“My true friend and good knight Luga, I want you to do me a service. Go to my own country, go to the Czar, salute him from me, and ask him to deliver to you the shopkeeper Abrosim and his wife, so that you may bring them to me. If he will not deliver them up to you, tell him that I will lay waste his country with fire, and will make him himself my prisoner.”
When the servant Luga was come into Little Ivan’s country he went to the Czar and asked him to let Abrosim and Fetinia go away with him. The Czar was unwilling to let Abrosim go, for he wanted to keep the rich merchant in his own country. He knew, however, that Ivan’s kingdom was very large and populous, and being therefore afraid, he let Abrosim and Fetinia depart. Luga received them from the Czar, and conducted them to his own native country.
When he brought them to Little Ivan, the Czar said to his father—
“Yes, father, you turned me away from your house, and I therefore bring you to mine. Come, live with me, you and my mother, till the end of your days.”
Abrosim and Fetinia rejoiced exceedingly to find that their son was become Czar, and they lived with him many years, until they died.
Little Ivan ruled for thirty years in good health, and was very happy, and all his people loved him sincerely to the last hour of his life.
EMELYAN THE FOOL.
In a certain village there once lived a peasant who had three sons, of whom two were sensible, but the third was a fool, and his name was Emelyan. When the peasant had lived for a long time, and was grown very old, he called his three sons to him, and said to them—