Page:RussianFolkTales Afanasev 368pgs.djvu/65

Rh "You go and see, bátyushka" said Zamorýshek.

So the old man went into the fields and saw forty ricks standing. "Ah, these are fine boys of mine! Look at all they have harvested in one week!" Next day he went out again to gloat on his possessions, and found one rick was a-missing. He came home and said, "One rick has vanished."

"Never mind, bátyushka" said Zamorýshek, "we will catch the thief: give me a hundred roubles, and I will do the deed."

Then Zamorýshek went to the smith and asked for a chain big enough to cover a man from head to foot.

And the smith said, "Certainly."

"Very well, then: if the chain hold, I will give you one hundred roubles; if it break, your labour's lost."

The smith forged the chain; Zamorýshek put it round him, stretched it, and it broke. So the smith made a second iron chain, Zamorýshek put it round his body, and it again broke. Then the smith made a third chain, three times as strong, and Zamorýshek could not break it.

Zamorýshek then went and sat under the hayrick and waited. At midnight a sudden storm rose and the sea raged, and a strange nag rose out of the sea, ran up to the rick and began to eat it. Zamorýshek bound the neck round with chains and mounted her. The mare began to gallop over the valleys and over the hills, and she reared, but she could not dislodge the rider; and at last she stopped and said in a human voice: "Now, good youth, now you can mount me, you may become master of my foals." Then she ran under the sea and neighed, and the sea opened and up ran forty-one foals; and they were such fine foals, every single horse was better than every other horse. You might go round the entire earth and never see any horses as good.