Page:RussianFolkTales Afanasev 368pgs.djvu/20

4 her husband, went to visit him. Then the stepmother turned her into a goose, and decked her eldest daughter as though she were the wife of Iván Tsarévich. And Iván Tsarévich returned home.

The old man, who tended the children, got up early in the morning, washed himself clean, took the child on his arm and went out to the field, to the bush in the field. Grey geese were flying over it.

"Geese, ye grey ones, where is the baby's mother?"

"In the next flock!"

Then the next flock came by.

"Geese, ye grey ones, where is the baby's mother?"

Then the baby's mother came to them, threw off her feathers, and gave her little child the breast, and began weeping:

"For this one day I may come, and to-morrow, but the next day I must fly away over the woods and over the hills."

The old man went back home, and the boy slept all day long, until next morning, and did not wake up. The false wife was angry with him for taking the child into the fields where it must be much too cold.

But next morning the old man again got up very early, washed himself clean, and took the child into the field. Iván Tsarévich followed him secretly and hid in the bush. Then the grey geese began soaring by.

"Geese, ye grey ones, where is the baby's mother?"

"In the next flock!"

Then the next flock came by.

"Geese, ye grey ones, where is the baby's mother?"

Then the baby's mother came to them, threw off her feathers, and gave her little child the breast, and began weeping: "For this one day I may come, but to-morrow I must fly away over the woods and over the hills."

Then she asked: "What do I smell there?" and