The Tsarevich Ivan wept bitterly, turned to all four points of the compass and prayed to God, and went straight before his eyes. He went on and on, whether it was near or far, or long or short, matters not, when there met him an old, old man. “Hail, good youth!” said he, “what dost thou seek, and whither art thou going?” The Tsarevich told him all his misfortune. “Alas! Tsarevich Ivan, why didst thou burn that frog-skin? Thou didst not make, nor shouldst thou therefore have done away with it. Vasilisa Premudraya was born wiser and more cunning than her father; he was therefore angry with her, and bade her be a frog for three years. Here is a little ball for thee, follow it whithersoever it rolls.” Ivan the Tsarevich thanked the old man, and followed after the ball. He went along the open plain, and there met him a bear. “Come now!” thought the Tsarevich Ivan, “I will slay this beast.” But the bear implored him: “Slay me not, Tsarevich Ivan, I may perchance be of service to thee somehow.” He went on further, and lo! behind them came waddling a duck. The Tsarevich bent his bow; he would have shot the bird, when suddenly she greeted him with a human voice: “Slay me not, Ivan Tsarevich! I also may befriend thee!” He had compassion on her, and went on further, and a hare darted across their path. The Tsarevich again laid an arrow on his bow and took aim, but the hare greeted him with a human voice: “Slay me not, Tsarevich Ivan! I also will befriend thee!” Ivan the Tsarevich had pity upon him, and went on further to the blue sea, and behold! on the beach lay gasping a pike. “Alas! Tsarevich Ivan!” sighed the pike, “have pity on me and cast me into the sea.” And he cast it into the sea, and went on along the shore. The ball rolled a short way, and it rolled a long way, and at last it came to a miserable hut; the hut was standing on hen’s legs and turning round and round. The Tsarevich Ivan said to it: “Little hut, little hut! stand the old way as thy mother placed thee, with thy front to me, and thy back to the sea!” And the little hut turned round with its front to him, and its back to the sea. The Tsarevich entered in, and saw the bony-legged Baba-Yaga lying on the stove, on nine bricks, and grinding her teeth.—“Hillo! good youth, why dost thou visit me?” asked the Baba-Yaga.—“Fie, thou old hag! thou call’st me a good youth, but thou shouldst first feed and give me to drink, and prepare me a bath, then only shouldst thou ask me questions.” The Baba-Yaga fed him and gave him to drink, and made ready a bath for him, and the Tsarevich told her he was seeking his wife, Vasilisa Premudraya. “I know,” said the Baba-Yaga, “she is now with Koshchei Bezsmertny. ’Tis hard to get thither, and it is not easy to settle accounts with Koshchei. His death depends upon the point of a needle, that needle is in a hare, that hare is in a coffer, that coffer is on the top of a high oak, and Koshchei guards that tree as the apple of his eye.” The Baba-Yaga then showed him in what place that oak grew; the Tsarevich Ivan went thither, but did not know what to do to get at the coffer. Suddenly, how who can tell, the bear rushed at the tree and tore it up by the roots, the coffer fell and was smashed to pieces, the hare leaped out, and with one bound had taken cover. But look! the other hare bounded off in pursuit, hunted him down and tore him to bits; out of the hare flew a duck and rose high, high in the air, but the other duck dashed after her, and struck her down, whereupon the duck laid an egg, and the egg fell into the sea. The Tsarevich Ivan, seeing the irreparable loss of the egg, burst into tears, when suddenly the pike came swimming ashore holding the egg between its teeth. He took the egg, broke it, drew out the needle and broke off its little point. Then he attacked Koshchei, who struggled hard, but wriggle about as he might he had to die at last. Then the Tsarevich Ivan went into the house of Koshchei, took out Vasilisa Premudraya, and returned home. After that they lived together for a long, long time, and were very, very happy.
[1] Nobleman.
[2] The women’s apartments.
[3] Super-sapient cross-gentian.
[4] The deathless skeleton.
The Two Sons of Ivan the Soldier.
