Page:Russian Wonder Tales.djvu/257

Rh take thou this magic ball which will roll wherever thou commandest it, and follow it."

Tzarevich Ivan thanked the old gray-beard, threw the ball he gave him on the ground and at his command it straightway began to roll. It rolled a short way and it rolled a long way, it rolled across a pebbly plain and into a drear and dreadful forest, and in the middemiddle [sic] of the forest he came to a miserable little hut that stood on hens' legs and turned continually round and round. And Ivan said to it:

And immediately the hut turned about facing him and stood still.

Tzarevich Ivan climbed up one of its hens' legs and entered the door, and there he saw the oldest of the Baba-Yagas, the bony-legged grandmother of all the witches, lying on a corner of the stove on nine bricks, with one lip on the shelf, her nose (which was as long as the Perevitzky Bridge) thrust up the chimney, and her huge iron mortar in the corner.

"Poo!" she cried, gnashing her teeth, "who is