Nikita Kozhemyaka

In the old days, a terrible snake appeared not far from Kiev. Many people from Kiev dragged them into their den, dragged them around and ate. He dragged away the snake and the royal daughter, but did not eat her, but locked her tightly in his den. A little dog caught up with the princess from the house. As the snake flies off to hunt, the princess will write a note to her father, to her mother, tie a note to the dog's neck and send it home. The little dog will take a note and bring the answer.

Once the king and queen write to the princess: find out from the serpent who is stronger than him. The princess began to pry from the snake and tried.

- Yes, - says the snake, - in Kiev Nikita Kozhemyaka - he is stronger than me.

As the snake left for the hunt, the princess wrote a note to her father, to her mother: there is, in Kiev, Nikita Kozhemyak, he is one stronger than a snake. Send Nikita to help me out of bondage.

Tsar Nikita found and he and the queen went to ask him to help their daughter out of heavy bondage. At that time, Kozhemyak was kneading twelve cow skins at once. As Nikita saw the Tsar, he was frightened: Nikita's hands trembled, and he tore all twelve skins at once. Nikita got angry here that they had frightened him and caused him a loss, and, no matter how much the tsar and tsarina begged him to go rescue the princess, he did not go.

So the tsar and the tsarina came up with the idea of collecting five thousand young orphans - they were orphaned by a fierce serpent - and they sent them to ask Kozhemyak to free the entire Russian land from the great trouble. Kozhemyaka took pity on the orphan's tears, he wept himself. He took three hundred pounds of hemp, ground it with pitch, wrapped it all over with hemp and went.

Nikita approaches the snake den, and the snake locked itself up, fell over with logs and did not come out to him.

- Better go out to an open field, otherwise I will mark your entire den! - said Kozhemyaka and began to scatter the logs with his hands.

The serpent sees inevitable misfortune, he has nowhere to hide from Nikita, he went out into the open field.

How long or short they fought, only Nikita threw the snake to the ground and wanted to strangle it. The snake began to pray to Nikita:

- Don't hit me, Nikita, to death! There is no one in the world stronger than you and me. We will divide the whole world equally: you will own in one half, and I in the other.

“Okay,” Nikita said. - We must first lay the border, so that later there would be no dispute between us.

Nikita made a plow of three hundred pounds, harnessed a snake into it and began to pave the border from Kiev, plow a furrow; that furrow is two fathoms and a quarter deep. Nikita drew a furrow from Kiev to the Black Sea and says to the snake:

- We divided the land - now let's divide the sea, so that there is no dispute about the water between us.

They began to divide the water - Nikita drove the snake into the Black Sea, and there he drowned.

Having done the holy deed, Nikita returned to Kiev, began to crush his skin again, did not take anything for his labor. The princess returned to her father, to her mother.

Nikitin's furrow, they say, is now visible in some places across the steppe: it stands two fathoms in height. All around the peasants plow, but they don't plow the furrows: they leave it in memory of Nikita Kozhemyak.