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250 versts long and broad, and there is nothing on it except ditches, ravines and sharp stones. By to-morrow morning all this must be as smooth as the palm of my hand; rye must be sown and grow so high that a jackdaw might be hidden in it. But if you fail, your head shall roll off your shoulders."

Iván Tsarévich left the Sea Tsar and wept a sea of tears. Out of the window of her room, from a lofty turret, Vasilísa the Wise saw him and asked, "Hail, Iván Tsarévich! why are you weeping?"

"How should I not weep?" answered Iván. "The Sea Tsar has bidden me in a single night level the ravines and clear the stones from a piece of land thirty versts long and broad, and grow rye on it so high that a jackdaw might hide in it."

"That is easy enough: this is no trouble—trouble is still ahead. Come and lie down in peace; the morning is wiser than the evening. All shall be ready."

So Iván Tsarévich went and lay down, and Vasilísa the Wise went to a little window and cried in a thunderous voice, "Hail, my faithful servants, go and level the deep ravines, take away the sharp stones, sow the ground with full-eared rye, so that in the morning it shall grow so high that a jackdaw might hide in it."

In the morning Iván Tsarévich awoke, and when he looked out it was all done: there were no ravines and no crevasses, and the field was as flat as the palm of his hand, and the rye on it was red and so lofty that a jackdaw might hide in it. And he went to report his prowess to the Sea Tsar.

"Thank you," said the Sea Tsar. "You have been able to fulfil me this service. Here is your second work. I have thirty hayricks, and each hayrick contains as much as thirty piles of white-eared barley. Thresh me all the barley clean, quite clean to the last grain, and do not destroy the hayricks nor beat down the sheaves.