At that the old woman ran over to the hearth and, stooping down, she kissed it and caressed it.
"O beautiful hearth!" she said, "where my master's strength is hidden! How happy are the ashes that cover your stones!"
The dragon laughed with amusement.
"That's the time I fooled you, old woman! My strength isn't in the hearth at all! It's in the tree in front of the mill."
The old woman at once ran out of the mill and threw her arms about the tree.
"O tree!" she cried, "most beautiful tree in the world, guard carefully our master's strength and let no harm come to it!"
Again the dragon laughed.
"I've fooled you another time, old woman! Come here and scratch my head some more and this time I'll tell you the truth for I see you really love your master."
So the old woman went back and scratched the dragon's head and the dragon told her the truth about his strength.
"I keep it far away," he said. "In the third kingdom from here near the Tsar's own city there is a deep lake. A dragon lives at the bottom of the lake. In the dragon there is a wild boar; in the boar a hare; in the hare a pigeon; in the pigeon a sparrow. My strength is in the sparrow. Let any one kill the sparrow and I should die that instant. But I am safe. No one but shepherds ever come to the lake and even they don't come any more for the dragon has eaten up so many of them that the lake has got a bad name. Indeed, nowadays even the Tsar himself is hard put to it to find a shepherd. Oh, I tell you, old woman, your master is a clever one!"