“Thank you, your honour.”
“What are you travelling with?”
“With folly.”
“Now, you fine potter, you have known how to sell your goods; boyár, take off your gay costume and your boots; and you, potter, take off your kaftán and your bast shoes. Put the peasant’s smock on, boyár, and you, potter, put on the boyár’s robes. You have sold your goods very finely, potter; you have done very little, and you have won much. But as for you, boyár, you were not able to keep your rank. Now, potter, were there any geese flying over Russia? Did you pluck a feather out of them, or did you leave them in peace?”
“No, I plucked them bald.”
THE WITCH AND THE SISTER OF THE SUN
In a distant country, a country far away, once there lived a Tsar and Tsarítsa, who had a son, Iván Tsarévich, who was dumb from his birth. When he was twelve years old he went to the stable to the groom whom he loved, who always told him stories. But this time he was not to be told any.
“Iván Tsarévich,” said the groom, “your mother will soon have a daughter, and you will have a sister. She will be a dreadful witch and will eat up your father and your mother and all their subjects. Go back home and ask your father to give you his best horse; mount that and ride away and follow your eyes if you would escape misfortune.”
Iván Tsarévich ran up to his father and spoke for the first time in his life. The Tsar was so glad at this that he never asked what the Tsarévich wanted the horse for, but ordered the very best of his Tabún to be saddled for him.
Iván Tsarévich mounted the horse and rode away, following his eyes. He rode far, to a very great distance, and he came to two old seamstresses, and asked them if they would not let him live with them.