“Darling, tell me, where have the Russian bones crept away?”
“Here, my mother; a fair maiden is waiting for you.”
“Daughter mine, darling, heat the oven quickly; make it very hot.”
So the maiden looked up and was frightened to death. For Bába Yagá with the wooden legs stood in front of her, and to the ceiling rose her nose. So the mother and daughter carried firewood in, logs of oak and maple; made the oven ready till the flames shot up merrily.
Then the witch took her broad shovel and said in a friendly voice: “Go and sit on my shovel, fair child.”
So the maiden obeyed, and the Bába Yagá was going to shove her into the oven. But the girl stuck her feet against the wall of the hearth.
“Will you sit still, girl?”
But it was not any good. Bába Yagá could not put the maiden into the oven. So she became angry, thrust her back and said, “You are simply wasting time! Just look at me and see how it is done.” Down she sat on the shovel with her legs nicely trussed together. So the maidens instantly put her into the oven, shut the oven door, and slammed her in; took their knitting with them, and their comb and brush, and ran away.
They ran hard away, but when they turned round there was Bába Yagá running after them. She had set herself free. “Hoo, Hoo, Hoo! there run the two!” So the maidens, in their need, threw the brush away, and a thick, dense coppice arose which she could not break through. So she stretched out her claws, scratched herself a way through, and again ran after them. Whither should the two poor girls flee? They flung their comb behind them, and a dark, murky oak forest grew up, so thick, no fly could ever have flown its way through. Then the witch whetted her teeth and set to work. And she went on tearing up one tree after another by the roots, and she made herself a way, and again set out after them, and almost caught them up.
Now the girls had no strength left to run, so they threw the cloth behind them, and a broad sea stretched out, deep, wide and fiery. The old woman rose up, wanted to fly over it, but fell into the fire and was burned to death.