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Rh If you do not do this, your shoulders and your head will part company."

"I will obey your Majesty," said Iván Tsarévich, and again he went to the courtyard and was lost in tears.

"Why are you weeping, Iván Tsarévich, so bitterly?" Vasilísa the Wise asked him.

"Why should I not weep? The Sea Tsar has bidden me thresh clean thirty hayricks of barley without destroying a hayrick or a single sheaf, and all in a single night."

"That is an easy task. Harder tasks are to come. Sleep in peace, for the morning is wiser than the evening."

So Iván Tsarévich went and lay down.

Vasilísa went to her window and cried out in a threatening voice, "Hail, ye creeping ants, as many as there be of you in the white world, all creep here and pick out all the corn of my father's hayricks quite cleanly."

In the morning the Sea Tsar asked Iván Tsarévich if he had done this service.

"I have, your Majesty."

"Let us go and see."

So they went to the barn floor, and there all the hayricks stood untouched; and they went to the granary, and all the lofts were filled to the top with corn.

"Thank you, brother," said the Sea Tsar. "Now you must make me a church out of white wax, to be ready to-night, and this shall be your last task."

Once again Iván Tsarévich went to the courtyard and began to weep.

"Why are you weeping, Iván Tsarévich?"

"Why should I not weep? The Sea Tsar has bidden me in a single night build a church of white wax."

"That is an easy task: harder tasks are near at hand. Lie down in peace, for the morning is wiser than the evening."

So Iván Tsarévich went to sleep.