Page 92 - Animals of the Sakhalin Region in myths and legends

and respectful to their elders. A chick who dared to offend his mother or listen

inattentively to his father’s instructions would be immediately expelled from the
nest.
The sad starling felt unhappy: it turns out that his beloved is not at all as
perfect as he imagined. He was overcome with even greater sadness — albeit
of a somewhat different kind — when a handsome young man entered the shop
and, going up to Marietta, gently kissed her. How quickly an insignificant bird

is forgotten when a girl’s heart is full of love!
Fortunately, the groom did not stay in the shop for long, and when he left,
Marietta’s fingers were again caressing the beak of the Sad Starling through
the grate.
The next morning, the prisoner had to experience another excitement. Some
hefty fellow with a red face noisily burst into the shop and, shouting terrible
curses, knocked over the boxes and clay pots.
Marietta had to run after the policeman, who, after a short struggle, tamed

the brawler. From the conversations of neighbors The sad starling learned that
the scandal was caused by a drunkard. This incident led to the Starling losing
some sense of admiration for people.
A day later, the Sad Starling saw an old woman stealthily fill her basket with
grain, while Marietta, turning away, packed some modest purchase. He began
to shout, jump around the cage, but his alarming signals did not attract the

girl’s attention, and he watched with annoyance as the thief left with his prey.
Days passed by, and it began to seem to the Sad Starling that time was
passing too slowly. He was disappointed in Marietta: she was a glutton, could
not control herself and easily lied. Her mother was stingy and gossiped about
her neighbors all day, and the groom was a braggart and a fool. Sometimes
there were rude and thieves among the buyers. In addition, the unchanging
grains with which the Sad Starling was fed were far inferior in taste and variety
to what he ate in the large forest. True, the starling had a friend — a six-year-

old boy, who every morning on the way to school stopped by to greet him,
brought him bread crumbs and worms. They talked about trees, flowers and
fields. Each of them spoke his own language, and the chirping of the birds gave
the boy the same pleasure as the children’s chatter to the Sorrowful Starling.
But such minutes flew by quickly, and Marietta and her mother often did not
honor their prisoner with an absent-minded look throughout the day.

A few weeks after the wedding of Marietta, this solemn ceremony, during
which the Sad Starling ate so much that his stomach was upset, drumming
rang out in the city. An extraordinary excitement reigned in the shop, and the
starling listened to strange conversations. He still poorly understood human
language, but he was struck by the word «war», which was mentioned without
end. At first, he decided that the male population of the city, armed with stakes
and swords, went into the forest to hunt wild animals. But when the Sad Starling

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