On she dashed in pursuit, chased and chased. Just a little more, and it would be impossible for him to escape! But Vertogor spied the witch, laid hold of the very highest of all the mountains, pitched it down all of a heap on the road, and flung another mountain right on top of it. While the witch was climbing and clambering, Prince Ivan rode and rode, and found himself a long way ahead. At last the witch got across the mountain, and once more set off in pursuit of her brother. By-and-by she caught sight of him, and exclaimed:
“You sha’n’t get away from me this time!” And now she is close, now she is just going to catch him!
At that very moment Prince Ivan dashed up to the abode of the Sun’s Sister and cried:
“Sun, Sun! open the window!”
The Sun’s Sister opened the window, and the Prince bounded through it, horse and all.
Then the witch began to ask that her brother might be given up to her for punishment. The Sun’s Sister would not listen to her, nor would she give him up. Then the witch said:
“Let Prince Ivan be weighed against me, to see which is the heavier. If I am, then I will eat him; but if he is, then let him kill me!”
This was done. Prince Ivan was the first to get into one of the scales; then the witch began to get into the other. But no sooner had she set foot in it than up shot Prince Ivan in the air, and that with such force that he flew right up into the sky, and into the chamber of the Sun’s Sister.
But as for the Witch-Snake, she remained down below on earth.
[The word terem (plural terema) which occurs twice in this story (rendered the second time by “chamber”) deserves a special notice. It is defined by Dahl, in its antique sense, as “a raised, lofty habitation, or part of one—a Boyar’s castle—a Seigneur’s house—the dwelling-place of a ruler within a fortress,” &c. The “terem of the women,” sometimes styled “of the girls,” used to comprise the part of a Seigneur’s house, on the upper floor, set aside for the female members of his family. Dahl compares it with the Russian tyurma, a prison, and the German Thurm. But it seems really to be derived from the Greek τέρεμνον, “anything closely shut fast or closely covered, a room, chamber,” &c.