Page:Czech Folk Tales.pdf/56

36 "Well, what am I to give you, then? It is for you to ask," said the mother.

"What are you to give me?" said he, looking round the room. "Oh! give me that heart, hanging there from the crossbeam!"

"If you like that, we can give it to you," said the griffin, and the mother took it down and gave it to Víťazko. He thanked them for it, and hastened from the castle to Holy Sunday.

"It is lucky that we have got it again," said Holy Sunday; and she took the heart in her hands, washed it first in the Water of Death and afterwards in the Water of Life, and then she put it in the bill of the Pelican bird. The bird stretched out his long neck and replaced the heart in Víťazko's breast. At once Víťazko felt it joyfully leaping. And for this service Holy Sunday gave the Pelican bird his freedom again.

And now she said to Víťazko: "You must go once more to the castle and deal out justice. Take the form of a pigeon and, when you think of me, you will regain your own shape."

No sooner had she said this than Víťazko was changed into a pigeon, and away he