The Fairy Ring

"I hear him running after us. I'll turn myself into standing wheat and thee into an old man guarding me, and if he ask thee, 'Hast thou seen a lad and a la.s.s pa.s.s by this way?' say to him: 'Yes, they pa.s.sed by this way while I was sowing this wheat!'"

A little while afterwards the she dragon's husband came flying up.

"Have a lad and a la.s.s pa.s.sed by this way?" said he.

"Yes," replied the old man, "they have."

"Was it long ago?" asked the she dragon's husband.

"It was while this wheat was being sown," replied the old man.

"Oh!" thought the serpent, "this wheat is ready for the sickle; they couldn't have been this way yesterday."

So he turned back. Then the she dragon's daughter turned herself back into a maiden and the old man into a youth, and off they set again. But the dragon returned home, and the she dragon asked him:

"What! hast thou not caught them or met them on the road?"

"Met them, no!" said he. "I did, indeed, pa.s.s on the road some standing wheat and an old man watching it, and I asked the old man if he had seen a lad and a la.s.s pa.s.s by that way, and he said, 'Yes, while this wheat was being sown'; but the wheat was quite ripe for the sickle, so I knew it was a long while ago and turned back."

"Why didst thou not tear that old man and the wheat to pieces?" cried the she dragon; "it was they! Be off after them again, and mind, this time tear them to pieces without fail."

So the dragon set off after them again, and they heard him coming from afar, for the earth trembled beneath him. So the damsel said to Ivan:

"He's coming again; I hear him; now I'll change myself into a monastery, so old that it will be almost falling to pieces, and I'll change thee into an old black monk at the gate, and when he comes up and asks, 'Hast thou seen a lad and a la.s.s pa.s.s this way?' say to him: 'Yes, they pa.s.sed by this way when this monastery was being built.'"

Soon afterwards the dragon came flying past, and asked the monk: "Hast thou seen a lad and a la.s.s pa.s.s by this way?"

"Yes," he replied, "I saw them what time the holy fathers began to build this monastery."

The dragon thought to himself: "That was not yesterday! This monastery has stood a hundred years if it has stood a day, and won't stand much longer either"; and with that he turned him back. When he got home he said to the she dragon, his

"Why didst thou not tear the black monk to pieces and pull down the monastery? for 'twas they. But I see I must go after them myself; thou art no good at all."

So off she set and ran and ran, and they knew she was coming, for the earth quaked and yawned beneath her. Then the damsel said to Ivan:

"I fear me 'tis all over, for she is coming herself! Look now, I'll change thee into a stream and myself into a fish--a perch."

Immediately after the she dragon came up and said to the perch:

"Oh, oh! so thou wouldst run away from me, eh!"

Then she turned herself into a pike and began chasing the perch, but every time she drew near to it the perch turned its p.r.i.c.kly fins toward her, so that she could not catch hold of it. So she kept on chasing it and chasing it, but finding she could not catch it, she tried to drink up the stream, till she drank so much of it that she burst.

Then the maiden who had become a fish said to the youth who had become a river:

"Now that we are alive and not dead, go back to thy lord father and thy father's house and see them, and kiss them all except the daughter of thy uncle, for if thou kiss that damsel thou wilt forget me, and I shall go to the land of Nowhere."

So he went home and greeted them all, and as he did so he thought to himself:

"Why should I not greet my uncle's daughter like the rest of them? Why, they'll think me a mere pagan if I don't!"

So he kissed her, and the moment he did so he forgot all about the girl who had saved him.

So he remained there half a year, and then bethought him of taking to himself a wife. So they betrothed him to a very pretty girl, and he accepted her and forgot all about the other girl who had saved him from the dragon, the one who herself was the she dragon's daughter. Now the evening before the wedding they heard a young damsel crying _s.h.i.+shki_[B]

in the streets. They called to the young damsel to go away, or say who she was, for n.o.body knew her. But the damsel answered never a word, but began to knead more cakes, and made a c.o.c.k dove and a hen dove out of the dough and put them down on the ground, and they became alive. And the hen dove said to the c.o.c.k dove:

"Hast thou forgotten how I cleared the field for thee, and sowed it with wheat, and thou mad'st a roll from the corn which thou gavest to the she dragon?"

But the c.o.c.k dove answered:

"Forgotten! forgotten!"

Then she said to him again:

"And hast thou forgotten how I dug away the mountain for thee, and let the Dnieper flow by it that the merchant barques might come to thy storehouses, and that thou might'st sell thy wheat to the merchant barques?"

But the c.o.c.k dove replied:

"Forgotten! forgotten!"

Then the hen dove said to him again:

"And hast thou forgotten how we two went together in search of the golden hare? Hast thou forgotten me then altogether?"

And the c.o.c.k dove answered again:

"Forgotten! forgotten!"

Then the good youth Ivan bethought him who this damsel was that had made the doves, and he took her to his arms and made her his wife, and they lived happily ever afterwards.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote B: Wedding-cakes of the shape of pine cones.]

_The Sparrow and the Bush_

A SPARROW once flew down upon a bush and said:

"Little bush, give good little sparrow a swing."

"I won't!" said the little bush. Then the sparrow was angry, and went to the goat and said:

"Goat, goat, nibble bush, bush won't give good little sparrow a swing."

"I won't!" said the goat.