“I thank you with reverence, venerable sirs,” he said, “my strength is great, but only half the strength I had.”
“That is well,” said the old men; “if it were greater, then moist Mother Earth would be too frail to bear you.”
Then the old men told Ilya to go out into the summer sunlight, and he walked out of the cottage for the first time, followed by his deliverers; and there, standing in the light, the young man received his blessing and his charge.
“Ilya, son of strength,” they said, “it is God Himself who has redeemed you from weakness. Therefore you are bound to defend the faith of Christ against all unbelievers, however bold and daring they may be, remembering always that it is not written that you should come to your death in battle.
“In the whole white world there is none stronger than you except Svyatogor, whom you will meet before long. Avoid conflict with him, and him alone; do not spend your strength on the soil or the meadow or the forest, but set out without delay for the royal city of Kiev.”
Having spoken these words, the old men vanished, and Ilya did not see either how or where they went. He only knew that he stood alone in the light of the sun, and he stretched out his great arms as if he had just awakened from a long refreshing sleep.
Then the young giant went to seek his father and mother, and found them resting in the shade of the pine trees by the side of the meadow. The whole company was asleep, and taking up one of their axes, Ilya began to hew at the trunks of the pines. It is a matter for wonder that the sound of the crashing trunks which was soon heard did not immediately awake the sleepers, for the young man laid about him lustily during the space of an hour, and at the end of that time had felled a small wood about the extent of a field; which is really not so very marvellous after all, seeing that he had been storing up strength for thirty years. When he had finished this work he drove all the axes lying near the sleepers into a tree-stump with a quiet laugh. “Ah,” he said to himself, “they must ask me for these axes if they wish to use them again.”
After a while the young man’s parents and their labourers awoke from sleep, for by his tree-felling Ilya had taken away the shade, and the hot sunlight was now beating full upon their faces. With blinking eyes they looked around, and when they saw the fallen timber and the axes deeply embedded in the stump of a tree, they began somewhat slowly to be filled with very great wonder, and said to one another, “Who has done this?”
Then Ilya came out of the forest where he had been hiding and enjoying their awakening. The men were now trying in vain to draw out the axes, and he took them easily from the stump, and handed them to the wondering servants without a word being spoken on either side; for the labourers were too much dazed to break the silence by speech.
For a few moments the father and mother gazed at the tall young man, the eyes of the former dwelling upon his stature, his strong limbs, and his mighty shoulders, while the mother gazed steadfastly at the face of her son, which was radiant with a wonderful light. Then, clasping his hands and closing his eyes, the old man gave thanks to God that he should be the father of so splendid a workman; but Ilya showed no sign of continuing in his peasant’s task, for with a low bow of reverence to his parents, he strode away without a word across the open plain.