterwards he married Ino, by whom he had Learchus and Melicertes. Ino, plotting evil against Nephele's children, persuaded the women to roast seed wheat. They did this secretly from their husbands, and the earth, accepting the unviable seeds, did not yield a harvest. For this reason, Athamas consulted the Delphic oracle to find out how to get rid of the crop failure. Ino persuaded the envoys to say that the oracle said that the sterility would end if Phrixus were sacrificed to Zeus. Athamas, having heard this, and being compelled by the whole population of the country to offer such a sacrifice, led Phrixus to the altar. But Nephele stole him and his daughter, and taking the golden-fleeced ram from Hermes, gave it to her children, so that on its back they might be carried across the skies, across lands and seas. When the children of Nephele found themselves above the sea that separated Sigeum and Chersonesus, Helle slipped and fell into the depths: from the place of her death, this sea was called the Hellespont. Phrixus arrived at the Colchians, where reigned King Aeetes, the son of Helios and Perseis, the brother of Circe and that Pasiphae whom Minos had married. Aeetes sheltered Phrixus and gave him one of his daughters, Chalciope, as a wife. Phrixus sacrificed the golden-fleeced ram to Zeus Fixius, and gave the fleece to Aeetes. He hung it on a tree in a grove dedicated to the god Ares"; 2) when Pelias "asked the oracle how he should protect his royal power, the god announced to him that he should beware of a man with one sandal. At first Pelias did not understand what the oracle had predicted for him,but later he was to learn its meaning. One day, when he was sacrificing to the god Poseidon on the seashore, he invited many guests to this celebration, and among them Jason. Jason, who was passionate about agriculture, was busy with field work at the time, but having received the invitation, he hurried to the celebration. Crossing the river Anaurus, he lost one of his sandals, which was torn off his foot by the river current. Seeing Jason thus shod and remembering the prophecy, Pelias approached him and began to ask how he, Jason, having full power, would act with that fellow citizen about whom it would be predicted that this man would become his murderer. Jason (either this occurred to him by chance, or the reason for this answer was the anger of the goddess Hera, who wanted Medea, having come there, to destroy Pelias, who did not pay divine honors to Hera) answered that he would order this man to bring the Golden Fleece. Pelias, hearing this, immediately ordered him to go for the Golden Fleece. This fleece was in Colchis, in a grove dedicated to the god Ares: it hung on an oak tree and was guarded by a dragon who was constantly vigilant. Jason, sent to accomplish this feat, called for help from Argus, the son of Phrixus, and he, on the advice of Athena, built a fifty-oared ship, called Argo by the name of its builder"; 3) "Jason came to King Aeetes. Having told him about the task that Pelias had entrusted to him, he began to ask Aeetes to give him the fleece. He promised to do this on condition that Jason could drive the bronze-legged bulls into a harness. Aeetes had a pair of these fierce bulls, enormous in size, a gift from Hephaestus. They hadif Jason can harness the copper-legged bulls. Aeetes had a pair of these fierce bulls, enormous in size, a gift from Hephaestus. They hadif Jason can harness the copper-legged bulls. Aeetes had a pair of these fierce bulls, enormous in size, a gift from Hephaestus. They had bronze legs and fire-breathing mouths . Aeëtes ordered Jason to harness these bulls and sow the field with dragon's teeth: long ago he had received as a gift from Athena half of the dragon's teeth that Cadmus had sown in Thebes. Jason was in a hopeless situation, not knowing how he would be able to harness the bulls. But Medea, the daughter of Aeëtes and Idia, the daughter of Oceanus, a sorceress, fell in love with him. Fearing that the bulls would destroy Jason, she gave him a secret promise from her father to help tame the bulls and give him the fleece if he swears to marry her and take her with him to Hellas. When Jason had sworn, she gave him a magic ointment with which he was to rub his body, spear, and shield when he yoked the oxen, and said that by smearing himself with this ointment he would be invulnerable for a day both from fire and from iron. She also explained to him that when the dragon's teeth were sown, knights in full armor would rise from the ground and attack him. When he saw them crowded together, he was to throw a stone into the very middle: then they would fight with each other, and Jason would be able to kill them. Having heard all this and smeared himself with the magic ointment, Jason came to the grove where the temple was, found the oxen, and when they rushed toward him, belching fire from their mouths, he yoked them. After this Jason sowed the dragon's teeth, and men in full armor arose from the earth. Then Jason began to cast stones unnoticed where the warriors were gathered together; and when they came to battle with one another, Jason, coming close, killed them. But although Jason managed to harness the oxen, Aeetes did not give up the fleece: he planned to burn the ship Argo and kill the Argonauts. However, Medea managed to first bring Jason to the place where the fleece was, and, having put the dragon that guarded it to sleep with a magic potion, she took the fleece and boarded the ship Argo with Jason. Her brother Apsyrtus also set sail with her. At night the Argonauts sailed out to sea with them" (translated by V.G. Borukhovich)]; Greeks [the king has three sons; he brought a gift to each; to the eldest - a portrait of the lady of the earth and sky; he went to get it; the sorceress explained what he should do and when; on the road he would find a bow that always hits the target, and two hairs of a three-headed serpent (or worm); through an underground passage he would get to the palace; in the beak of a dove there was a vessel; it must be broken without hitting the dove; collect some earth and throw it into the mouth of the worm, for where the worm is, there are only stones; it would fall asleep, it must be killed, its skin and the deer antlers that were on its head must be removed; flames erupted from the mouths and eyes of the worm; the prince brought the mistress of the earth and sky to himself; but one day she became angry and flooded the earth; when the waters receded, she created new people by sowing stones]: Schmidt 1877: 79-82; Greeks(Attica; west. in 1860 from a priest in an Albanian village; there were many Albanians in Attica) [St. Demeter is a kind old woman; she has a beautiful daughter, Aphrodite; a Turkish pasha (lord), riding a black horse with fire spurting from his nostrils, kidnapped her and took her to the mountains of Epirus; D. went to search; the sun, moon, and stars do not know; an old stork says that D. has always been kind to him, shows him where to go; it was winter, and having reached Eleusis (modern Lepsina) D. fell from fatigue; the headman (hodja-bashi) of the village took her in; for this D. blessed their fields, which from then on brought in an unusually rich harvest; his son went to rescue A., having secured a promise to receive her as a wife; he went out to the fire, around 40 dragons; the youth lifted a huge cauldron, lit a torch and put the cauldron back; the dragons were amazed by his strength; they asked him to help them steal a girl from the castle; the youth climbed the tower, asked the dragons to follow him one by one, and killed each one; he began to fight the Turk; he turned into a lion, a snake, and a bird of prey; on the third day he won and cut the youth into four pieces; he took possession of Aphrodite by force; a stork brought a reviving herb, the youth attacked the Turk again; in order to win, he promised to become a monk in a monastery on Salamis; he knocked down the Turk, the stork pulled a gray hair from his head, which contained the Turk's life; the youth returned A. to his mother, and went to a monastery]: Lawson 1910: 80-84; Romanians [an old man promises a childless emperor the birth of a son; the boy continues to cry in his mother's womb; falls silent and is born when his father promises him immortality and eternal youth; the young man grows up, chooses a skinny little horse, it turns into a four-winged racehorse; they come to a field strewn with bones; the young man shoots off the leg of a woman who has become a monstrous woodpecker; she promises peace, the young man puts his leg back; the woodpecker's sister was also cursed by her parents, became a scorpion, both sisters are at odds; the scorpion has one cheek in the sky, the other on the ground, it spews flame ; the young man shoots off one head, the scorpion promises peace, the young man puts his head back; the horse carries him through a forest with monsters to the castle of eternal life; the mistress of the castle does not allow the monsters to attack those who flew in; there are two women in the castle, the young man marries the younger; the women warn him not to go to the Valley of Sorrows; chasing a hare, he goes there, he is overcome by a desire to visit home; women explain that his parents are long gone; on the way back they do not find the Scorpion and the Woodpecker, the people say that they heard tales about them from old people; the horse leaves the youth at the ruins of his father's castle, returns to the land of immortality; the youth turns into an old man; Death comes out of the deck, says that if he had come later, even she would have died; takes the hero]: Browne 1915: 312-320 (=Kúnos 1901: 260-275); Romanians [the queen has three daughters: with the sun on their foreheads; with the moon on their backs; with the Morning Star above their eyebrows; they went swimming, a whirlwind carried them away; the queen swallowed a peppercorn, Fat-Frumos was born; he grew up quickly; out of mischief, he pierced two pumpkins with water that an old woman was carrying with an arrow; she wants the same whirlwind to carry him away; FF forced his mother to tell about her sisters; and about their father: he fought for 9 years with the Fire-breathing Serpent; his weapon is buried under a poplar, his horse is grazing somewhere; the sorcerer orders to swing the bridle in the meadow; a nag dragged herself along, orders to give her milk from 300 cows to drink: a fire-horse came galloping; then 600; snakes ahead; the horse orders to pull the arrow out of his ear, to launch it at the snakes; they missed; FF came to the first sister; the club of her husband-snake flew in; FF threw it back, waits under the bridge, drove the snake into the ground; turned the silver palace into a nut, took it with him; then the golden palace (snake, nut - the same); the topaz palace; the snake turned into a yellow flame, FF - into scarlet; both ask the raven to sprinkle them with fat, the enemy - with water; the raven sprinkled FF with fat, because he promised him the bodies of three snakes; the horse warned not to eat fruits, grapes, not to drink from the spring, but to hit them with a saber - these are the transformed wives of the snakes; the mother of the snakes is chasing; the horse with FF manages to fly to Tsvetovik-Silkbeard (TSSh); the snake made a hole, FF threw a red-hot club into its mouth; FF fell in love with the daughter of TSSh; he asks for living water for her from behind the crushing mountains; FF meets and takes with him a Drinker, an Eater, a Jumper with millstones on his legs; the horse rushed between the mountains, FF got some water; TS tells him to drink a lot; to eat (the Drinker and the Eater obey); to get a carnation that smells fragrant for 9 kingdoms; FF takes the carnation from the glass palace of the snake, he pursues, FF takes it out of the horse's ear and throws soap (slippery road), a brush (forest), a whetstone (mountain); the snake overcame the obstacles; the horse took off and trampled the snake; wedding; the Jumper spent the night in the bedroom; at night a snake crawled out of the mouth of TS's daughter, then two more; the Jumper killed them; all the other husbands died; the Jumper demands half of the wife, swings his sword, the fourth dragon crawls out of his mouth; Jumper: take your wife, leave only one little devil in her, there should be one in every woman; [at home FF turned three nuts into palaces, the father married off his daughters]: Sadetsky 1972: 105-116; Romanians [the sorcerer promises the king and queen that they will have a son, Fat-Frumos, but this will only bring them grief; the newborn cries when he is promised a beauty, but stops when he is promised youth without old age and life without death; FF quickly grew up, refuses the throne, goes to the land of immortality; as he puts his hand on the horse's back, it falls down; the pitiful little horse says that he has finally waited for his master; orders to feed him oats boiled in milk for 6 weeks; FF found his father's rusty weapon, cleaned it, it sparkled; the horse became four-winged; they flew into the domain of the witch Genoa; she attacked, FF cut off her leg with an arrow; then G. greeted him, he put her leg back; refused to take one of her three beautiful daughters; they flew into the domain of the three-headed witch Scorpia; she spews resin and flame ; FF cut off her head, she accepted him even more generously than G., he returned the head; the horse carried them through the forest with monsters and they found themselves in the palace of the mistress of the land of immortality; her two older sisters are just as young; they forbade going to the Valley of Tears; FF chased a hare and got there; immediately felt homesick; his wife does not allow him to go back there; the horse warns that when he gets there, he will immediately turn back; he insists on FF; where G. and S. lived, nothing of the old way remains; his father's palace has collapsed; the horse galloped back; FF is weak, his beard reaches his knees, his eyelids need to be lifted with his hands; in the basement he found a chest with dried-up death in it; if he had been late, it would have come to an end; FF crumbled to dust]: Sadetsky 1972: 117-127; Moldovans [When a flea had one leg shod with 99 okami of iron, the other with 99 okami (1 okami of 1200 g) of steel, and it still seemed not enough, the king had a mischievous son. He hit a jug of water carried by his grandmother with a slingshot, and she cursed him: "May you walk around the world on foot and never rest until you reach the immortal kingdom, but even there you will not find peace." The prince is overcome by melancholy, he goes off to look for the immortal kingdom. He comes to a cell. The hermit does not know about such a kingdom, sends him through the forest, there he will meet animals - he must greet each one. Further in front of the castle there will be a snake lying with its head on the threshold - and greet him, he will be happy, turn his head - you can go through. In the castle they will tell you where to go next. The prince does so. In the palace there is an old man as old as the world. For greeting his animals, he gives the boy a ball of gold thread. The boy goes to get the ball and sits down to rest under an oak tree. The acorn asks him to get up from it and offers to live with him until he becomes a strong and lush oak. And when he gets old, falls and swallows start to scurry about in his ashes, then the prince will come to an end. The prince sprinkles the acorn with earth so that it grows, says goodbye to it, and goes on to get the ball. He comes to a grape bush hung with bunches of grapes. The bush offers to bury a grape seed and stay there until the grapes grow; as long as he lives, the prince will drink wine and eat grapes. The prince buried the seed and goes on. He wants to shoot an eagle, but the eagle asks him not to kill it, but to cure it. If trouble happens, he should think about it, it will come to the rescue. The prince bandages the eagle's wounds, feeds him, and moves on. The sea has retreated, and the king of fish is suffering on the sand, 12 steps long, as tall as a man, with silver wings, in golden scales. He asks not to eat him, but to lower him into the water - if you think about it, he will come to the rescue. Then the fox asks to protect her from dogs (ditto). The mosquito asks to be freed from the web (ditto). He says that there will be a castle, where you need to go to the king and ask for his youngest daughter as a bride. Until he marries, he will not take possession of the immortal kingdom. The guy comes to the gilded chambers, explains where he is going and where he is coming from. The king agrees to give his daughter if the guy can hide. Then he will live in the castle as long as the earth stands and the sun shines: from these gates the immortal kingdom begins. The guy remembers the eagle, the eagle carries him to the heavenly gates and hides him behind 9 rows of clouds. Three princesses look the same. The eldest sees a guy in the sky. The king is going to cut off his head, the daughter asks for forgiveness. The middle one sees a guy in the mouth of a fish (same thing). The youngest does not see only the guy's shadow. The king tells him to come out and admits that his daughter did not see him, but let him recognize the youngest. A mosquito lands on her nose. The guy stays with her in the castle forever. The king forbids him to leave through the gate he entered through. One day his arrow flies outside the gate. He follows it, opens the gate, sees a shiny thread from a golden ball, remembers home, father, mother. The king dissuades him, but he leaves. He follows the golden thread to an old and long grapevine, it recognizes him,but he refuses to rest. The same with the oak. He reaches the castle where they gave him the golden ball, sees the dragon, dried up from old age, greets him. The dragon rejoices, leaves him alive. The owner of the castle has managed to grow a beard, half of which he spreads under himself, and covers himself with the other. The old man lifts his eyelids with a crutch, looks at the guy, invites him to stop by on the way back. In place of the hermit's cell is a grove, in place of his ancestral castle are ruins. The three-hundred-year-old man heard from his grandfathers that here stood the castle of a king who had a son, and that son went out into the world for life without death, for youth without old age. And then everyone in the kingdom died of the plague. The prince returns back, at the ruins of the gate he kicks a clay mortar, and from under it crawls death with a scythe on his shoulder: waiting for him. The prince runs away, death follows him. He greets the dragon, enters the castle, the old man gives him a woolen belt, tells him to give it to death, let him wear it until he wears it out so much that there is not a single thread left, and only then let him come. The dragon breathes heat and resin at Death , does not let him in because she did not say hello. The prince gives Death a belt, runs to the oak tree, the oak tells him to take an iron staff from the hollow, give it to Death: let him come when the staff wears out. Death sets out to wear out the staff. The prince reaches the grapevine. It promises to become a boat and a bridge for him, tells him to throw a sabre at Death's feet: let him come when the sabre rusts and crumbles to dust. The sabre rusts, Death chases, the prince approaches the castle, opens the gates, his wife comes to meet him, grabs his hand, and Death grabs his leg. They argue. The wife suggests turning the prince into a golden apple, throwing it up: whoever catches it will get the prince. She throws the apple up, it turns into an evening star. The king and his men turn the girl into a golden apple, throw her up in the air, and tell her to find the king's son and return with him to the palace - death can do nothing to them. The apple becomes the morning star. Death gets angry, tramples the shadows of all three, and turns the king and his two daughters into stone blocks. Since then, there are stars in the sky and stone pillars at the gates]: Botezatu 1981: 27-37; Hungarians [a shepherd found his son in a cornfield; he grew up and went wandering; the king promised him a daughter if he would guard the golden sheep; the king had three silver forests, three gold, three diamond; in those days there was only one day in the year; the shepherd's son (SC) rode a donkey into the silver forest, playing the flute; even the trees danced from its sounds; a 12-headed dragon spews flames on the bridge ; SC played the flute; the dragon is exhausted from dancing, promises a silver horse and a silver forest for a pipe and to teach him to play; SC splits a beech tree and tells the dragon to stick his fingers in the crack to make them thinner; takes out an axe and chops off all 12 heads; the king is amazed that SC drove the sheep and is himself safe; the next day a golden forest, a golden bridge, the 24-headed dragon promises to give this forest and a pipe, to the sound of which the game gathers (otherwise the same); on the third day a diamond forest, a 32-headed dragon (the same); now the king demands that the sun, moon and stars be taken from the sky and put in a bag; SC sees and takes Opivalu, Obiedala, a giant as tall as the sky, freezing among 12 fires, as a companion; the giant took down the luminaries, SC brought them to the king, who ordered them to be released and gave new tasks; cook and eat goulash from 300 oxen, horses, sheep and rams (Obedalo ate); drink all the wine from the cellars (Opivalo drank); the king called the nobility, gave three daughters a golden apple each, let each throw it at the chosen one; the youngest threw it at SC, they were settled in the henhouse; SC came to the wedding of the elder princesses, playing the pipe; brought three horses given by dragons (silver, gold, diamond) and brought the same dresses for his wife; took her away; they are still alive, if they have not died]: Hungarian Folk Tales 1955: 35-52; Transylvanian Saxons [the king built a beautiful church; the wanderer says that it lacks a golden bird, from whose beak pearls fall when it sings; the eldest son goes after the bird; refuses to warm it by the fire and feed the fox; the prince squandered everything and became a worker at the inn; the same with the middle son; the youngest welcomed the fox; she teaches him to walk 7 days through the forest, then through the meadow to the castle; gave a silver flute to call her for help; the princess is in the castle: she is in the power of a six-headed dragon; he appeared, breathing fire; the young man took a sword from the wall and cut off all the heads at once; the princess does not know where the bird is, sends to her younger sister; gave a copper apple: roll it, I will fly to you; there is a 9-headed dragon; he also breathes fire, all the heads are cut off; gives a silver pear, there is a 12-headed dragon; the young man chopped off 11 heads and they grew back while he was chopping off the 12th; only at sunset did he manage to chop off all of them at once; the princess: a golden bird flies here once a year at dawn on New Year's Eve; but the princess wanted to keep the young man with her, she plugged his ears and he did not hear the bird flying in and singing; but the young man noticed pearls scattered under the tree; but the next year she caught the bird herself and gave the cage with it to the prince; so that he could return home faster, she gave him a horse with 6 legs; gave a golden plum to call her; the young man paid the debts of his brothers and took them with him; at their overnight stay, the brothers gouged out the eyes of the youngest, cut off his arms and legs and threw them into a well; they took the horse and the bird, gave them to their father; but the bird did not sing, and the horse did not let anyone near him; a copper apple fell out of a young man's pocket, he rolled it with his mouth, the eldest princess flew in, returned his legs, wetting it with dew; the princess of the silver pear returned his hands with the help of dew; the princess of the golden plum returned his eyes; the prince called the fox with a whistle; she pulled him out of the well, telling him to grab hold of its tail; the prince came home; his father did not believe him, but the horse recognized the prince and the bird sang; the young man called all three princesses, gave the eldest to his brothers, and took the youngest for himself; he reigned; and when he died, the six-legged horse and the bird disappeared]: Haltrich 1882, no. 7: 6-7; Transylvanian Saxons[from the first wife three daughters; from the second son Hans, whom his mother suckled for 7 years; after that he told her to become a cow; the father gave him cakes of ashes, but he threw them away, and suckled the mother cow; the father sent the first daughter to find out what his son fed on; he gave her a sleeping pill to drink, and he himself returned to the cow and suckled her until evening; the daughter to the father: the brother said that he fed on the wind; he sent the second daughter, who also had two eternally open eyes on the back of her head; she told the father everything; he promised his son to kill him tomorrow together with the cow; the cow told G. to come before dawn, put him between her horns and ran away with him into the forest; there she suckled him with her milk for another 7 years; after that she offered to pull out an oak tree; he could not; then she suckled him for another 7 years; after that he easily pulled out the oak tree and his mother sent him into the world; he made a club out of the oak tree; A man is crushing stones by the river; G. asks not to muddy the water, he replies that he might be ground into dust; in response, G. drove him into the ground up to his shoulders; he promised to become his servant; they went together, met a giant who bent trees (the same thing happened to him); they found an empty house in the forest, began to live there, they cook in turns; a dwarf with a beard of 7 cubits asks to be allowed to warm up, swallows all the food; G., who returned, beats the Stone Crusher; the same with the Tree Bender; when G. was left, he beat the dwarf and nailed him by his beard to a tree; he tore the tree out by the roots and went into the hole in the ground that formed; Hans was lowered there on a rope; they lowered him for 21 days; below is another world with a new sky; there are three princesses in the palace; they were kidnapped by a 12-headed dragon; the dragon appeared, spewing fire ; G. killed him with a club; sent the princesses and treasures upstairs; the companions decided that the youngest was the most beautiful of all and should belong to them; they lifted G. up to half the height of the pit and threw him; but he guessed to put a stone in his place; G. met that dwarf, who led him to a tree: climb to the top, from there to the ground; but from the top to the ground is still far; on the tree there is a vulture's nest, a snake is crawling to it to devour the chicks; G. killed her, tore her into small pieces; the vulture flew in and swallowed G., deciding that it was he who devoured the chicks; having learned from the chicks how it happened, he burped; agreed to carry her to the ground, but for the journey he needed 7 barrels of wine and 7 lions; on the ground he saw his companions fighting over the youngest princess; he killed both with a club; he took the youngest for himself, gave the older ones to two princes; three weddings; [the treasures were divided]: Haltrich 1882, no. 18: 17-18; Serbs [when Adam realized that there was a hole between Eve's legs, he plugged it with his penis, but did not know what to do next; at that time a serpent flew by, scorching the earth with fire; an ember fell on Adam's ass, he jerked and his penis entered deep into Eve]: Krauss 2009(1), no. 148: 371-372; Serbs [an apple tree asks the wind not to break its branches; on each branch it has grown two apples for it; at the top is a falcon's nest, in the roots is a snake; the snake scares the falcon: he will set fire to it and burn down the nest with the falcons; the falcon replies: the chicks are already big, they will fly away to the city, they will bring news that they are alive and well]: Karadzic 1987: 34-35; Bulgarians , Macedonians , Serbs [thunder and lightning come from the fight between snakes – hal; when the snake opens its fire-breathing mouth, a flash of lightning occurs]: Tolstoy 1995c: 558; (cf. Croatian (author's tale based on "Slavic" motifs) [on Mount Kipen there lived a snake, and in the valley the shepherdess Milojka grazed her flock; escaping from enemies, the princess with her little prince flew to M. to spend the night; leaving, she left a gold belt and a gold cross on a ribbon, both of unimaginable value; everyone began to woo M.; but she replied that the treasures were not hers; she married a poor and kind young man; both soon died, leaving behind a daughter Rutvica ("lavender"; her mother gave her the belt) and a son Jaglenat ("primrose"; he got the cross); after the mother's funeral, the eagle Klikun grabbed and carried R. away, but over the holy lake on Mount Kipen R. remembered her mother, the eagle dropped her and the belt; R. got out onto an island with a chapel, where evil spirits did not have the power to penetrate; the brother went to look for R.; he was met on the mountain a pitchfork and pushed him into a pit; they poured rain on him, but the water carried him down the slope along with the branch he had grabbed; one pitchfork caught up with the boy, but a she-bear rushed at it; the pitchfork brought the fire-breathing Fire Serpent {more fire-breathing than fire-breathing}; his breath blew the boy into the lake, where the serpent was powerless; he only burned half the mountain; the brother saw his sister on the island; at that time the son of Princess Relja grew up, learned from his mother who he was, went to look for her belt and cross; on the mountain he cut the serpent in two; found the children and brought them home from the mountain; and then brought his mother to them; became a prince; married R.]: Berlić-Mažuranić 1922: 185-254 {Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić; much more accurately taken into account in the summary and available on the website https://online-knigi.com.ua/page/154130?page=24 Russian translation by Nikolai Fedorov, 1930}; Gagauz [the brothers followed a strange trail, came to a dry well, at the bottom of which a white and a black ram were fighting; the younger brother Vanchu suggested going down, the elders refused, and lowered him down on a rope; he wanted to sit on the white ram, but the black one pushed him, V. ended up on the black one, fell into the dark kingdom; he saw a snake crawling towards the nest of a huge eagle, killed it; the eagle father is grateful; he says that the five-headed fire-breathing Goguzhu-Moguzhu closed the waters, passes them off as people given to him to be eaten, now it is the turn of the padishah's daughter; you need to wet your clothes so as not to burn; V. cuts off two heads, four grow; V. suggests that the GM show how he sleeps; he puts the central head on two, covers himself with the other two; V. cuts off all 5 heads at once; the princess orders to cut out the tongues; the impostor brings the heads of the monster to the padishah, V. shows the tongues; the impostor is expelled, V. receives the princess; the padishah lets them go visit V.'s parents; the bird carries V. and his wife, in flight he feeds her meat, bread, gives her water to drink; the meat runs out, V. cuts off the meat from his soles; the eagle did not swallow them, having reached the ground, he put them back, but since then there is a dent in the soles of people; brings V. and his wife to V.'s parents; After visiting, V. and his wife return to the lower world]: Syrf 2013: 138-145.

Central Europe. Slovaks [two sons of a widow are as alike as drops of water; they have grown up, are getting ready to go wandering; the mother asks them to go hunting and bring back meat; they hunt three times, but find no game; instead they give bacon and bread to a pair of wolves, bears, and lions; they are brought home; muzzles are found on the faces of the predators; the brothers parted at the linden tree, having stuck a knife into it each; the one from which blood flows, trouble will be with him; the eldest comes to a city, where a fire-breathing 12-headed serpent demands a girl to be eaten every day, otherwise he will not let her approach the well; it is the princess's turn; her savior will get her; the young man cut off the snake's heads with the help of his animals, but they grew again until the lion tore its neck; the young man cut off the tongues, came to the princess, she gave him half of the ring; when he fell asleep, the coachman ran up, cut off the young man's head, made the princess call him her savior; the lion tells the wolf to run to the snake, which was just about to revive another one with grass, crushed by a cart; but the wolf himself came across the cart, was afraid of people; then the lion sent a bear, he took the potion from the snake, the young man came to life, but his head was put back to front; the bear tore off his head again and put it back the right way; when the young man came to the city, they were preparing a wedding between the princess and the coachman; the young man sent the princess and the bear a letter and half a ring; the princess sent back food, wine and her half of the ring, the halves grew together; the young man showed snake tongues; the coachman was given to be torn apart by animals; one day the young man saw an enchanted yellow forest from the window; a fox appeared, the young man chased it, found himself in a dark forest; he began to fry bacon; an old woman was on a tree, screaming that she was cold, giving a stick to touch the animals, because she was afraid of them; the animals turned to stone; the old woman began to fry a frog, not bacon; she touched the young man with a stick, he also turned to stone; the younger brother saw blood on the knife, went to look for the elder; his wife took him for her husband, but at night he put a sword between them; he did not touch the animals with the old woman's stick, but let them loose on her; he forced her to give him a golden stick to revive his brother's animals and an ointment to revive him; then the animals tore the old woman to pieces; first the elder brother's animals turned into knights, then they killed the younger brother's animals and they also became knights; they, six brothers, quarreled, for this they became predators; the elder brother returned to his wife, and the younger with six knights came to their lands and became king there]: Dobšinský 1970: 3-10 (translated in Bogatyrev 1955: 37-47); Poles [Princess Miranda lives on an island in the sea; she turns suitors into ice with a glance; the ruler of the underworld Kosciey blew and her army fell asleep; she turned him into ice, but he came back to life; he surrounded her city with a wall and waits for her to surrender to him; she turns to her lover; he hurries, successively asks a cloud, the wind, the stars, the moon, the sun, where M. is; the sun tells; explains that the old woman Jandza knows the secret of Koschei's death; orders to take a horse hidden in the dungeon; the horse promises to serve faithfully; the prince orders the hut on crooked legs to turn the door to him; in the hut there is Ya.; explains that K.'s death is on the island of eternal life, where there is an oak tree, under it a chest, in it a hare, in the hare a duck, in it an egg with K.'s life; on the way the prince saved the fish from the net; the horse carried him to the island; when the duck flew out of the hare, the prince shot it; The egg fell into the sea, the fish got it; the wall around Koshchei's city is guarded by a dragon, whose 12 heads sleep in turns; the dragon breathed fire , but soon died; he crushed the egg, K. died; all the inhabitants of the island woke up; the prince married M.]: Glinski 1920: 15-28; Russians (Arkhangelskaya, Pinega, Lebskaya village. I. Golchikov, born in the village, runs a cooperative in Mezen, "apparently a man who read a lot", 1927) [The eldest royal son, Yegor the Brave, sets off to look for a bride and ends up in a forest hut, the room is "decorated with velvet, embroidered with gold", Yegor chooses the elder of two dove-maidens. Baba Yaga treats him to gingerbread, mash and wort, Yegor gets drunk and falls under the table. Baba Yaga gets angry, calls him a drunkard and throws him and his bride into the cellar. The Tsar's middle son, Fyodor Vazhny, goes to get the bride and ends up in a golden palace. Inside he sees a poor room and a girl on a dirty bench, asks her to marry him, Baba Yaga treats him and throws him drunk and the girl into the cellar. The youngest son, Ivan Tsarevich, wants to go look for his brothers, but his father won't let him. The old woman advises him to tell his father that he saw the Tsar's poor cellar in a dream, and in it, behind 12 doors and locks, there was a horse, the same age as Ivan, and in front of him was a suit of heroic armor. The Tsar guesses that someone told his son about the cellar, but he gives him the horse. Ivan lifts the cellar by the front corner and takes out a sword-kladenets, a spear-dolgomerno and heroic armor. Ivan arrives at Baba Yaga's hut (he leaves his spear and sword on the floor - no one can pick it up anyway), asks about his brothers, refuses to eat Yaga's treats, throws a table at the window with his right hand, knocking out the frames. She takes out two snakes that scorch with fire , Ivan chops off their heads with his sword. He asks Baba Yaga where his brothers are, chops off her head, sends his brothers to go to their father. Ivan rides on, "to get his betrothed." In the field, he frees the hero for robbing the tsar's daughter, promises to marry her himself, "if the girl is good," the hero promises to be Ivan "Oron the Faithful until death." Ivan sees the princess, searches for a more beautiful girl for 5 years, but does not find one. He sees a tent in the field, leads his horse to someone else's, they eat amicably next to each other, he decides that sleep will get along with the owner of the tent. He goes inside and falls asleep. Both heroes snore. Neither wants to kill the other at night in his sleep, they are waiting for the morning for an honest fight. In the morning, he sees Oron the Faithful in front of him, he says that Marfa the Beautiful-Golden Breast is the most beautiful of all. Ivan spies on her as she walks through the garden, jumps over the wall on his horse and carries her away. Koschei the Deathless catches up with them, cuts Ivan in half and takes Marfa. The raven kills the bull and hides under its skin, the ravens fly in and he catches the young raven, does not let go until his raven brings him living and dead water. He revives the young raven and Ivan Tsarevich. They arrive at Marfa the Beautiful, she lives in a stone house standing on a swamp. She turns the raven into a fly and hides Ivan in a chest. When Koschei appears and senses the Russian spirit, she says that a well-fed bird flew from Rus', dropped a bone in the chimney, which is why the smell comes from the stove. Marfa feeds and waters Koschei, asks where his death is, he deceives her twice ("Stupid woman! Who would throw death in a box?"). She confesses that death is in an egg-hare-box-cellar on the island of Buyan. She asks Koschei to bring her a Russian cook, Ivan gets out of the chest and goes with Oron to find Koschei's death. When they were crossing the sea, Ivan wanted to shoot a pike, but Oron took pity on it. On the island, she also stops Ivan when he wants to kill a gyrfalcon. Oron tears out the oaks standing above the cellar, Ivan opens the box, the gyrfalcon catches the hare, the egg falls into the sea, and the pike carries it out. Ivan breaks the egg, Koschei dies, Marfa says that his house must be burned; while the house is burning, midges crawl out of it. Baba Yaga seizes Ivan's native kingdom, turns into a queen, and gouges out the eyes of Ivan's parents and puts them in prison. She forbids the inhabitants to tell Ivan the truth, whoever tells will turn to stone. Approaching his kingdom, Ivan spends three nights in a tent. Every night the dove-maidens, the wives of Fyodor and Yegor, fly in and tell him that Baba Yaga wants to destroy him with her gifts. Oron hears this and asks Ivan to give him his gifts in gratitude for his help. The queen offers Ivan a glass of wine, he gives it to his friend, who pours it out, the wine corrodes the floorboard. His mother gives him a black horse, Oron beats it to death (it is a snake), she is offended that her son gives gifts to a servant. She gives him a golden carriage, Oron cuts it apart. The queen and Ivan want to execute Oron, he tells the truth about Ivan's parents and he turns to stone. He tears Baba Yaga apart, frees his parents, brothers and their wives, anoints his eye sockets with living water, and they regain their sight.Ivan misses his friend, puts a stone at the head of his bed. At night he dreams that Oron can be brought back to life by the blood of his son. He kills his son, collects the blood and cries. He revives Oron, who anoints his son Ivan with living water and he also comes back to life]: Karnaukhova 1934, No. 141: 280-287;Russians (Arkhangelskaya, 1929, Ust-Tsilma, Vasily Sobol, Nenets, spent his whole life as a "leader" of reindeer herds, i.e. he was a shepherd-farmhand) [The queen cannot give birth to an heir, the king decides to buy a gold-headed fish, goes to the fishermen, and catches it in the third tone. The fish is eaten by the queen, the servant, and the bull (he gets the scraps), and on the same day they have sons: Ivan Tsarevich, Ivan Deviy, and Ivan Bykovich, they grow up by the month, do not feel their strength - they cripple other children in games. The children's parents complain. Three young men are riding into a field, they meet an old man, he says that the path to the right will ruin their horses, and to the left - them. They return to the Tsar and ask to give them horses. Ivan Bykovich cannot find a horse for himself in the Tsar's stable. He asks the blacksmith to forge a club weighing a hundred pounds, throws it up so that it is barely visible, catches it with ease (his hand does not move), asks to forge a club weighing two hundred pounds, then three hundred pounds. He throws the last one up, and it quickly returns, he almost drops it when he catches it. At the crossroads the young men turn right, pitch a tent near the iron bridge and agree to keep watch in turns. The first two young men fall asleep on guard duty, and Ivan Bykovich fights the three-headed Idol in their place, and the next night, the six-headed Idol. It offers Ivan to blow on an open field, but he yields his turn to the Idol. It blows, and everything alive burns for three miles in the field . While it admires its work, Ivan chops off heads. In the morning, Ivan Tsarevich and Ivan the Devil say that they did not sleep at night and did not see anyone. When it is Ivan Bykovich's turn, he leaves his comrades a knife, warning that if blood flows from it, they must run to the bridge. The beginning of the fight is repeated, Ivan chops off 8 heads of Idolishche, the last one remains, he asks to allow him to take off his left boot, throws him into the tent, then the right one - the brothers wake up, see that the knife is covered in blood, help fight, go waist-deep into the ground and defeat Idolishche. Three young men come to a large house, Ivan Bykovich turns into a "murashka", overhears how an old woman inside ("nose to the ceiling") advises her daughters-in-law, the wives of three Idolishche, to take revenge on Ivan, to turn into poisoned spring water, berries, a golden bed. Ivan Bykovich saves his brothers from death three times, water, berries and a bed turned into women when they started to chop them up, their heads were cut off. They hear the pursuit, hide in the smithy. The old woman demands that the blacksmith give them up, he asks her to stick her tongue in the door, and hits him with a copper, tin and iron rod, only the tin one does not break. The old woman turns into a horse, Ivan Bykovich saddles her, the old man asks if Ivan will give up his horse if he manages to overtake him, Ivan agrees and loses. The old man hangs the horse on his skate, promises to return it if Ivan gets Elena the Beautiful for him. Ivan Bykovich agrees, and on the way he meets Yaryshek ("a thin leg, a golden cap, a shiny forehead, bulging eyes"), one can carry people across the sea, another can ask for marriage, the third can wash in a bathhouse, the fourth can carry people in space ("from place to place"), the fifth can eat bread, the sixth can drink water, and he meets a woman who can cover 3 miles in 3 hours. He takes everyone with him. He meets three more Yaryshek: one boasts: "I grind a mortar with a pestle", the second can shoot with a flint, the third can catch what falls to the ground. One Yaryshek takes a spoon out of his pocket and carries everyone across the sea. Another carries out the tsar's task - he washes in a very hot bathhouse ("the heat is five sazhens"), the third goes to ask for marriage. The tsar locks the visitors in a barn and sets it on fire, Yaryshek carries them to a safe place. The Tsar forces them to eat all the bread in the city, Yaryshko eats it all. Another drinks all the water in the forty-foot carts in the city shops. The Tsar promises to give his daughter back if the visitors drink all the water in the well, Yaryshko drinks it. Then he orders that a dress be obtained for the princess from a state far away in 3 hours, the old woman is sent away, on the way back she falls asleep, Yaryshko "buzzed with a pestle", she woke up and arrived on time. The Tsar gives away his daughter. The first Yaryshko carried her across the sea, at night the princess flies into the sky, turns into a star. Yaryshko saw an extra star in the sky, another shot a flint, the last caught a falling star and gave it to Ivan Bykovich. The princess does not want to marry the old man, she persuades Ivan to deceive him when he asks to walk on the boards laid over the pit, to let him go first. He does so, loosens one of the boards,the old man falls into a pit onto an “iron fist.” Ivan takes the old man’s property, burns the mare, marries Elena]: Karnaukhova 1934, No. 163: 340-348;Russian (Pskov) [Ivan Tsarevich has an invisibility cap and a brawler's club; he saw a castle in the forest, surrounded by an iron wall, at the gate a 12-headed serpent, 6 of which are always asleep and 6 are awake; he could only kill himself; Ivan rode up in an invisibility cap and let loose a club on the serpent; the serpent breathed fire , tumbled, gnawed the ground and, finally, tore itself apart with its claws and died]: Smirnov 2003(1): 350-351; Russian : Khudyakov 1964, No. 10 (Ryazan, Zaraysky district) ["Sivka-Burka appeared, a prophetic kaurka, she runs - the earth trembles, flames from her mouth , a column of smoke from her ears"; "Sivka-Burka runs, a prophetic kaurka, flames from her mouth , a column of smoke from her ears"]; No. 86 (Nizhny Novgorod, Ardatovsky district) ["He ran into the snake, cut off two of its heads, and the snake scorched with flame , tore with its claws"; "And the snake scratches with its claws, tears and scorches with flame "]; № 114 (Tulskaya, Venevsky district) ["the lion runs, even the earth trembles, flames spit from his nostrils "]: 78, 209-210, 242; Russian (Moscow) [author's tale p. 127: the snake chases Vanka and spit fire; the tale as a whole is not taken into account, but this motif most likely existed in the central part of the Russian ethnic territory, since it is found in neighboring territories]: Vedernikova, Samodelova 1998, № 51: 113-134); Russian (Voronezh, 1939) [The beautiful tsar's daughter does not want to study, meets a wizard, who sits her on a chair and teaches her his science, advises how to choose a groom - ask a riddle, if the suitor for her hand does not guess - "off with her head." An Indian prince comes to woo, the princess takes him to the "rich hall where the horned devil lives" treats him to wine, he falls asleep. In the morning she tells her father that the groom slept all night, his head is cut off. The same thing happens to the second suitor, a nobleman. A soldier who has served in the army scoops up water in the river, takes out a crayfish, the crayfish asks to let him go, gives him an invisibility cap and advises the soldier to boldly woo the tsar's daughter. The soldier asks the bride to pour him wine in mugs, falls asleep. A crayfish appears, climbs into the soldier's mouth and he wakes up. The hero puts on an invisibility cap and watches the princess. She goes into the garden, calls on magical powers near the gazebos, eats and drinks. The soldier repeats all her actions. He approaches a willow bush, looks in all four directions, pulls a branch and goes underground. She approaches the copper, silver and gold wells in turn, washes and drinks. The soldier does the same, but takes three jugs from each well. The maiden comes to the 12 sisters, tells them that the groom got drunk and fell asleep. The sisters show the gifts of their grooms. The soldier climbs up to them, quietly takes the gifts and the goose from the table, falls, the sisters hear a crash, run to the window, but do not see the soldier. Returning to the table, they see the loss. The princess sets off back, but cannot drink from the wells, cries, shouts "my soul is burning". The soldier overtakes her, returns to the place where he fell asleep, takes off his hat. The princess wakes him up, but he tells her where she was at night and what she did, she admits that he guessed all her night riddles. The king does not want to give his daughter to the soldier and another contender for the princess's hand advises to give the groom a task: to go there, I don't know where, to find something, I don't know what, "so that it is not seen, but pleased". The princess gives the soldier a ball of yarn, orders him to follow the thread, when the Serpent flies at him, to say that the soldier is a servant of the Russian dog-tsar, then he will not touch him. And so it happens, the serpent offers to treat the soldier, orders Ursa to set the table; the tablecloth and treats appear on the table themselves. The serpent gives the soldier the keys to open the borders, and flies off to fight the enemy – the 9-headed serpent. The soldier wants to bring Ursa to the king, she promises that she will leave with him and orders him to flee across the border so that the serpent cannot kill the soldier (“he will gnaw and grind his bones into flour”). On the land of another serpent, with 6 heads, Ursa orders her to be exchanged for a barrel, and promises to return to the soldier if the serpent does not call her name until they cross the border. The soldier crosses the border, the 6-headed serpent appears, threatens to devour him, burn him with fire , the soldier offers to feed the Snake. He doubts, because he needs a lot of food. Ursa sets the table with abundant treats. The Snake understands that with Ursa he does not need to fly every day to hunt and exchanges Ursa for a barrel with the soldier. The soldier crosses the next border, calls Ursa, she appears with him. A Snake with 12 heads appears, wants to devour the soldier, he feeds the Snake with Ursa's help. The Snake exchanges the self-cutting sword for Ursa. The soldier gets caught in the rain, does not know how to warm up, Ursa advises to order the self-cutting sword to beat the Snake, the sword cuts off all 12 heads. The soldier comes to the king, says that he served him for 20 years and demands that the king served him, orders the sword to cut off the king's head. The soldier calls all the soldiers, orders them to guard ("the kingdom of workers and peasants") the poor and orphans, and distributes land to the soldiers. The soldier turns the barrel, and a crystal palace appears. Among other things, a Bayun cat lives there, from whom the storyteller learned to tell fairy tales]: Tonkov 1949, No. 11: 181-189; Russian (Voronezhskaya; spiritual poems about Yegory the Brave) [Yagoriy set snakes on the herds, // Fire and flames blazed from his mouth, // Smoke billowed from his ears ]: Pukhova 2011: 12; Ukrainians (Transcarpathia, Khust district, Gorinchevo village) [in the 77th state, behind the glass mountains, behind the milky streams, live an old man and an old woman, they have no children; the old woman asks the grandfather to make a child and a cradle out of wood; he cuts down a sycamore tree, hews out a boy, they call him Sycamore Ivan (YAI); he makes a cradle, the woman rocks it, the child does not come to life, but grows; two years later he goes into the forest, helps the grandfather; snakes (sharkans) took three royal daughters; their savior will receive one of them and the state; YAI goes in search, meets a gypsy, become friends; they find a hole, weave a rope, fasten it to the slab; one will take the youngest daughter, the second - the middle one, the eldest will serve; YAI comes down, hears the girl singing, she is in a hut rotating on a chicken leg; girl: the husband has five heads, he has strong water; YAI drinks water; an iron club falls into the yard, YAI throws it back, the snake sees that there is someone strong in his yard; enters, says that it smells sinful; wife: this is my brother; they shake hands; the snake eats melted tin dumplings, drinks water, then they go to fight; the snake drives YAI into the ground up to his knees, YAI him - up to the waist, the snake - up to his arms, YAI - up to the neck; he begins to beat off his heads with a club, but they return again; the girl sprinkles them with ashes, the heads cannot grow back, the snake is killed; the girl says that she and YAI belong to each other; YAI orders to collect everything valuable, lock the house, wait for him; she puts on the snake's clothes, takes his saber, comes to the middle sister; she also plays the accordion and sings; her husband has ten heads, drinks a special wine; YAI swaps barrels of water and wine; approaching, the dragon throws a club of 12 centners; YAI drinks wine, throws away the club; (further the same as in the house of the first dragon); YAI changes the saber for the one that the stronger dragon has, comes to the third hut; there is the youngest princess; the dragon yells at his wife that he caught her with her lover, breathes fire from 12 mouths ; YAI hides by the door; when heads appear in the hut, he orders the sabre to chop them off; the eldest princess puts all the jewels in a cream, the middle one in an apple, the youngest in a nut, YAI puts them in his pocket, sends the royal daughters upstairs, the gypsy takes them out and walks away with them; YAI walks along the path day and night, comes to the hut, there is a woman, her eyelashes reach the ground; she calls him the son of a dog, agrees to take him into service, orders him to take a pitchfork and lift her eyelids, otherwise she cannot see him; YAI lifts the woman's eyelashes, she recognizes him as YAI: the sycamore from which he was made also knows him; he will look after her mares: graze them three times and drive them back, otherwise the head will be off; the mares are the woman's daughters; the woman gives YAI a sleepy cake; when YAI wakes up, the mares are gone; the fox asks to be given a crust, tells him to go home and stand in the manger: the mares have become hens, the fox begins to torment them, the hens run into the barn, become mares, YAI ties them up, reports to the woman, who beats them with an iron pitchfork for letting them get caught, tells them what they should do; on the second day, everything is the same, the wolf promises to help if YAI treats him with bread; explains that the mares have become crows; the old horse lying on the manure will tell him everything that should be done; the horse: there is a twig in his tail, you need to wave it and say: "Stay where you are"; three crows sitting on a tree fly into the barn, become mares; the woman beats them with an iron pitchfork: they are probably sleeping with Ivan, they love him, they want to destroy her; on the third day YAI gives the crust to the bear; he advises to go home, there is an ox lying on the second pile of manure, he will explain what to do; the ox tells him to take two twigs from his tail, wave one to the left, the other to the right, until the mares appear, ask the woman for an old horse for his service; the mares have turned into crayfish, they swim from pool to pool, YAI hits them with twigs, turns them back into mares; the woman tears her hair, tells him to ask for whatever YAI wants; he asks for the old horse; the horse advises the woman to say goodbye, the woman spits after him, he manages to close the door, otherwise he would have burned; the horse asks how to go - with the wind or against the wind, flies up, asks to look what is behind them; YAI sees a black cloud, it is the woman, the horse tells him to throw the comb (thickets from the ground to the clouds); the cloud almost catches up, but they cross the border of the earthly world; the woman roars terribly, crumbles to dust; the horse suggests going to the royal city; the woman: the three royal daughters have returned, a wedding is being prepared, the gypsy takes the youngest; YAI hires himself out to a shoemaker; the princess ordered to make such shoes as had never been made before; YAI takes the shoes of his youngest sister out of a nut, hangs them on a nail; in the morning the youngest princess comes, tells the shoemaker that it was not his doing, and she still needs to go to the tailor; YAI runs to the tailor, takes a dress out of a nut; the princess calls the craftsmen to her wedding; YAI tells the horse, he orders to climb into his left ear, there is a beautiful dress; they fly to the palace; the gypsy to the king: it is an angel riding to the wedding; seeing YAI, the bride cries with joy, but the gypsy does not confess; YAI puts a plum on the table,apple and nut; the older sisters take out their wealth, but the nut of the youngest is empty; she understands everything; the gypsy is executed, YI marries the youngest princess]: Lіntur 1969: 151-160;Ukrainians (Transcarpathia) [the sharkant snake is described as a 12-headed fire-breathing dragon that devours girls; an unnamed hero fights it, and the sharkant hits him with fire]: Tolstaya in Vinogradova, Levkievsaya 2020: 386; Ukrainians (Galicia) [an old soldier is leaving the service; the old man asks for alms; he gives him one kreuzer and two that he had; the same old man comes back again, the soldier gives the second kreuzer; the third time the soldier gives a piece of his cloak; he comes to the city, the king orders him to spend the night in the church to save his daughter, promises a reward; there the snake eats the guards; the old man orders him to stand to the left of the door, the snake will not see; the snake flew, scattering fire , and disappeared; the same the next night; on the third night you need to stand behind the image of Nicholas; the snake turned into a beauty, the spell broke; she turned the soldier into a prince, sat him next to her; a feast; the old man came there, gave a means to call him, if trouble; in another city the prince {from what follows it is clear that this is a different person, and that the princess cheated on the soldier with the minister} killed a 7-headed dragon living in a rock, people are grateful; the prince and the soldier parted, plunging a knife into a beech: if there is blood on the knife, then trouble is with the owner; the prince came to the sea; he sees a mountain on which there are three girls: the middle one in gold, the youngest in diamonds, the eldest in silver; seeing the crying prince below, the eldest and middle say that they will not go for him, but the youngest (diamond) agrees to go; she put a handkerchief on the sea, the prince crossed it to the glass mountain; she brought him to the palace; says that he is her betrothed, only a night remains to wait until 9 years; gave him strong water to drink, and he killed “that woman” (the witch); they arrive at the place where they stuck knives into the beech tree – there is blood on the soldier’s knife; the wife has living water; they found the soldier’s body, revived it, and killed that minister and the princess; they returned with the soldier to the glass mountain, and gave the soldier the middle (golden) sister as his wife]: Dragomanov 1876, No. 5: 267-271; Ukrainians (Kievskaya, Cherkassky u., S. Mleev) [see motive L120; “fly like a snake, plow with hellish fire for three hours”]: Chubinsky 1878, No. 69: 258; Ukrainians (Poltava) [after reviewing the troops, the tsar went home; it was hot, he decided to get a drink at least from the swamp; got stuck; "If only the devil would help"; an evil spirit flew in, demanded to give back what the tsar did not know at home; pulled him out of the swamp; at that time his wife gave birth to a son and a daughter; offers to hide the children under the floor; they grew up in a year; the devil flew in; the tsar: I don’t know where the children are; the devil asks for a poker, a poker, an axe; he tells about a chisel; let the devil throw it and look where it stuck; the devil carried the children away, sat down to rest, told the girl to look in his head, and the boy to scratch his heels; a horse flew in, told her to mount it, and flew away; the snake noticed the loss, breathed fire, did not reach them; but the horse realized that the snake would catch up, left the children in the field and flew away; the children persuaded the snake not to eat them; the bird tells her to mount it and carries it (ditto); the third time the bull carries him away; feeling the fiery breath of the serpent, the bull did not leave the children, but ordered to climb into the left ear, climb out of the right and get the harness; it did not help; the bull: climb into the right, climb out of the left, get the comb and throw - there will be a forest; the serpent got through; next time get a white scarf, wave it back, there will be a sea; the sea serpent cannot be overcome; the bull brought it to the hut; orders to slaughter it, eat the meat, and put the bones behind the eaves, from them the dogs Chuiko and Buiko will grow; the serpent pretended to be a handsome guy on the other side of the sea; tells the sister to ask her brother to wash the scarf, wave it; the sea disappeared, the serpent came; advised to pretend to be ill, send for hare's milk; just then the brother comes, the serpent hides in the chest, the dogs bark, the sister asks to drive them out into the yard; the hare scolds her milk, gives a son; all the same with fox's milk (the fox gives a fox cub), wolf's, bear's; the snake advises to send his brother for pears and apples; they are in the snake's garden; the snake is burning with fire , but Ivan is baked, and the dogs tore the snake to shreds, I. brought pears and apples; bring a watermelon; in the melon field another snake is burning with fire (ditto); send to the mill, the doors of which will slam shut themselves; snake: if I. kills me, then bake pies with my meat and my tooth inside; I. goes to the mill, a person he meets teaches: you must not look back, otherwise the 12 doors of the mill will lock; but having collected flour, I. looked back and the dogs remained locked; the same man told about his sister and the snake and taught: go slowly so that the dogs have time to break down the doors; at home I. asks to be allowed to steam out in the bathhouse; the magpie teaches to pour out the fire so that the bathhouse does not heat up longer; I. ​​asks to be allowed to climb a sycamore {plane tree} to say goodbye to this world; whistled; the dogs, hare, fox, wolf, bear came running, tore the snake apart; the sister managed to snatch a piece of meat and a tooth; as soon as I. bit off a pie, the tooth jumped out into his forehead, I. died; Chuyko pulled out the tooth, but it sank into him, Chuyko died; so did all the animals in succession; the hare managed to pull the tooth out of the fox so that it sank into a log; he climbed into a dead cow; eagles flew in; the hare grabbed the eagle and ordered him to bring healing and living water, and the eaglet was left as a pledge; the eagle brought it, the hare tore the eaglet apart, washed it with healing water, the eaglet grew together, and then came back to life with living water; after this the hare revived everyone into whom the tooth sank; I. tied his sister to a sycamore and put two buckets in front of her so that she would cry, and he himself went to his father]: Chubinsky 1978, No. 48: 138-152; Ukrainians (Ekaterinoslavskaya, Mariupolsky district, Olginskoye village) [while hunting, Ivan Tsarevich meets an iron wolf; the wolf agrees to eat him on his wedding day; the tsar surrounds the palace with an army, but the wolf passes by, Ivan gallops away, comes to a hut on a chicken leg, where a witch with three daughters; she agrees to rid him of the wolf if he marries her daughter; the wolf is her husband; they decide to destroy the son-in-law, send for living and dead water; a crow promises to get it if Ivan does not touch her crows; teaches a bird to fly into a well and fly away to the side, otherwise the guard snakes will burn it with fire ; Ivan came to an old man, his wife died, Ivan revived her; the old man gave a handkerchief, told me to throw it on the wolf, he became a 12-headed snake, you need to hit the right and the left, the heads flew off; [the kitten must get to the witch; I.-the kitten hears how the eldest daughter of the witch and the wolf promises to become a well, the middle one - an apple tree, the youngest - a room with food on the table; he chops all this, blood flows; returns home to his wife and parents]: Novitsky 3007, No. 117: 78-81 (=Petnikov 1955: 189-192).

