Then his good steed Cloudfall began to prance, and the Magic Bird at his stirrup to dance, and in this wise came the good youth, the Old Cossack to Kíev, to glorious Prince Vladímir.
Now, fair Prince Vladímir of royal Kíev was not at home; he had gone to God’s temple. Therefore Ilyá entered the court without leave or announcement, bound his horse to the golden ring in the carven pillars, and laid his commands upon that good heroic steed: “Guard thou the Nightingale, my charger, that he depart not from stirrup of steel!”
And to Nightingale he said: “Look to it, Nightingale, that thou depart not from my good steed, for there is no place in all the white world where thou mayest securely hide thyself from me!”
Then he betook himself to Easter mass. There he crossed himself and did reverence, as prescribed, on all four sides, and to the Fair Sun, Prince Vladímir, in particular. And after the mass was over, Prince Vladímir sent to bid the strange hero to the feast, and there inquired of him from what horde and land he came, and what was his parentage. So Ilyá told him that he was the only son of honourable parents. “I stood at my home in Múrom, at matins,” quoth he, “and mass was but just ended when I came hither by the straight way.”
When the heroes that sat at the Prince’s table heard that, they looked askance at him.
“Nay, good youth, liest thou not? boastest thou not?” said Fair Sun Vladímir. “That way hath been lost these thirty years, for there stand great barriers therein; accursed Tartars in the fields, black morasses; and beside the famed Smoródina, amid the bending birches, is the nest of the Nightingale on seven oaks; and that Magic Bird hath nine sons and eight daughters, and one is a witch. He hath permitted neither horse nor man to pass him these many years.”
“Nay, thou Fair Sun Prince Vladímir,” Ilyá answered: “I did come the straight way, and the Nightingale Robber now sitteth bound within thy court.”
Then all left the tables of white oak, and each outran the other to view the Nightingale, as he sat bound to the steel stirrup, with one eye fixed on Kíev town and the other on Chernígov from force of habit. And Princess Apráksiya came forth upon the railed balcony to look.
Prince Vladímir spoke: “Whistle, thou Nightingale, roar like an aurochs, hiss like a dragon.”
But the Nightingale replied: “Not thy captive am I, Vladímir. ’Tis not thy bread I eat. But give me wine.”