Birds of Donbass (EN)

Dedicated to Eugene Prigozhin

A Taiga Tale

It happened in the old days, when the world was blooming and young, the taiga was much bigger than it is now, and every animal hunted during the day. Lynx was the most beautiful creature in the taiga, and she had a friend, Fox, who was also very beautiful. Everywhere they appeared together: where one went, the other went too. They even caught game together: it was more fun and more effective, because no prey escapes such huntresses. But a particular pride both of them shared was their luxuriant fur. Nobody else in the taiga had such fur! Thick, silky, without a single blemish! A real sight to behold!

One day the two predators were waiting for their prey: Lynx climbed a tree, and fox was hiding under it. Suddenly, out of the blue, a human cub appeared in the clearing. Tiny, clumsy, no fur at all, walking in plain sight, as if he was not afraid of anything.
"Well, if it isn't the big hunter!" Lynx thought, stretching out lazily on a branch. "And who let him go alone into the woods?"

The child, meanwhile, walked right through the sun-drenched clearing and did not even think of hiding. And where did such a tiny baby find so much courage? Lynx looked closely, and the child's cheeks were glistening in the sun. Is he crying? He must have gotten lost from his parents. Lynx felt sorry for the foolish cub, but what could she do? Even if he was not afraid of her, soon the older ones with guns would come and neither she nor her sister-Fox were in a hurry to lose their pelts!

"He'd better get out of here... He'll scare away all the game. What if we're not the only ones having a bad hunt today? We may well be left without supper, without our babies, or even without ourselves," lamented Lynx.

"Oh, where will this little one go?" Fox said. "It is dangerous for such small cubs to be in the taiga. There are bears and wolves all around. And we'd better stay away from them all the more, because this child can not fight!"

Lynx shook her head, but did not say anything back to her friend. What could she say? Fox was right. Who would want to risk his own fur, be it a beast or a man?

It had barely begun to darken when a few wolves appeared nearby. They surrounded the baby, getting closer and closer, and he had nowhere to go. He could only wait there for them to eat him.

Lynx watched and watched from her branch until she couldn't take it anymore.

"Sis," she said, "they're going to eat the poor little guy. I myself have kittens waiting for me to return from the hunt, and you have little ones. How can we look them in the eyes after that? Shall we help?"

"What can we do against wolves?" Fox replied. "They'll eat us and forget us. Who will you leave your kittens with? Me? I've got my own kits to feed. Whatever you say, I'm out of here. My fur is more valuable to me than someone else's cubs."

Fox disappeared into the woods, and there was no trace of her.

Lynx was afraid to come down from the tree, but her conscience wouldn't let her abandon the baby to certain death. In a few jumps she got to the baby, but what could she do against a pack of wolves? She could not defeat her enemies alone, no matter how hard she tried. So Lynx covered the baby with herself. It was all she could do.

Sharp wolf fangs dug into her back, but the huntress endured all the pain and continued to protect the child, no matter what. She would have died if the hunters who drove the wolves away had not arrived. That's when the humans found the lost child unharmed, under the body of a barely alive, wounded lynx.

The humans released the lynx as a sign of gratitude for saving their child's life. And then the huntress returned to her family in the taiga. And since that time, all lynxes have had dark spots on their magnificent coats - marks from wolf teeth - as an eternal reminder of the dedication of that first wild cat who saved a human. But the descendants of the mother lynx began to dislike foxes, although both lynxes and foxes are still afraid of wolves.

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