Page:Russian Fairy Book (N. H. Dole).djvu/76

 that time forth the Magic Bird came no more into the garden.

Then the Tsar again summoned his three sons and said to them: "My dearly beloved children, go forth with my paternal blessing and capture the Magic Bird and bring it to me alive, and what I promised before shall be given to the one who brings the bird to me."

Prince Dimitri and Prince Vasili had conceived a bitter hatred against their youngest brother, Prince Ivan, because he had succeeded in getting a feather from the Magic Bird's tail. They received their father's blessing and went forth together to hunt for the bird. Then Prince Ivan also began to ask his father for his blessing. However much the Tsar strove to detain Ivan he could not help letting him go, because he was so urgent in his beseeching. So the young man got his father's blessing, chose a horse for himself, and started on his journey, not knowing at all what way it would take him.

As he rode along, far and near, high and low—and so quickly that it is more easily said than done—he came at last to a bare field, to green meadows. And in the bare field stood a stone monument, and on the monument were inscribed these words: