Page 32 - Animals of the Sakhalin Region in myths and legends

— Loon-loon, let’s change, I will be the mistress on the earth, and you

go underground to live!
But the loon didn’t want to change. She planted various herbs-trees on
the ground, and created various deer and hares. How can she leave such
a world?
The goose harbored a grudge against the loon. She let various reptile
worms on the ground so that they would devour the grass-trees, she
created various wolf-honey-worms so that they would chase deer and
chase haresfox-hunted.

Weeping and groans resounded on the ground.
Then the loon wondered how to protect the world. She decided to
create a man so that he would live on the earth, protect herbs-trees from
wormsreptiles, protect deer-hares from wolves-bears.
She made a man out of red clay, inserted dry blades of grass instead
of bones for him, went to the mother of heaven to ask that person’s soul.

But she did not have time to reach the sky. A goose crept up to that
person, breathed in him different diseases-infirmities instead of a soul,
the person came to life immediately.
The loon saw that the man was already alive, got angry, began to call
the mother of heaven, asks her:
— How to save the world now?
The mother of the sky turned the goose into thick taimen so that she
could no longer climb to the ground, and she took the loon into the sky,

on a branch, near the top of that tree that grows in the middle of the
world, planted it, in order to teach her how to save the world.
But the thick taimen did not calm down, he began to send ice and cold
to the ground, began to gnaw the roots of that tree, he wants to destroy
the world.

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