Select the tale Contents Two brothers The happy cobbler The invincible Cock Lazy Hoory The paradise flower The hunter that lied A big pot of gold The master and the labourer The carnival Brother axe The foolish man The king & the peddler Travelers Nazar the brave The fox that lost its tail The dog and the cat The handless girl Black kiddy Unlucky Panoss The liar One drop of honey The sparrow The death of Kikos The talking fish The end of the wicked The Miller- King Zangi Zrangi

THE HUNTER THAT LIED

I swear by my father's holy baptism and by my mother's birth, we got up one day, five or six of us, and went hunting with sword and gun. There was Hadi, there was Hyudi, there was Chati, there was Mati, there was my father and me, and together we went hunting.
We went straight across mountains and valleys, walking without a word where there was a game, crawling without a sound where there was danger.
We walked on and on until suddenly we saw three lakes, two of them dry and the third with no water at all. As we looked we suddenly noticed in the waterless lake three white ducks swimming, two of them dead and the third not alive at all.
"Hedi, come on, shoot!"
"I've no gun".
"Hyudi, come on, shoot!"
"Neither have I".
"Chati... Mati...!"
"Neither have we".
"Then what's to be done?"
My father held a long, short, thick, thin stick in his hand. He lifted it to his shoulder, took aim and fired... Bang.... He fired and I hit. As I hit it, the duck sprawled - each wing four meters long.
"Hadi! Give me the knife!"
"I have no knife."
"Hyudi, a knife!"
"Neither have I".
"Chati... Mati...!"
"Neither have we".
"Then what's to be done?"

Susanna Amudjanyan 13 years

My father had one but without a blade. We drew this bladeless knife. Hadi tried to cut, but couldn't. Hyudi tried, but couldn't. Chati tried, but couldn't. Mati tried, but couldn't, and neither could my father. I seized the knife and slew the chick. I slew it and laid it on the ground. That was no duck! More like a buffalo!

Hadi tried to lift it, but couldn't.
Hyudi tried to lift it, but couldn't.
Chati couldn't, Mati couldn't, and neither could my father.
I grabbed it and lifted it onto my shoulder and off we set.
We walked on and on, until we came to a place and saw three villages. Two were not to be seen at all and the third one had not a single house. We looked around in this lifeless village and found a house where three old women lived, two of them dead and the third not breathing.
"Lads," we said, "let's prepare this duck with rice".

The old woman who wasn't breathing searched here, there and everywhere and found half a grain of rice and three pots, two of them with holes in and the third with no bottom at all. We filled the bottomless pot with water, added the rice and duck and cooked the whole without a fire. It cooked and cooked.
The meat and the rice boiled away and only the water remained. Ravenous after the hunt, we fell upon the meal. We ate and ate, but our eyes saw nothing and nothing entered our mouths.