“Help me,” cried Víťazko, “and I will give you all those horses grazing on yonder meadow.”
“I will help you, then,” said the raven. “But how am I to help you?”
“Cool me when I grow hot,” said Víťazko. He felt hot indeed, for the Griffin was breathing out fire against him. So they went on wrestling. The Griffin seized Víťazko and drove him into the ground up to his ankles. Víťazko turned the ring, and again he thought of Holy Sunday. He put his arms round the Griffin’s waist and drove him down into the ground above his knees. The black raven dipped his wings in a spring, and then he alighted on Víťazko’s head and sprinkled cool drops over Víťazko’s hot cheeks, and thus he cooled him. Then Víťazko turned the other ring and thought of the beautiful maiden, and they began wrestling again. So the Griffin drove Víťazko into the ground up to his ankles, but Víťazko took hold of him and drove him into the ground up to his shoulders, and quickly he seized his sword, the gift of Holy Sunday, and cut the Griffin’s head off.
The princess came to him at once and plucked the golden apples for him. She thanked him too for delivering her, and said that she liked him well and she would marry him.
“I like you well too,” confessed Víťazko, “and, if I could, I would go with you at once. But if you really love me, and if you will consent to wait a year for me, I will come to you then.”
The princess pledged herself by shaking hands with him, and she said she would wait a year for him. And so they said good-bye to each other. Víťazko mounted his horse, cleared the rampart at a leap, killed the horses on the meadow for the black raven, and hastened home.
“Well, how have you fared?” asked Holy Sunday.
“Very well, but if it hadn’t been for a ring which was given me by a princess I should have fared very badly,” answered Víťazko, and he told her everything. She told him to go home with the golden apples and to take the magic horse with him too. Víťazko obeyed.
The griffin and the mother were carousing again. They were greatly startled when Víťazko came riding home; they had never expected that he would return alive even from the garden of the Griffin. The mother asked what she should do; but the griffin had no more shifts; he made off to the tenth room at once and hid himself there. When Víťazko had given the apples to his mother, she pretended that the mere sight of them had cured her, and, rising from the bed, she put the finest of food before Víťazko and then began to caress him as she used to do sometimes when he was a tiny baby. Víťazko was delighted to see his mother in good health again. The mother took a strong cotton cord and said jestingly: “Lie down, dear son; I will wind this cord round you as I used to wind it round your father, to see if you are as strong as he was, and if you can break it.”
Víťazko smiled and laid himself down, and allowed his mother to wind the cord round him. When she had finished, he stretched his limbs and snapt the cord in pieces.