Prince Vladimir is having a feast on the mountain. Princes, boyars and heroes, fully fed up and drunk, boast to each other: some with wealth, others with power, merchants with goods, boyars with estates and estates. Danila Denisievich alone does not boast. Prince Vladimir asks him if he is silent because there is nothing to boast about? Danila Denisievich replies that he was just thinking, but if the prince wants to know, then he, Danila, have nothing to lack: there is a golden treasury, a young wife, and plenty of expensive and beautiful dresses.
Soon, Danila leaves the princely court, and Prince Vladimir asks his guests to pick up his bride - beautiful, smart and competent, so that she becomes their mother sovereign. Mishatyachka Putyatin's son tells the prince that he has never seen a girl to be both smart and beautiful, only Vasilisa Nikulichna from Danila Denisievich - is smart, beautiful, and literate: she would be called mother sovereign! The prince is angry with Mishatychka that he offers him to take his wife from his living husband, and orders Putyatin to execute his son. But he asks the prince not to rush with his execution and advises to send Danil to the Lewandov’s meadows, to catch the white-necked bird and bring it to the prince’s dinner, and then to kill the fierce lion. The prince likes the advice of Mishatychka, and when Ilya Muromets says that the prince will also destroy Danila, and Vasilisa, Prince Vladimir is angry and puts the old hero in the cellar.
Prince Vladimir writes a message to Danila and sends Mishatychka with him to Chernigov. He comes to the yard to Danila, enters the ward and sees Vasilisa Nikulichna. She condemns Mishatychka for acting impudently and carelessly, and he lets her read the prince's message. Vasilisa cries, changes into a pretty dress and goes to a pure field to look for Danila. She tells him about the letter sent by the prince.
When they return home, Danila asks Vasilisa to bring him a quiver of arrows and goes to the meadows of Lewandov. He looks through a telescope towards Kiev and sees that an army is moving at him. Danila cries with burning tears and laments that the prince has become useless for him. Having chopped the whole army with a saber, Danila again looks through a telescope and sees two heroes who are coming to him, and one of them is his brother, Nikita Denisievich. Danila does not want to fight with her brother and prefers to die: he sticks a spear with a blunt end into the ground and throws his chest to the tip. The heroes drive up and see that Daniel lies dead, lament and tell everything to Prince Vladimir.
He goes to Chernigov to Vasilisa Nikulichna and asks her to dress up in a wedding dress. She fulfills the prince’s request, but secretly takes a damask knife with him. The prince takes Vasilisa to Kiev, but when they drive past the Levandov meadows, she asks him to let her say goodbye to his sweet friend Danila. The prince releases her, but sends two heroes with her. Vasilisa bows to the remains of Danila, asks the warriors to tell the prince not to leave their bodies in an open field, and stabs himself with a knife. The prince returns to Kiev, releases Ilya Muromets from the cellar and gives him a sable fur coat for telling him, the prince, the truth. And the Prince grants Mishatychk a boiler with boiling resin.
