It stopped there. The younger brother, whatever he did not do, he stole into his brother’s bed-chamber quietly. In the evening, when the elder brother and his wife came in, the husband said: “Tell me, my heart’s heart, why didst thou not answer my question a little while ago?”
“I did not answer, dear husband, because thou didst ask me before thy brother. It would not have been well for him to know that I have a younger sister who is the most beautiful maiden on the whole round of the earth, but she is hidden in the middle one of three reeds; for this reason she is known as the world-beautiful Reed Maiden. The other two reeds are her waiting-maids.”
“But thou hast not told me, my dear, in what corner of the world she is hidden.”
“Oh, my dear husband, it is far from here,—as far as from here there and from there back; but as thou hast asked I will tell thee. Hast thou heard of the fame of the Black Sea?”
“I have not, indeed.”
“Well, if thou hast not, then hear now. In the seventy-seventh island of the Black Sea, right in the middle, are hidden three reeds, but no mortal could go to them unless by some magic power or infernal art; but if by a miracle he should get there, he would not be able to bring away anything.—First, because there is such darkness on the islands of the Black Sea that a spoon might stand up in it; second, because the world-beautiful Reed Maiden is guarded by a witch whose life will end when the reeds are cut down; therefore she guards them as the light of her two eyes, or still more carefully. But if any man could bring the maiden away, he would be the happiest person in the wide world; for the islands would be lighted up, and he would gain a wife whom the starry heavens would gaze upon with smiles.”
When the king’s younger son had heard all this from root to branch, he went out of the room by the same way he had entered. Then saddling his best and favorite steed, he put provisions in his bag and moved out into the wide world in search of the beautiful Reed Maiden. He journeyed and travelled over forty-nine kingdoms and beyond the Operentsia Sea till he came to a hut; in the hut an old woman was living: “God give thee good-day, dear old mother.”
“If thou hadst not called me old mother, I should have eaten thee on the spot. But whither art thou journeying in this strange land, where even a bird does not go?”
“I am looking for the world-beautiful Reed Maiden, who is blooming in the seventy-seventh island of the Black Sea. Hast thou not heard of her, dear old mother?”
“What’s the use in denying, my son? I have not heard. Why should I evade, since it can neither harm nor profit me? But here in the neighboring valley, over the mountain, straight ahead, near a round forest on the top of a hill, lives my elder sister; if she knows nothing about it, then no one in the world knows. Here, Mitsi, come out! Conduct the king’s son to my elder sister.”