A man once had a lot of peas. So, the cranes started to fly there and peck the peas.
"Just you wait," the man then thought. "I'll break your legs!"
He bought a pail of wine, poured it into a trough, mixed it with honey; put the trough onto a cart and drove into the field. He arrived at his spot, put the trough of wine and honey on the ground and himself departed and went to rest.
Now the cranes arrived, pecked the peas, saw the wine and got so tipsy that none of them could stand. The man didn't waste any time, immediately got up and bound their legs with ropes. In other words, he bound them with ropes, attached them to a cart and drove homewards.
But the driving shook-up the cranes; they sobered-up and came to their senses; they started to flap their wings, got up, flew upwards, and took with them that man, his cart, his horse. High, too! The man grabbed a knife, sliced the ropes and fell into a swamp.
He spent entire 24 hours up his ears in duckweed, barely got out of there. And when he came home - he learned that his wife had birthed a kid, there was a need for the priest to baptize the child.
"No," he said, "I won't go for the priest!"
"Why so?"
"I fear the cranes! They'll again bring me to the sky; I fear that I'll fall off the cart and drop to my death!"
"Fear not! We'll bind you with roping to the cart instead."
So they loaded him into a cart, bound him with roping, aligned the horse with the road; whipped the horse once, twice - it trotted away. There was a well beyond the village and the horse was thirsty; it fancied a drink, she veered off the road and directly to the well; and the well was just a hole in the ground, and the horse wasn't tied to the cart so well; the horse leaned to the water and freed itself from the cart straightaway. And so it went back home and the man with the cart were left at the well.
At that time some hunters chased a bear out of the forest; the bear was fleeing as fast as it could, ran to the cart, wanted to jump over it, jumped - and got stuck in the roping with his neck! It realized that it was in trouble - and fled as fast as it could, towing the cart.
"All saints, help!" yelled the man.
Those shouts made the bear even more fearful; he went over uneven ground, ditches, and swamps. He arrived at a bee tree, started to climb it and pulled the cart after itself - apparently it fancied some honey! It climbed to the very treetop and the cart pulls downwards: the poor beast got thoroughly miserable, couldn't move anywhere!
Sometime later the tree's owner arrived and saw the bear.
"Aha," he said, "I got you! Aren't you lazy, Mr. Bear: not merely content to get to the honey, you drove in a cart!"
He grabbed his ax and began to cut the tree at its' very roots. The tree toppled, broke the cart and squashed the man completely; and the bear got out of the roping and fled: God himself couldn't carry it faster!
That's what you get when you mess with the cranes!