Page:Russian Fairy Book (N. H. Dole).djvu/53

Rh Long did the girl weep bitter tears, many sleepless nights did she sit by the window of her little room, again and again did she wave the gaudy feather, but all in vain—Finist the Bright-Hawk came no more flying to her, neither did any servants come.

At last, with tears in her eyes, she went to her father and asked him for his blessing.

"I am going," she said, "whither eyes look."

She ordered three pairs of iron shoes to be forged for her, three iron staves, and three iron wafers. With a pair of shoes on her feet and a staff in her hand, she started off in the direction from which the Bright-Hawk had come flying to her.

She entered the dim forest; she stumbled over stump and hump; already her iron shoes were wearing out, her staff broken, her wafer eaten, but still the beautiful girl kept walking on and on, and the forest grew ever darker, ever denser.

Suddenly she saw standing before her a little hut on hens' legs, and it kept turning round and round.

The girl cried out: "Little hut, little hut, stand with your back to the forest and your front to me."