The sun, overcoming its usual path across the sky, rolled down, behind a dark strip of forest. Its last rays softly enveloped the dense thickets of reeds on the river bank.
Two mermaids sat on wicker chairs in the reeds. The eldest of them, ugly in appearance and almost disgusting, burned a pipe and slowly told the young and beautiful ancient stories from the life of mermaids.
Finally, recovering herself and putting on a serious expression on her face, she said with a slight insult: “Who else but I should know this story, dear Ruta, if I heard it from my own grandmother with my own ears. But you know the Waterman’s rules. No love stories until the age of sixteen”.
The young mermaid pleadingly grabbed the old woman by the wrinkled hands: “Martha, dear, please, please. You know, I’ll turn sixteen on the next flood, and I won’t say anything to Waterman. I can keep a secret, don’t worry.”
“I’m too old to worry, Ruta,” the old woman replied, “but I don’t want trouble with the Waterman either. Remember the last time you challenged me to hunt bats.” The young mermaid was embarrassed, but did not back down.
Sliding into the water, Ruta began to dance on her tail and sang: “Someone was invited to the wedding one evening.” The song about the wedding made such an unpleasant impression on the mermaid Martha that she carefully looked around and lowered her voice and said: “Enough of Ruta singing children’s songs. You are already old enough and should understand where the truth is and where the lie is”.
The young mermaid immediately stopped singing and dancing, sat down in an armchair, caught her breath a little and asked: “How strange it comes out, dear Martha. For the story of the wedding, I am already an adult, but for the story of the Cossack-harakternik, I am still a little girl. Maybe I need to consult the Waterman about all these wedding matters.”
The old mermaid even recoiled from such a dirty trick. She was offendedly silent and for a while, without moving, looked at the sunset.
Finally, obviously having made a difficult decision, she sighed, carefully stuffed her pipe, took several deep puffs, let out several puffs of smoke that slowly floated over the reeds and turning her frustrated face into a young mermaid, resolutely and even threateningly said: “So you still want to know a story about a Cossack characteristic, dear. Good. I will tell it to you. Just the right time. And it just got dark. Listen carefully and watch dear. And what you hear and see, do not tell anyone except your own granddaughter, otherwise it will be done to you to death.”
Hearing such words, the young mermaid was frightened and tried to laugh it off for courage, or even completely abandon this mysterious story, but it was too late. The old mermaid, shrouded in pipe smoke, so that it was already impossible to make out whether it was a mermaid or some kind of ghost, began her story in an unexpectedly low voice: “In those days, when the King of France, Francis I, nicknamed the “King-knight”, turned for help to the ataman of the Zaporozhian Sich Predslav Lyandkorsky, nicknamed “Break the nose”….
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