So the chancellor commanded one coachman to descend and dip poor Hanka into the freezing water, and of course the coachman had to obey or else have his head cut off. He grabbed The Fool by his collar and gave him a kick from behind, and Hanka fell screaming through his hole in the thick white ice. The Tsar declared he had never seen anything so funny in all his life.
“Do it again,” he cried, “do it again!” Poor Hanka the Fool was nearly frozen to death before the Tsar grew tired of him and let him go. He had a cold for weeks after, and if his mother had not given him hot tea and put him to bed with warm flat-irons at his feet as soon as he got home, he probably would have died.
A few days later, while the Tsar was sitting in state upon his throne, feeling bored and cross and merciless, a stranger came to the city from the distant North, driving over the frozen sea. He drove all alone in a sleigh with three white horses whose trappings were hung with icicles that tinkled like bells. His hair was long and flaxen, his blue eyes were clear as stars, and he wore a flowing white cape that looked like feathery, newly fallen snow. Of course everyone thought he would stop at the inn near the city gate, but he drove up the highway through all the town, and did not stop till he came to the palace of the Tsar. Then he reined in his horses, stood up in his sleigh and called with all his might.
“Hi, Brother Tsar! Give me a lodging for the night, for I am weary of wayfaring. Give me a bed and a place at thy board, and fodder for my horses, that we may rest!”
The Tsar thought the stranger must be a madman, and sent out a slave to drive him away. But the wayfarer would not go.
“Brother Tsar!” he cried again, “Brother Tsar!” Then the Tsar jumped up from his throne in a rage, snatched a whip from one of his coachmen, and stepped out, in all his pride and glory, upon the terraces of turquoise mosaic.
“Away!” he cried, “Away, or I will have thee bound and tortured!”
“What, thou wilt not grant me even a night’s lodging under thy roof?” exclaimed the wayfarer.
The Tsar cracked his whip.