Page:RussianFolkTales Afanasev 368pgs.djvu/84

68 "Will you sit still, girl?"

But it was not any good. Bába Yagá could not put the maiden into the oven. So she became angry, thrust her back and said, "You are simply wasting time! Just look at me and see how it is done." Down she sat on the shovel with her legs nicely trussed together. So the maidens instantly put her into the oven, shut the oven door, and slammed her in; took their knitting with them, and their comb and brush, and ran away.

They ran hard away, but when they turned round there was Bába Yagá running after them. She had set herself free. "Hoo, Hoo, Hoo! there run the two!" So the maidens, in their need, threw the brush away, and a thick, dense coppice arose which she could not break through. So she stretched out her claws, scratched herself a way through, and again ran after them. Whither should the two poor girls flee? They flung their comb behind them, and a dark, murky oak forest grew up, so thick, no fly could ever have flown its way through. Then the witch whetted her teeth and set to work. And she went on tearing up one tree after another by the roots, and she made herself a way, and again set out after them, and almost caught them up.

Now the girls had no strength left to run, so threw the cloth behind them, and a broad sea stretched out, deep, wide and fiery. The old woman rose up, wanted to fly over it, but fell into the fire and was burned to death.

The poor maidens, poor homeless doves! did not know whither to go. They sat down in order to rest, and a man came and asked them who they were. He told his master that two little birds had fluttered on to his estate; two fairest damsels similar in form and shape, eye for eye and line for line. One was his sister, but which was it? He could not guess. So the master went to both of them. One was the sister—which?