Page:RussianFolkTales Afanasev 368pgs.djvu/261

Rh "Now, Tsar my master, you have learned the fear of death. All this shall be for you in the past, and shall be an old tale. You may recollect how I was sitting on the oak and you wished to kill me. Three times you took up your gun to shoot me, but I asked you to spare me; and I was thinking in my mind, may you not destroy me but have pity and take me to yourself!"

So he then flew across thrice-nine lands, for a very long flight. And the eagle said, "Come and see, Tsar my master, what is over us and what is under us."

And the Tsar looked: "Over us," he said, "is the sky, and under us the earth."

"Look once more: what is there on the left and right-hand sides?"

"On the right-hand side there is an open field and on the left-hand side there is a house."

"We will fly there," said the eagle; "there my youngest sister lives."

So they flew straight to the courtyard, and the sister came to meet them and received her brother, seated him on an oaken table; but she would not look on the Tsar—she left him outside in the courtyard and she let the fleet dogs out to feed on him.

But the eagle was very angry, and he leaped up from the table, laid hold on the Tsar and flew, yet farther. So they flew and flew, and the eagle said to the Tsar, "Look, what is there behind us?"

So the Tsar turned round and looked, and said, "Behind us there is a beauteous house."

Then the eagle said to him, "It is the house of my youngest sister that glitters: she would not receive you, but gave you for food to the fleet hounds."

So they flew and flew on, and the eagle asked him again, "Look, Tsar my master, what is there over us, and what under us?"

"Over us the sky and under us the earth."