“Thou art a good youth, thou art well spoken; but thou canst not go on foot. Peerless Beauty dwells far away.”
“How far?”
“In the Golden Kingdom, at the end of the white world, where the sun comes up.”
“What am I to do? I, young man, have no saddle-horse unridden, and silken whip unused that are fitting for me.”
“Why hast thou not? Thy father has thirty horses all alike. Go home, tell the grooms to water them at the blue sea; and whichever horse shall push ahead, enter the water to its neck, and when it drinks, waves rise on the blue sea and roll from shore to shore, that one take.”
“God save thee for the good word, grandfather!”
As the old man taught him, so did the Tsarevich do,—he chose for himself an heroic steed, passed the night, rose next morning early, opened the gate, and was preparing to go.
The horse spoke to him in the language of men: “Ivan Tsarevich, drop to the earth; I will push thee three times.” He pushed him once, he pushed him twice; but the third time he pushed not. “If thou wert pushed a third time, the earth would not bear thee and me.”
Ivan Tsarevich took his horse from the chains, saddled him, sat on him. The Tsar barely sees his son. He rides far, far. The day is growing short, night is coming on. A house stood like a town, each room is a chamber. He came to the house, straight to the porch, tied his horse to the copper ring, went into the first chamber, then into the second, prayed to God, asked to spend the night.
“Stay the night, good youth,” said an old woman. “Whither is God bearing thee?”