PRINCE IVAN AND THE GRAY WOLF
By Lillian M. Gask
In a far-off land surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and watered by rivers that flowed swiftly down to the sea, dwelt a mighty tsar. His people loved as well as feared him, for the glance of his eagle eye was very kind, and he was ever ready to listen to their pleas for help or justice. When he rode abroad on the great white horse that was shod with gold, they flocked to bless him, and throughout the whole of his wide dominion there was not one discontented man, woman, or child. He had no foes to trouble him, since rival monarchs knew full well that their troops would be dispersed like mist in sunlight before the charge of his victorious army, and his three sons, Dimitri, Vasili, and Ivan, were all that a father could desire. Yet the good tsar’s brow was clouded as he walked in his garden, and from time to time he uttered a deep sigh.
This garden was his greatest pride. In days gone by the forests had been rifled of their most splendid trees that they might spread their shade over the rare and lovely flowers that travellers brought him from every part of the globe. The perfume of his million rose trees was carried on the wind for fifty miles beyond the palace, and so wonderful were their colors that the eyes of those who beheld them were dazzled by so much brilliance. There were the gorgeous orchids which, in order that the garden of their beloved tsar might be the most beautiful in the world, men had risked their lives to obtain, and every imaginable kind of fruit hung in tempting clusters from the drooping boughs of the trees. To look at them was to make one’s mouth water, and the sick folk in his kingdom shared with the tsar the pleasures of taste and touch.
The tree that gave him most pleasure bore nothing but golden apples. When spring came round, and tender buds appeared upon the whispering branches, the tsar caused a net of fine white seed-pearls to be spread around it, so that the sweet-voiced choristers who filled his groves with music should not come near them. They might feast at will on every other tree in his garden, he said, but the golden apples they must leave for him; and as if in gratitude for his many kindnesses, even when the net of pearls was taken away, and the apples gleamed like fairy gold amid the emerald-green of their shapely leaves, not one of the birds approached them. When cares of state pressed heavily upon him, the tsar sought rest beneath the loaded branches, and forgot his troubles in watching the sunlight play on the golden balls.
Now all was changed, and the tsar’s deep sigh betokened feelings of deep annoyance. Morning after morning he found the apple tree stripped of its golden treasures, and its emerald leaves strewn on the ground.
This was the work of the Magic Bird, who once upon a time had lived in the great cloud castles that gather in the West, but was now the slave of a distant king. The feathers of the Magic Bird were as radiant as the sun-god’s plumes, and her eyes as clear as crystal. When she had wrought her will on the apple trees, she would fly blithely home to the garden of her own master, and, try as they would, not one of the tsar’s head gardeners could even catch sight of her.
The good tsar meditated much upon the matter, and one windy morning in autumn he called his three sons to him.
“My children,” he said, “the source of my grief is known to you, and now I entreat your help. Will you each in turn forego your sleep, that you may watch in my garden for the Magic Bird? To him who shall capture her, I will give the half of my kingdom, and when I am called thence he shall reign in my stead.”