Then she turned to Dubunia and said—
“What do you do here?”
Without waiting for his reply, Baba Yaja laid on him with her pestle, and beat him until he hardly had any life left in him. Then she ate the dinner he had got ready for his companions, got into her mortar, and rode off. Dubunia lay for some time on the ground. Then he got up, tied up his head with a handkerchief, and sat down, groaning, till his companions came home.
“Where is the dinner?” said they.
“I have been ill,” answered Dubunia, “and have been too unwell to get it ready.”
The next day Gorunia was left to keep the hut and get the dinner ready. He cooked the food, and waited for his friends to come back, when, all of a sudden, who should come in but Baba Yaja.
“Ho, ho!” said she, “I smell Russian flesh. What are you doing here?” she asked, turning to Gorunia.
Without giving him time to reply she commenced to beat him with the pestle. Then she ate up all the food he had ready, got into the mortar, and rode away. When his friends came home Gorunia told them what had happened.
On the third day Usunia stayed at home, and Baba Yaja made her appearance again, and treated him as she had his companions.
At length it was Ivashka’s turn to keep house. His comrades went out to hunt in the wood, and Ivashka got the dinner ready. Looking about the hut he found in it a jar of honey. Then Ivashka took an axe and split open one of the posts of the hut, and putting a piece of wood in at the top he kept the crack open. Then he took the honey and poured it all over the post and in the chink. After that he got three iron rods, and then he sat down to await Baba Yaja’s coming. He did not wait long, for she came riding to the hut in her mortar.