Page:RussianFolkTales Afanasev 368pgs.djvu/247

Rh over hills, and forests, and clefts; and swiftly with the pestle driving the mortar.

Then Fílyushka remembered himself, and began to cry out, "Goat, Ram, come along quick. Yagá has carried me away beyond the high, steep hills, the dark, lone woods, the steppes, where the geese roam."

The Ram and the Goat were just then resting. One was lying on the ground, and heard a noise of somebody shouting. So he told the other one: "Come and lie down, and listen!"

"Oh, it's our Fílyushka crying."

Off they went and ran and ran, and ran the Yagá-Búra down, saved Fílyushka and brought him home to his grandfather, who had nearly gone out of his mind with fright! They told him to look after Fílyushka better, and went out again.

But Fílyushka was a real boy, and the first chance he got, off he was again to the apple-tree, clambered up. There was the Yagá-Búra again, and offering him an apple.

"No, you won't catch me this time, you old beast!" said Fílyushka.

"Don't be unkind—do just take an apple from me; I'll throw it to you!"

"Right: throw it down."

Then Yagá threw him down an apple: he stretched out his hand, and she clutched it and leapt over hills, and valleys, and dark forests, so fast that it seemed like a twinkling of an eye, got him into her home, washed him, went out and put him into the bunk.

In the morning she made ready to go out, and ordered her daughter, "Listen! heat the oven well, very hot, and roast me Chufíl-Fílyushka for supper." And she went out to seek further booty.

The daughter went and got the oven thoroughly hot, took out and bound Fílyushka, and put him on the