Page:RussianFolkTales Afanasev 368pgs.djvu/237

Rh Then the second night came: "Brothers, I read the prayers last night," Ványa said; "it's your turn; which of you will go?"

"Any one who wishes may go; don't interfere with us."

They gave their hats a knowing tilt, whooped and shouted, flew about, and rushed and galloped abroad on the open fields; and once again Ványa read the prayers; and so, too, on the third night. But the brothers saddled their horses, combed out their whiskers, and got ready on the very morrow to try their prowess in front of the eyes of Eléna the Fair. "What about our youngest brother?" they thought.

"Never mind about him; he will only disgrace us and make people smile: let us go by ourselves." So they started. But Ványa also very much wanted to look at Princess Eléna the Fair, and so he wept sorely, and he went to his father's grave, and his father heard him in his last home, and he came up to him, shook off the grey earth from his forehead, and said, "Do not grieve, Vanyúshka; I will aid you in your sorrow." Then the old man got up, whistled and halloed with a young man's voice, with a nightingale's trill; and from some source or other a horse ran up, and the earth trembled, and from his nostrils and from his ears flames issued forth. He breathed smoke, and stood in front of the old man as though he were rooted to the ground, and asked him, "What do you wish?"

Ványa mounted the horse by one ear, dismounted it by the other, and turned into so fine a youth as no tale can tell and no pen can write. He sat on the horse, bent over sideways; and he flew like your hawk over there, straight to the palace of Eléna the Fair Tsarévna. He stretched out, leaped on, and he did not reach two of the crowns. He again made an effort, flew up, jumped; there was only one wreath left. He made