“Thanks and thanks again, good grandfather,” said the Tsarevich, who went on to the stables and selected his heroic steed in the manner described by the old man. On the following morning the Tsarevich was preparing this horse for the journey when it turned its head and spoke to him in the speech of Holy Russia:
“Ivan Tsarevich,” it said, “fall down upon the lap of moist Mother Earth and I will push you three times.” The youth was so much astonished to hear the horse speak that he found it no difficult matter to fall down. Then the horse pushed him once and pushed him a second time, but after that it looked at the youth for a little time and said, “That will suffice, for if I push you a third time moist Mother Earth will not be able to bear you.” So the Tsarevich rose to his feet, saddled his horse, and set out. His father and those about him saw him as he mounted, but they did not see him as he rode. It was only a smoke wreath on the open boundless plain and he was gone. Far, far away he rode until the day grew short and the long night came on. As the darkness fell the rider came to a house as large as a town, with rooms each as big as a village. At the great door he got down from his horse and tied the bridle to a copper ring in the door-post. Then he went into the first room and said to an old woman whom he found there:
“May God be good to this house. I should be glad to be permitted to spend the night here.”
“Where are you journeying?” asked the old woman.
“That is not the first question,” said the Tsarevich. “Give me food to eat and wine to drink, then put me next into a warm sleeping chamber. In the morning ask me whether I have slept in peace and then ask where I may be journeying.” And the old woman did so, just as the Tsarevich had said.
Next morning she asked him the second question and he replied, “I was in my cradle when my father came to me and promised to get me Peerless Beauty as a bride. She is the daughter of three mothers, the granddaughter of three grandmothers, and the sister of nine brothers.”
“Good youth,” said the old woman, “I am nearly seventy years of age, but of Peerless Beauty I have never heard. But farther on the way lives my elder sister. Perhaps she knows.” Then Ivan Tsarevich went out of the great house, and, after taking courteous leave of the old woman, rode far away across the open steppe. All day he rode, and as night was coming on he came to a second house as large as a town, with each room as large as a village. He dismounted from his horse, tied the bridle to a silver ring in the door-post, and asked an old woman whom he met in the first room if he might have a night’s lodging. And here it happened as it had happened before, only the old woman was eighty years of age.
“Farther on the road,” she said, “lives my elder sister and she has givers of answers. The first givers of answers are the fishes and other dwellers in the heaving restless sea; the second givers of answers are the wild beasts of the dark forests; and the third givers of answers are the birds of the open air. Whatever is in the whole white world is obedient to the will of my elder sister.”
Once again Ivan Tsarevich set out and came to a house where he tied his horse to a golden ring, and was received by an old, old woman who screamed at him in a voice like a flock of peacocks:
“O you man of boldness, why have you tied your horse to a golden ring when an iron ring would be too good for you?”