Caucasus - Asia Minor. Crimean Tatars [Asan, the son of a poor old woman, sees a bull breathing fire fighting a rainbow-colored snake; she has a turban with a diamond on her head; A. killed the bull; the snake takes him to her father, the king of the divas; they pass through the womb of the snake's father and mother; the snake tells him to ask for a talisman that her father has under his tongue; the talisman contains askers that fulfill any wish; A. tells his mother to woo the padishah's daughter for him; he demands that he build a palace larger than the padishah's in 40 days and nights and connect the two palaces with a bridge; A. did everything, received the padishah's daughter and was made vizier; the viziers bribed the princess's slave and found out the secret; they sent a merchant to persuade the princess to give her a lot of goods for the talisman; The princess pretended to be ill, told A. that his talisman would cure her; having received this red stone, she gave it to the merchant; he did not give it to the viziers, but himself moved the palace and the princess to the ends of the earth; A. spared the cat and the rat; they promised to return the talisman if A. would give them his dog as a horse; the cat began to cuddle up to the princess, she took her to her bed; the rat gnawed a hole, brought snuff; at night the merchant sneezed, the talisman fell out of his mouth; when the dog was swimming across the sea, the cat and the rat quarreled and dropped the talisman; they told A. about this; he began to fish, caught a gold one, she asked to let it go, for this she brought the talisman; A. moved the palace back and showed the padishah his eldest daughter in the arms of the merchant; they were beheaded, the viziers were put in prison, A. received the youngest daughter of the padishah]: Birzgal 1992, No. 12: 153-175; Ossetians [in old age, Aslan decides to test his sons; the eldest and middle ones return from distant, dangerous places, but A. says that he got there in a day; the youngest Kaurbek gets a horse and heroic weapons from under a burial mound; meets his father's brother, who fought with the army of Donbettyr's daughter; K. wounds her, kills the horse, makes belts from its skin, goes down into the sea; the old woman teaches her to change vessels with living and dead water; K. defeats D.'s daughter, gives her to her uncle, revives the horse with living water; takes out the sword stuck in his grandfather's skull; he teaches him to hit the khan with it, not to strike a second time; K. kills the khan, takes her daughter; In the land of the khan there is eternal night; K. comes to the sea, across it there is a whale-bridge; K. crosses it to the house of the Sun; his mother hides K., asks her son-Sun questions so that K. can overhear the answers; the Sun does not illuminate the khan's domain, because he tried to kidnap his daughter; the whale lies as a bridge, because it swallowed the ships; K. goes back, tells the whale the answer, he releases the ships, frees himself; K. takes away the daughter of the Sun, light spreads across the khan's domain; the Sun sends fire-breathing man-eating mares to the kidnapper of his daughter with steel jaws, K.'s horse destroys them; the daughter of the Sun insidiously tells K. to milk the remaining mares, to bathe in boiling milk; the horse advises K. not to throw herself into the boiling water, but to walk along the crossbar on which the cauldron hangs; the daughter of the Sun believes, bathes herself, comes out unharmed, the darkness over the earth dissipates; Zaliag-kalm in the sea (!) does not give water for drinking, demands a boy and a girl per month; K. kills him, the blood colors the sea yellow, now the sea is called "Yellow"; the older brothers kill the sleeping K. and his horse; the daughter of the Sun sends Donbettyr's daughter to revive K. with living water; K. forgives the brothers, gives one the daughter of Donbettyr, the other the daughter of the khan, washes his father with living water, he becomes younger; K. decides to get him Khadija as a wife; with difficulty defeats the warrior; the hawk reports that this is H., she will lose her heroic strength if kissed; K. kisses, brings H. as a wife to his father; the eldest, middle one return from distant, dangerous places, but A.]: Byazirov 1971, No. 15: 156-173; Ossetians [aldar is childless; while hunting he leaned over a spring, but the water immediately went away and a voice was heard: boil the crop of a black hen, give it to your wife to eat, she will give birth to a son; aldar put the crop not in the cauldron, but on the coals; it burst, half flew off to the side and a dog ate it; she gave birth to a golden-haired boy, and the wife to an ordinary one; the boys grew up quickly; aldar's son (SA) went to look for a bride and took with him the son of a bitch (SS); they began to woo the sister of 7 uaigs; they demand to climb a tree and come down with a full cup of water without spilling it; to throw a sword into an apple tree so that the apples fall out; SS does everything (he split the apple tree in half); the uaigs gave away their sister; SA stays at home, SS hunts with the uaigs, kills more divi than all of them together; drags the prey on the branches of a tree, dragging it behind him; the uaigs gave SA the keys to 7 chambers, and ordered not to enter the 8th; but he entered; in six there are jewels, in the seventh - a milky lake, in the eighth there is a seven-headed uaig on chains; he spews hot coals from his mouth, the chains are red from the heat ; asks to collect a bucket of milk from that lake and pour it over him; SA did it, uaig broke the chains, stuck AI under the beam, carried away the uaigs' sister; SS goes in search, ordering not to touch SA for a year; SS meets, takes as companions a priest carrying a church on his head; a man who catches a hare, and millstones are tied to his knees; drinking the sea; everyone answers that the real miracle SS will see further; they raised the slab, there is a hole under it; everyone tries to go down, but orders to raise it, because there is heat below; SS went down, there is SA's wife and that uaig; SS asks the woman to find out where her husband's soul is; uaig: in the middle pillar of the house; SA advises to decorate the pillar and dance around it; under the hearth; decorate the hearth and dance again; in the boar, for which a hundred woodcocks mow hay; in it a roe deer, in it a hare, in it a casket, in the casket three swallows; SS goes to the steppe; the mowers sometimes cry, sometimes sing; they do not have time to mow the hay and the boar devours one of them; SA hid in the hay, killed the boar, the roe deer, the hare and two swallows, in which the courage and power of the uaig; came to the uaig and tore off the head of the one in whom his soul is; the companions lifted the woman; SS tied a log in his place, the companions let go of the rope; in the house of the uaig SS found his mother: one tusk above the heavens, the other in the underworld; threatens to hack her to death if he does not help her return to earth; she points to the ram: if you take the right horn, you will rise to the earth, and the left, you will get to the seventh underworld; SS grabbed the left one and came to the village where the dragon closed the water; gives once a year for a girl, it is the turn of the aldar's daughter; SS dressed up as a girl, the dragon came out of the water, SS chopped it up; aldar reports that an eagle sits on the black mountain and flies to the ground once a year; SS approached the nest; the eagle hatches three chicks a year and each time they are devoured by the Zaliag dragon; the son of the bitch chopped up the dragon; it began to rain, the eagle flies and cries, believing that the chicks have been eaten; then the sun shines: the eagle sees that the chicks are alive, and the sunlight comes from her eyes; then the wind - from her wings; the eagle agrees to carry SS to the ground if he prepares meat and beer; SS cut off the last piece from his leg; on the ground the eagle put it back; SS gave the shepherd a ring and ordered him to show the bride the priest who was getting married that day; she recognized the ring; SS chopped up his companions, took the sister of the Uaigs and brought her to them at the last moment, when they were preparing to slaughter SA (SS fired an arrow, warning that he was already close); on the way home, the devils slipped SA and his wife a bed, they lay down and turned to stone; SS went to the Uaigs for their felt whip and revived the petrified ones with a blow of it; at home, with the same whip, he restored youth to Aldar and his wife; wedding, feast]: Dzagurov 1973, No. 45: 162-177; Ingush: Malsagov 1983, No. 1 [“On Friday, three fire-breathing horses appeared before the prince’s son, flames of the same color as each horse’s coat were gushing from their nostrils”; ““Don’t come any closer!” – gritting its teeth, the sarmak {dragon} moved toward the youth, blue flames bursting from its mouth. The prince’s son chopped the sarmak into sixty-three pieces with his saber, pierced them with his saber and nailed them to the ground”; “As soon as the prince’s son hid, a huge eagle appeared, belching flames from its beak. She saw the killed snake and asked the chicks: “Who saved you, my chicks?”” (see summary in the data for K107F “The Sun, the Moon and the Wind”)], comment. to No. 8 (p. Dzheyrakh, 1977) [“The kant came to the spring and saw a sarmak {dragon}, one jaw of which was pressed against the sky, and the other against the ground. The sarmak began to douse the kant with fire. With a blow of his saber, the kant split the sarmak’s jaw, thrust the saber into it and left”]: 26-27, 331; (cf. Malsagov 1983, No. 29 [“The saddle had grown to the horse, he himself had grown to the saddle, flames were pouring out of his mouth – that’s how the black Nogai rode”; “The black Nogai woke up and stood up. Flames were pouring out of his mouth, smoke was pouring out of his ears. He jumped on his horse and set it on Berz Dog”]: 137, 140); Chechens [a prince has a tree with copper branches and golden leaves, someone steals them; three sons guard it in turns; only the youngest does not fall asleep, cuts off someone's finger and head; follows a bloody trail; takes as his companion a tree-puller, a sea-drinker, a sharpshooter; they lower the prince's son into a hole; the girl says that they are the three daughters of a three-headed eagle, someone cut off one of their father's heads and a finger; she asks her father what can kill him; he answers that there is a ram behind the mountains, in it a hare, in the hare a duck, in the duck three chicks; the prince's son kills them all, the companions lift the girls up, the youngest leaves the prince's son a ring; tells him to touch the white horse, it will carry him to the upper world; red - you will stay here, black - you will end up below; the companions cut the rope; the prince's son touches the black one; the old woman says that the fire-breathing sarmak (dragon) closed the water; the sarmak gives water three times, then they fight; although the sarmak breathes fire, the prince's son cut it into 63 pieces; stuck a saber in the ground: only the one who killed the dragon can pull it out; only the prince's son could; refuses the princess, asks for help to return to his world; the padishah sends him to the eagle on the black mountain; the young man kills the snake that annually devours chicks; the eagle carries him to the ground; there is not enough meat, he cuts off flesh from his leg, from both hands; the eagle regurgitates the meat, puts it back; disguised as a shepherd, the young man comes to the wedding of the saved princesses; the youngest recognizes him by the ring; the young man kills the traitors, marries, and brings two princesses as wives to his brothers]: Malsagov 1983, No. 1: 23-29 (=Kibiev, Malsagov 1965: 155-171); Dargins[the shah goes to check if anyone turns on the light at night; at the house of an orphan girl he hears three times how she promises to give birth to the shah a golden-haired boy and a silver-haired girl; the shah marries, leaves, orders the nukers to hang out a red flag if the promised children are born, and a black one if ordinary ones; the first wife orders the children to be replaced with puppies, the children to be thrown into the river in a box; the shah orders the young wife to be sewn up in a buffalo skin, thrown at the threshold, to wipe her feet on her, to spit on her; the childless miller fished out the box; the grown-up girl orders him to buy calico at the market, embroiders a kerchief with silver and gold hair, sends her brother to sell it; the Persian gives a huge amount of money, the brother and sister go to the edge of the city, build a palace better than the shah's; the eldest wife sends a witch 1) to persuade a girl to ask her brother to get a special tree; the horse says that it is behind a wall guarded by fire-breathing dragons ; the dragon king gives the tree; 2) to get an overseas wife for her brother; the sea horse carries the young man, he beats the beauty with a golden whip, she wakes up, leaves with him; the vizier tells the shah the truth, he returns his wife and children, the eldest wife is left to rot in prison]: Osmanov 1963: 97-102 (= Kapieva 1991: 120-125; = Mazaev, Kasumov 1997(1): 349-354); lacquer [father and daughter Raiganat tie sheaves, the snake asks to give up his daughter, she agrees; the snake leads to his underground palace, the roads are guarded by fire-breathing azhdaha , but the snake made them bow; gives a magic tablecloth; it was stolen; a snake gives millstones, R. She stepped on the snake's tail, the snake's skin came off, and a beautiful young man, Musil-Muhad, appeared; he gives his father-in-law a magic tablecloth, but envious people stole it; gives millstones that grind flour by themselves (the same); a donkey from which gold pours out (the same); then he gives sticks, which force the thieves to return everything]: Khalilov 1965, no. 68: 207-211 (= Ganieva 2011b, no. 66: 558-561); Georgians (Imereti) [the king tells his 40 sons that he cannot divide the kingdom among them: let each one get himself land and a wife; the youngest prince is a soothsayer; tells the brothers not to stop for the night in one house; they stopped, fell asleep, the prince killed the 6-headed maiden with an arrow, cut off and hid his ears, killed the old woman in the basement of the house, took the keys to the chests with treasures, quietly returned to the brothers; the same at the next overnight stay (7-headed maiden, not treasures, but 40 maidens); the third time the prince himself fell asleep; the fire-breathing maiden blocked up the exits from the house; let the princes go for the promise of the youngest to get him a queen; the kingdom of women; servants will carry him across the seas, who must be told the name of the maiden; the prince showed his brothers the ears of two other maidens, gave them the keys and said that he put their rings on the girls' fingers; the black man carried him across the black sea, the red man - across the red; three argue over a flying carpet, an invisibility cap, a self-assembled tablecloth; the prince shoots arrows - who will bring it first; he himself takes the miraculous objects, he himself flies invisible to the kingdom of women; the old woman tells about the queen; she lived with the king, they went hunting, chased a deer, the deer turned into a woman, who turned them into deer; the deer-queen ran to the kingdom of women and here was disenchanted; she was chosen queen; the prince began to play the chonguri, the queen and the maids fell asleep, he flew with the queen on a flying carpet; she knows what will happen next; seeing her, the fire-breathing maiden laughed and burned himself; the prince carried the queen back and returned home; 40 brothers married 40 girls]: Glushakov 1904, No. 5: 40-50; Turks [a blind padishah will regain his sight if you get earth from where he has never been; the eldest, middle son ride for three, six months, return; the youngest Kerloglan ("bald") threatens his mother that he will kill her; she gives him a bridle to call her father's horse from the bottom of a reservoir; on it K. comes to one, then to a second old woman, woos their daughters for the eldest, middle brother; first old woman: the land untrodden by the father is under the head of a lying monster; horse: the monster can burn everything , the father was blinded by his fire; The monster promises to give land for the girl Khodja-Kyz; seeing her, K. goes blind; she heals him, but his eyes become dark, without whites; HK promises to go with K. if he brings a mare with six foals living in the river; these are the brothers of K.'s horse; the horse rushes into the river; if red foam floats up, it means he is dead; a white one floats up; the mare comes out, followed by the foals; HK recognizes K.'s strength, the monster gives the land, leaves HK to the young man, K.'s father immediately regains his sight; HK gives K. two nuts, inside one there is a dress, the other - a golden tray with moving figures; gives a ring, teaches what to do; the brothers sit K. on a carpet over a hole, he falls through, they take the girls; K. licks the ring, a white and a black ram appear, K. tries to jump on the white one, the black one carries him to the seventh lower world; the old woman has only bad water, the seven-headed giant took the good one and gives it in exchange for the girls he devours; it is the turn of the king's daughter; K. cuts off six heads, the giant dies; if the seventh was cut off, he would come back to life; the princess's hands are in the giant's blood, she puts them to K.'s back, and that is how they discovered that he is the hero; K. kills the snake that was devouring the chicks of the bird Anka; she agrees to deliver him to the ground; the prepared 40 kg of meat and water run out, K. cuts off a piece of flesh from the caviar; on the ground, Anka puts it back; K. hires himself out to a tailor, then to a jeweler; they bring the dress and tray that HK demanded as a condition of marriage; HK knows that K. has returned; a tournament (jirit) is arranged twice; at the first K. appears in black clothes, kills the eldest brother, at the second - in red, kills the middle one; HK tells the padishah about everything; [Wedding of 40 Days and Nights]: Walker, Uysal 1966, no. 1: 10-24.

Iran - Central Asia. Tajiks ["with hissing and whistling, breathing fire and releasing smoke from its nostrils , a terrible dragon crawled towards Sangsabura. It rose to its full height to attack Sangsabura. Without thinking twice, the brave hero ran towards the dragon and plunged his sword into its belly. The dragon fell to the ground dead, and the fire in its mouth went out" (see summary in data for motif K118 "Forbidden Room"): Ulug-zade 1967: 20-21; Uzbeks [a poor girl settled in a cave; a winged fire-breathing dragon found her, kept her; closed the entrance to the cave with its golden horn; the princess promised to marry the young strongman if he killed the dragon; he killed it with an arrow, cut off its horn, and took it with him; approaching the cave, he opened the entrance blocked by a stone with his horn; stayed to live with the girl; the princess decided that he was dead and married the vizier's son; the shah came with an army to take the girl from the guy, but he rolled a stone down the mountain and the army fled; one day they both came out of the cave and found themselves in a garden; it grew from the tears shed by the girl while she was imprisoned by the dragon]: Afzalov 1972(2): 25-29; Uzbeks [an envoy of Zabunshah asks for help against the div Akvon, who is demanding princess Zubayda Zulfikor; Kahramon (the youngest son of the king of the city of Mir) rides a rhinoceros, finds himself in a cave, his name is written on the iron gates; K. frees 12 divs led by Sangi, chained by his grandfather Saquon; they help to defeat the div from Z.; K. cuts off his little finger, the div disappears; fortune tellers say that he is in a sunny country beyond the seven seas of darkness; an old man orders to kill a flying fire-breathing dragon that annually devours the chicks of the bird Semurg, she will bring him to the city of Kavus; K. kills the dragon with arrows; the storm is Semurg's breath, lightning is the sparkle in her eyes, sighs are thunder, hail is drops of sweat, and a downpour is tears; the chicks first hide K. from their mother so that she does not accidentally kill him; in flight, K. gives Semurg food and water; A. entangled the city of Kavus with wire, it rings when touched; by throwing stones, Semurg helps to defeat the divs, K. cuts off A.'s head, Semurg carries him back, he marries ZZ]: Afzalov et al. 1972(2): 498-509; Turkmens [fire and smoke come out of the nostrils of the azhdakh]: Sakali 1956: 65; dards (kho) [the fire-breathing demons dewo, or diu, have the appearance of dogs; those they attack are struck down by one-sided paralysis]: Jettmar 1986: 451.

Baltoscandia. Kalevala [with hunting spells and prayers Lemminkäinen gets an elk; 2) tame the fire-breathing horse Hiisi ; L. bridles and drives the horse to Pohjola; 3) shoot a swan on the Tuoni River; L., who came to the river, is killed by a shepherd, whom he has passed over in song, and throws the body on the threshold of Tuoni; the son of Tuoni chops the body into pieces]: Rune 14: 158-168; Scandinavians (Gylfi's Vision) ["Fenrir the Wolf advances with his mouth wide open: the upper jaw to the sky, the lower to the ground. If there were room, he would open his mouth wider. Flames blaze from his eyes and nostrils "]: Younger Edda 1970: 52; Norwegians [the younger of the king's two sons leaves and hires himself out to a giant; he orders him to clean out the stables in one day and not to go into the other rooms; the young man enters, in one a cauldron is boiling without fire, whatever gets into it turns into copper; in the second, the cauldron turns silver, in the third, gold; the young man drops a lock of hair into each; in the fourth room, a girl; she teaches him to dig with a shovel handle while cleaning the stable, the work will be done immediately; the giant suspects that the maid taught him; the next day - bring a horse; girl: the horse is breathing fire , you must throw a bridle into his mouth; on the third day: bring payment from hell for the borrowed fire; girl: knock on the rock with a club, the door will open, ask for as much as you can carry; on the fourth day, the giant himself brings the young man to the maid, orders her to cut his throat, cook broth; She puts three drops of the youth's blood to boil with some old rubbish, both run away, sail on a ship across the sea; the drops of blood answer the giant for the girl; when he understands the deception, he calls the Stream-Sucker, who drinks the water of the sea, the ship is already in sight; the youth throws a piece of salt, a mountain appears; the giant drilled it, the Stream-Sucker wanted to start drinking, but the youth drips into the sea from a flask, it fills up again; the fugitives reach the shore; the prince goes for horses, the bride orders not to speak to anyone; the sister of the brother's bride gives an apple, he takes a bite, forgets the bride; she goes to the old woman, makes the house golden; the constable brings money, wants to marry; she orders him to throw hot coals on himself all night; then the lawyer - orders him to push in the door; the sheriff - drags the calf by the tail; the youth must take the sister of the elder brother's bride as his wife; the carriage falls apart, he manages to drive thanks to magical objects borrowed by the giant's daughter; she is invited to a feast; she puts a golden rooster and hen on the table, they fight over a golden apple; the prince remembers everything; the witch who gave him the apple is torn apart by 24 horses]: Dasent 1970: 71-90; Latvians [puke, pēkis in fairy tales are a fire-breathing multi-headed snake, an opponent of the hero, living in or near water.]: Ivanov, Toporov 1992: 349; (cf. Lutsi {zap. 1933} [two heroes: Ukha Kukhalevich and Franz Vintsian; Ukha's parents did not want to let him in, but he left the house; knocked F. off his horse, it turned out that he was a girl; when she came to, she reproached him; if she had hit with full force, she would have killed Ukha; the devil sits on an oak tree, scorching with heat for 40 miles, Ukha killed him; there is an empty castle in the forest, that girl F. came there; they began to fight with a big devil - the Serpent; he almost ate Ukha, and F. chopped him into pieces; Ukha descended into the lower world; there is a hut on chicken legs with ram's horns; Ukha: turn to face me; there is an old woman, calls her brother her son, gives a ball of yarn, it rolls to her middle sister; she sends him to the third {apparently the eldest}; from there he goes to the king, who scorches with fire ; wolf: do not eat me; orders to sit on it, jumps into the water, they are only slightly burned; the king also calls Ukha his brother's son; the king has 12 heroes, they do not like Ukha; they tell the king that he threatened to get a horse with the sun in front, the moon behind; the wolf: the bridle is even better than the horse; the horse with the bridle was stolen; heroes: Ukha threatened to get the princess; the wolf brought her to the garden, ordered to seize the princess when she comes out into the garden; they brought the princess to the king; she demands her 12 more maids; they brought her; the princess demands a self-playing kantele; with the help of the wolf he got it again; then a self-cutting sword; heroes: Ukha threatened to defeat them all alone; Ukha chopped up 6 heroes, the king asks to stop; Ukha wants to go home; the king: Raven Voronovich would have delivered, but he is walled up; Ukha freed him, fattened him up; began to rise, there was not enough meat, had to cut off the calves of the legs; on the ground VV regurgitated them, Ukha implanted living and dead water; Ukha returned to F.; wedding]: Annom et al. 2018: 106-113).

