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Rh "but, as soon as I have turned round all these oaks with all their roots, the hour will have come for me to die."

Then the Tsarévich wept yet more, and he rode farther on, and he came to Vertogór, and he made him the same request.

"I should be very glad to take you, Iván Tsarévich, but I too shall not live much longer," was the answer he received. "You see, I am placed here in order to turn these mountains round; and when I have done with the last of them then I must die."

Then Iván Tsarévich wept bitter tears, and he rode yet farther. And at last he came to the Sister of the Sun. She gave him meat and drink and adopted him as a son. The Tsarévich had a fine time there. But still he was always dissatisfied, because he did not know what was going on at home. And so he clomb a lofty mountain, looked out to his own house, and saw that everything there had been eaten up, and only the walls were standing. Then he sighed and wept.

And when he came down from the mountain, the Sister of the Sun met him and asked, "Iván Tsarévich, why hast thou wept?"

"It was the wind which was blowing something in my eye!" And once again he began to weep. And he went a second time into the mountain, and saw that only the walls of his house remained standing—everything had been eaten up. And he wept and returned home.

Again the Sister of the Sun met him: "Iván Tsarévich, why hast thou wept?"

"It was the wind which was blowing something in my eye!" And the Sun was angry, and forbade the wind to blow.

And he mounted the hill a third time, and this time he was forced to say why he was sad, and beg the Sister of the Sun for leave to go home to see what had been