There once dwelt in a certain kingdom a peasant. The time came when they enlisted him as a soldier; he had to quit his wife, and as he bade her good-bye, he said to her, “Hearken, wife! live honestly; flout not good people; do not let our little hut fall to pieces, but keep house wisely, and await my return. If God permit it, I will come back and leave the service. Here are fifty rubles!—whether a little son or a little daughter be born to thee matters not; keep the money till the child grows up. If it be a daughter, wed her to the bridegroom whom God may provide; but if God give thee a son, and he arrive at years of discretion, this money will be of no little help to him.” Then he took leave of his wife, and went to the wars whither he was bidden. Three months passed, and the wife gave birth to twin sons, and she called them the sons of Ivan the soldier. The youngsters grew up betimes; like wheaten dough mixed with yeast they shot up broad and high. When they reached their tenth year their mother gave them instruction, and they quickly learned their letters, and the children of the boyars and the children of the merchants could not hold a candle to them; no one could read aloud, or write, or answer questions so well as they. The two sons of Ivan the soldier thus grew up, and they asked their mother, “Mother, dear! did not our father leave us some money? If there be any, let us have it, and we’ll take it to the fair and buy us a good horse apiece.” Their mother gave them the fifty rubles, twenty-five to each brother, and said to them, “Hearken, children, as ye go to the town, give a bow to every one you come across.”—“Good, dear mother.”
So the brothers hied them off to the town, and went to the horse-market. There were many horses there, but they chose none of them, for they were not good enough mounts for the good brothers. So one of the brothers said to the other: “Let us go to the other end of the square; look how the people are all running together there. There is something strange going on.” Thither they went and joined the crowd; and there stood two mares tied to stout oaken posts with iron clamps; one with six clamps, and the other with twelve clamps. The horses were tugging at their chains, gnawing their bits, and digging up the ground with their hoofs. No one was able to go near them. “What is the price of thy mares?” asked Ivan, the soldier’s son, of the owner. “Don’t thrust thy nose in here, friend!—such mares are not for the like of thee. Ask no more about them!”—“How dost thou know what I am? Maybe I’ll buy them, but I must first look at their teeth.” The horse-dealer smiled: “Look out for your heads, that’s all!” One of the brothers then drew near to the mare that was fastened by six clamps, and the other brother to the mare that was fastened by twelve. They tried to look at the horses’ teeth, but how was it to be done? The mares rose on their hind legs and pawed the air. Then the brothers struck them in the breast with their knees; the chains which held the horses burst, and the mares flew up into the air five fathoms high, and fell down with their legs uppermost. “Well!” cried the brothers, “that’s not much to boast of. We would not take such horses at a gift.” The crowd cried “Oh!” and was amazed. “What strong and stalwart heroes are these?” The horse-dealer was almost in tears. The mares galloped all over the town, and made off over the wide steppe; nobody dared approach them, and nobody knew how to catch them. The sons of Ivan the soldier were sorry for the horse-dealer. They went out into the open steppe, cried with a piercing voice and whistled lustily, and the mares came running back and stood in their proper place as if they had been nailed there. Then the good youths put the iron chains upon them again, and tied them to the oaken posts, and bound them tightly. This they did, and then they went homewards. As they were going along there met them an old graybeard. They forgot what their mother had told them, and passed him by without greeting him. Suddenly one of them recollected himself and cried: “Oh, brother! what have we done? We never gave that old man a bow; let us run after him and bow to him!” They ran after the old man, took off their little caps, bowed to the very girdle, and said, “Forgive us, dear little father, for passing thee by without a greeting. Our mother straightly charged us to pay honour to every one we met in the way.”—“Thanks, good youths! whither is God leading you?”—“We have been to the town fair; we wanted to buy us a good horse apiece, but there are none there which please us.”—“Why, how’s that? Suppose now that I were to give you a little nag apiece?”—“Ah! little father, we would then always pray to God for thee!”—“Well, come with me.”—The old man led them to a huge mountain, opened two cast-iron doors, and brought out two horses of heroic breed. “Here, take your horses and depart in God’s name, good youths, and may ye prosper with them!” They thanked him, mounted and galloped home; reached the courtyard, bound their horses to a post, and entered the hut. Their mother then began, and asked them: “Well, my dear children, have you bought yourselves a little nag apiece?”—“We have not bought them with money, but got them as a gift.”—“Where have you left them?”—“We put them beside the hut.”—“Alas! my children, look if any one has taken them away.”—“Nay, dear mother, such horses are not taken away. No one could lead them, and there’s no getting near them!” The mother went out, looked at the horses, and burst into tears. “Well, my dear sons, ye are surely never those whom I have nourished.”