Prevod

When the devils fell away from God and fled to earth, they took the sun with them, and the king of the devils fixed it on a spear and carried it over his shoulder. When at last the earth cried out to God that the sun would burn it all to ashes, God sent the holy Archangel to see how he might take the sun away from the devil. When the holy Archangel came down to earth, he made friends with the king of the devils; but the king of the devils guessed what he was after and kept well on his guard. Wandering over the earth together, the two of them came to the sea and decided to bathe; and the devil planted the spear with the sun on it in the ground. After they had bathed a little, the holy Archangel said, “Come, let us dive and see which of us can go deeper.” And the devil answered, “Very well.” Then the holy Archangel dived and brought up some sand from the seabed between his teeth. Now it was the devil’s turn to dive, but he was afraid the holy Archangel would carry off the sun while he was under water. Then an idea came to him: he spat on the ground, and from his spittle sprang a magpie to guard the sun while he dived and brought up sand from the seabed between his teeth. As soon as the devil dived, the holy Archangel made the sign of the cross over the sea with his hand, and a layer of ice nine arshins thick formed upon it; then he seized the sun and fled to God, while the magpie began to squawk. When the devil heard the magpie’s cry, he knew at once what had happened and hurried back up. But when he reached the surface, the sea was frozen over, and he could not get out! So he hurried back to the bottom of the sea, took up a stone, and broke through the ice with it, then set off after the holy Archangel! Away flew the one, with the other close behind! Just as the holy Archangel stepped one foot into heaven to join God, the devil caught up with him and tore a great piece of flesh from the sole of his other foot with his claws. When the holy Archangel came before God with the sun, wounded as he was, he began to weep. “What shall I do, God, maimed like this?” But God said to him, “Hush, have no fear; I shall ordain that all people have a little hollow like that in the soles of their feet.” And so God ordained it, and a little hollow appeared in the soles of both feet of every person. And so it has remained to this day.