“Now, dear father and mother, take me to the water meadow. Show me my bit of work.”
And his parents took him down to the water meadow, and Ilyá said:
“Show me how far you will plough here,” and they showed him the boundary and sat down to rest.
But Ilyá seized the brushwood by handfuls and cut it down by the roots and threw it all on to a pile on the edge of the field. And he worked so hard and so fast that the field was cleared in a quarter of the time that it would have taken his father to finish the work. The father and mother were asleep, for they were tired by the long morning’s work, but they awoke when Ilyá came towards them, saying:
“Come, father and mother, is not your field well cleared for the ploughing? Now I must say good-bye to home!”
Then Ilyá saddled his good horse and put on the bridle, and his father and mother gave him their farewell blessing.
The JOURNEYS of ILYÁ of MÚROM.
He rode away through the open plain till at last [[25]]he came to a high mountain. When he reached the high mountain he climbed up it and then lay down to rest, and he slept for twelve days the sleep of a hero. When he awoke he saw at a distance a white tent standing beneath a tree. He mounted his horse again and rode a long way through the plain towards the white tent. This tent stood beneath the shade of a great green oak tree upon another hill. In the tent was a great bed seventy feet long and forty-two feet wide. Ilyá tied up his horse to the oak tree and lay down upon that hero’s bed, and went to sleep. Now the sleep of a hero is sound, and Ilyá slept for three days and three nights.
On the third day his good horse heard a terrible noise from the north. Mother Earth rocked, the dark forest shook, the rivers overflowed their steep banks. Ilyá’s good horse struck the ground with his hoofs, but could not waken Ilyá of Múrom. At last the horse spoke to him in a human voice: