In a Tula variant[328] the wicked wife, who has set her confiding husband to tend her pigs, is killed by the hero. She had put out his eyes, and had cut off the feet of another companion of her husband; in this variant also the Healing Waters are found by the aid of a snake.
The supernatural steed which Katoma tamed belongs to an equine race which often figures in the Skazkas. A good account of one of these horses is given in the following story of—
Princess Helena the Fair.[329]
We say that we are wise folks, but our old people dispute, the fact, saying: “No, no, we were wiser than you are.” But skazkas tell that, before our grandfathers had learnt anything, before their grandfathers[330] were born—[331]
There lived in a certain land an old man of this kind who instructed his three sons in reading and writing[332] and all book learning. Then said he to them:
“Now, my children! When I die, mind you come and read prayers over my grave.”
“Very good, father, very good,” they replied.
The two elder brothers were such fine strapping fellows! so tall and stout! But as for the youngest one, Ivan, he was like a half-grown lad or a half-fledged duckling, terribly inferior to the others. Well, their old father died. At that very time there came tidings from the King, that his daughter, the Princess Helena the Fair, had ordered a shrine to be built for her with twelve columns, with twelve rows of beams. In that shrine she was sitting upon a high throne, and awaiting her bridegroom, the bold youth who, with a single bound of his swift steed, should reach high enough to kiss her on the lips. A stir ran through the whole youth of the nation. They took to licking their lips, and scratching their heads, and wondering to whose share so great an honor would fall.
“Brothers!” said Vanyusha,[333] “our father is dead; which of us is to read prayers over his grave?”
“Whoever feels inclined, let him go!” answered the brothers.