Volga - Perm. Komi -Permyaks (northern dialect) [the tsar allowed his three daughters to walk in the garden; a whirlwind immediately carried them away; the tsar promises one of them as a wife and a rank to the one who returns the daughters; the soldier Foolish Ivanushka (I.) promised to find; the tsar gave him two soldiers as companions; I. began to play the accordion; a long-bearded little man appeared and began to dance; I. stopped playing on the condition that the dwarf would tell where the kidnapped princesses were; he only said that they were with the snakes; I. pinched his beard, splitting a stump, but he broke free at night, leaving a tuft of his beard; I. and his companions followed the bloody trail to a hole in the ground; Ivan was lowered on a rope; it was light there, the princess was rinsing laundry in the river; she lives with a three-headed snake; her sisters are further away; orders to change the barrels with strong and weak water; the snake breathes fire , but weakens, I. cuts off its heads, the princess gave her a crystal palace; the next princess had a six-headed snake for a husband (also, a silver palace); the third had a 12-headed snake (also, a golden palace, I. and the princess decided to get married); the companions pulled out the princesses, began to argue over them, but I. did not pull them out; I. began to play, the dwarf began to dance; I. stopped playing when the dwarf carried him to the ground; the princesses to their father: we will marry the soldiers if they bring us palaces and the clothes that we had; I. plays again, forcing the dwarf to bring the palaces and place them opposite the tsar's palace; I. showed the princesses' clothes and the tongues cut out of the mouths of the snakes; the tsar put the deceivers in prison, married his youngest daughter to Ivan; I was there, I drank beer, and not a drop got into my mouth]: Rédei 1978, no. 188: 425-431; Mordvins (Moksha; the text is full of late realities, but the plot is pure) [a poor old woman has a son, Prosha; he is inhumanly strong; the tsar came and promised wealth if P. beats his enemies; P. beats him, but the tsar did not keep his promise and did not take care of P.'s mother, so P. left; he stayed with an old woman who had a daughter and a grandson: she used witchcraft to make him fall in love with her daughter; one day he came to the house, and there was a coffin; the princess rises from the coffin and teaches her to save herself: to read a book for three nights; disenchanted, she went to her father, and P. must appear at this place in three days: she will arrive on a steamer; the old woman sends her grandson Maxim to keep an eye on P.; as soon as a steamship appears, it sticks a sleeping pin into P., the princess cannot wake him up; this happens three times; the princess puts a wedding ring on the sleeping man and puts a note in his pocket; the fourth time P. catches up with the steamship, but the princess has already flown away on an eagle to the other side of the fiery mountain; P. finds another eagle; a 12-headed serpent is chasing them, fire flies out of its mouths ; says that P. has stolen his wife; the eagle descends to the ground, having passed the mountain, P. knocks down all 12 heads of the serpent; P. meets the princess, gets married; P. smashes all the enemies who attacked his father-in-law]: Maskaev 1966: 110-119; Kazan Tatars [the padishah has a son and two daughters; the suitors are refused; the eldest was kidnapped; the mother died of grief; the padishah married a young woman; the stepmother orders to drive away her stepson and stepdaughter; they came to a house in the forest; nearby there is a dugout where 12 robbers and the elder sister are; she gave them drink, the brother killed them; the sister regrets living with the robbers; one is still alive, she nursed him back to health; they agree to get rid of her brother; she pretended to be ill, sends for hare, fox, wolf, bear, lion, tiger milk; all the animals give milk and a cub; the younger sister takes care of them; the eldest offers to play cards, the loser will be tied up; she tied up the brother, the robber is ready to kill him, but the animals tore him apart; the brother and younger sister come to another country; there the azhdaha devours girls, it is the turn of the padishah's daughters; the brother kills him with the help of animals; the blind man says that he beat the two-headed azhdaha with a bucket, demands the princess as his wife; the next day the same thing (three-headed azhdaha, the middle princess, the imaginary savior is one-armed); then the fire-breathing azhdaha , the youngest princess, the lame man; the horseman comes to the wedding, shows the heads crushed by a stone and the rings given to him by the princesses; crushed the impostors with stones, married the youngest princess; returned the older sister; she put a robber's tooth in her brother's bed, the brother died; the animals pulled out the tooth, the owner came back to life; the animals tore the older sister to pieces]: Zamaletdinov 2008b, No. 15: 133-153; Bashkirs [Khan Mamut, his vizier Ametkhan; sacrificed 40 camels and a son Timirkhan was born; while playing, he crippled other boys; his father advised him to leave; on the way a shepherd advised to take another horse - one of those that would go down to the watering hole; A. sees a beaten army; A. defeated the daredevil who did this, he became his friend; three girls praise the strength of Yalaletdin-batyr; A. killed him; by the lake the princess is tied to a tree, she was given to be eaten by the seven-headed azhdah; A. killed the azhdah, the king gave him his daughter; he learned that the enemies had blinded his parents; they can be cured with the fat of the sorceress Utkuz; she burns with fire ; you need to cover your face with a frying pan, come up from behind and cut her buttocks with a saber; A. brought his sighted parents to his wedding feast; he made his father king in the neighboring kingdom, and he himself began to rule in his own]: Barag 1988, No. 28: 183-186.

Turkestan. Dungan [Pongir is a strong young man, a warrior; his stepmother's son Duanzhian is an imperial guard; a seven-headed menguzi sucks the blood of the emperor's only daughter and threatens to kill her if she marries; D. provokes P. to suggest that the emperor kill M.; the princess gives P. a ring so that she can recognize him later; M. broke into the princess's room, the middle head is a horse's, breathing fire; P. cut off all the heads and cut open the body; the impostor said that he defeated the monster, but was unable to move the corpse, and P. did it easily; P. went to cut dry grass for fuel, a slipper fell from the sky; it was youguei who kidnapped the princess and carried her across the sky; P. went to search, D. with him, offered to carry the slipper so that P. would not lose it; pushed P. into the abyss; found the cave where the princess was, but she said that he did not have her ring; a yogwei flew in and D. ran away; P. climbed out of the abyss, killed the yogwei, showed the ring; the emperor ordered D. to be buried up to his neck in the ground; the emperor ordered P. to level the road, he cut off D.'s head with a shovel; P.'s stepmother was tied to the tail of a wild horse; P. married the princess and soon inherited the throne]: Riftin et al. 1977: No. 7: 68-73.

( Cf. Western Siberia. {Pelikh's data on the Northern Selkups are not entirely reliable}. Northern Selkups [Kaie is a duck with iron wings, each feather is like an iron arrow, if it falls on someone, it kills; the Narym Selkups do not kill or eat ducks; the rest, having killed them, cut off the wings and nail them to the trunk of a pine tree; in the Narym taiga there is a pine tree with a cut-off top, on it is a large wooden image of a duck; somewhere in the taiga there is a city, where only lost hunters go; in the central square there is an iron duck with an open beak, from which flames shoot]: Pelikh 1998: 33).

Amur - Sakhalin. Manchus [there was not enough water, the Sungari was a stream; the female heroine Silun Mama was the leader of the tribe; one day a storm began, a fire-breathing dragon flew in from the north ; SM led her people to the White Mountains (Shanyan Alin); the herons cried out that they had to go east; the people followed the herons; a tiger met them at the cave, turned into a boy; the second boy was brought by an eagle; SM took them, named Nuowen and Ari (the eldest, brought by an eagle); the brothers grew up, said that the Eagle God of the northern sea and the Tiger God of the eastern sea sent them to create rivers and destroy the dragon; the brothers flooded the dragon's cave with water and threw stones at it, pierced the dragon with a spear; while escaping, the dragon cut the bed of the Sungari with its claws; the dragon's blood painted the earth red; A. died in battle, N. dragged the dragon, creating relief elements, lost his sight in the battle; A.'s blood dyed the mountains red; SM went to look for her brothers, saw full-flowing rivers that did not exist at all; died; a sacred spring gushed from her sister]: Bäcker 1988, no. 3: 11-21; Manchus [the hero Balus Ulu (BU) inherited a powerful bow and other weapons from his father; a sable, or rather the sable god, always sat on a green stone at the edge of the thicket; one day a monster carried him away, no one went into the forest anymore, famine began; BU went in search, rode a horse into a cold cave; when the light appeared again, he saw a stone with a sable, and from behind the stone a three-headed, three-eyed demon-lynx appeared; from one eye - a deadly ray, from the other - stinking water, from the central one - fire; BU hit all three with arrows, killed the monster; brought out the sable, it became possible to hunt again; one day, returning home, BU noticed a girl who had prepared food and disappeared; the female chief of the Sakala Mama tribe explained that this girl named Akumi had been sent by the sable; he returned home, A. was waiting for him there; she was the daughter of the chief of a neighboring tribe; holiday]: Bäcker 1988, no. 7: 44-50.

Arctic. Asian Eskimo (Naukan) [a father lets his young son go out to sea in a kayak; he ends up in the land of the Eagles; two girls raise him, their father gives him eagle plumage; he grabs a fire-breathing whale , it drags him under the water, the Eagle sisters help lift the whale into the air; the Eagle wants human flesh; the young man brings him his father to eat; his mother brings him, she lives well with the Eagles]: Menovshchikov 1985, no. 39: 88-93 (also in Rubtsova, Vakhtin 2019, no. 1: 23-40); Inupiat of Northern Alaska (Noatak): Hall 1975, no. EH13 [a man cheats on his wife with a widow; a woman makes a small kayak, sails away with her son; sails to the Eagle's dwelling; The eagle teaches his stepson to turn into an eagle, to hunt whales; tells him not to touch the one breathing fire ; the young man breaks the ban, his claws get stuck, his stepfather saves him; the young man finds his real father, lifts him into the air, throws him somewhere in the mountains], PM5 [every time the younger brother's wife gives birth to a son and he grows up, the older brother kills his nephew; the spouses pretend that a girl was born; the uncle suspects the truth, places the nephew in a hollowed out log, closes the lid, lowers him into the sea; he is washed up on the land of eagles; two eagle girls find him; they teach him to fly, tell him not to grab the fire-breathing whale ; he grabs it, gets his claws stuck, the eagles save him; he gets married; comes to his uncle, kills him with his hands, crushing him from above]: 97-102, 125-130.

Middle West. Western Ojibwa (Chippewa) [a young man lives with an aunt; sees girls bathing, they turn into frogs, he brings them to his bed; the aunt hears giggling at night; throws out the frogs in the morning, tells her nephew to marry the women; on the way the young man comes across a younger brother, turned into a stump from the waist down; he tells him that their uncle killed their father and other brothers, explains how to follow the trail that leads to the women; the man gives tobacco to two snakes that spit fire on the sides of the trail, calls them grandfathers; shows two swans a red cloth; reaches the women and turns back; they kill the snakes and swans for letting the stranger pass; they themselves follow the young man, become good, leaving the power of their father; the uncle pretends to be dying, demands that he bring him a bear, two otters to get well; the young man gets them; spirits gather for the feast; uncle's sisters cry because they have to eat his dogs ; uncle shoots his nephew in the chest, he turns into a squirrel, unharmed; kills uncle with an arrow; heals his stump brother, gives him one of his wives; the younger brother forgot that he must not mention his uncle, he immediately appeared; brothers and wives ran away, got rid of uncle]: Barnouw 1977, no. 45: 64-68.

Northeast. Delawares [(summary in Bierhorst 1995, no. 71: 45; recorded in 1909 in Oklahoma; mother does not tell six sons to go west; the youngest has a ball - the head of a lynx, which he bites into a tree; the eldest goes, finds himself a wife; she warns that the one-eyed sorcerer Red-Feather-on-the-Head wants to kidnap her; at home the younger brother guards the eldest's wife; when he is away, the sorcerer takes her away; the brothers disappear one after another; the sorcerer sets his Naked Bear on each one; the youngest brother goes, picks up on the way a toad, a snake (he makes a pipe out of them), an otter (he makes a tobacco pouch from its skin), a weasel; the weasel jumps into the Bear's mouth, gnaws out the heart; the tobacco pouch made of otter skin grabs the Bear by the legs, the toad (i.e. pipe) is blazing with fire ; the younger brother kills the sorcerer by throwing a lynx skull ball into his eye and burns it; the head jumps out of the fire four times, Laska brings it back; the younger brother revives the elders by shooting an arrow up above them]: Hitakonanu'laxk 1994: 88-93.

Plains. Pawnee (kitkehahki) [while going to fetch firewood, a girl gets lost, Skull leads her to his dugout; while he is gone, the girl climbs a hill; a man gives her an arrow, a bladder, a cactus; she runs; Puma says he can't help against Skull; she throws the cactus, it turns into thickets; Bear can't help; bladder - into the river; Skull crosses on a log; Buffalo can't help; throws arrow - thickets; Skull burns a path with his fiery breath ; the girl runs to the dugout of six brothers, the youngest smashes Skull with a club, the girl smashes the pieces to dust, burns them; the brothers help her sow the corn, beans, pumpkins she brought; she tells them not to go to the field without her permission; in the fall they gather in the harvest; they agree to keep the girl as a sister, since she brought them corn; the brothers disappear in the evening, return in the morning; agree to take her too; now the girl is the seventh star of the Pleiades]: Dorsey 1906, No. 30: 119-122.

Western Amazonia. Kandoshi [a god tells a young man in a dream that a woman will come to him, not to be afraid if she is cold to the touch; she comes, he hides her under a pile of wood, does not tell her mother to chop wood there; she chops, wounds the woman, with her three children, they disappear; three Vultures offer to carry the young man to heaven if he kills his mother for food with them; he kills the mother with a spear, they gnaw the corpse, but are unable to lift the young man; a Hummingbird places him on its back, lifts him, jumps between the blades (something like scissors), which open and close, only the Hummingbird's tail is cut off; the Hummingbird tells the man to answer that he himself has ascended to heaven; the young man's wife carries manioc, the rope breaks, her sisters go ahead; the husband seizes his wife; she is afraid that her father will kill him; the father makes thunder; throws the youth into the fire, throws a stone at him, spews fire , the youth jumps back; the father-in-law recognizes him as son-in-law; they go together to kill people ima tanga]: Page 1975: 55-62.