Page:RussianFolkTales Afanasev 368pgs.djvu/217

Rh Bába Yagá said to him, "Look, Iván Tsarévich, if you do not keep the mares well, if you lose one, then your false head shall nod up and down on the stake."

So then he drove all the mares to the field, and this time they turned their tails, and they ran into the dreamy woods. And once again the Tsarévich sat on the stone and wept and wept and went to sleep, and the sun began to rest on the woods when the lioness ran up and said, "Get up, Iván Tsarévich—all the mares have been collected." Then Iván Tsarévich got up and went home.

And Bába Yagá was angry that the mares had come home, and she called out to her mares, "Why have you all come home?" And they answered, "How should we not come home?—wild beasts from all the four quarters of the world assembled round us and almost tore us to bits."

"Well, you go to-morrow into the blue sea."

Once again Iván passed the night there, and the next day Bába Yagá sent her mares to feed. "If you do not guard them, then your bold head shall hang on the pole."

He drove the mares into the field, and they at once turned tail and vanished from his eyes and ran into the blue sea and stood up to their necks in the water. So Iván Tsarévich sat on the stone, wept and went to sleep. And the sun was already setting on the woods when the bee flew up to him and said: "Get up, Iván Tsarévich—all the mares have been gathered together. But, when you return home, do not appear before Bába Yagá; go into the stable and hide behind the crib. There there is a mangy foal who will be rolling in the dung: steal him; and, at the deep of midnight, leave the house."

Iván Tsarévich got up, went into the stable, and lay behind the crib.

Bába Yagá made a tremendous stir and cried out to her mares: "Why did you come back?"