The bold hero rode on through the open plain till he came to a pillar of white oak. On the pillar this writing was written:
“To ride straight on—only five hundred miles,
But making a round—seven hundred miles.”
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Ilyá looked at this writing and said:
“If I ride straight, I shall cease to live; this way I can neither ride nor walk nor fly. Nightingale the Robber sits in his nest upon the seven oaks, and the robber-dog will seize me at the seventh mile.”
Ilyá stood still to think what he should do.
“The straight horse-road is broken up, the little bridge of white hazel is broken down. It would be no honour to me, or glory to my knighthood to ride by that roundabout way. It is better to ride by the straight road.”
At once he got down from his good steed; with one hand he led his horse, while with the other he put planks across the stream for a bridge—that bridge of white hazel.
The straight road he mended, and he rode on till he came near the clump of seven oak trees upon which Nightingale the Robber had built his great nest.