Page:Russian Wonder Tales.djvu/293



N a certain Tzardom of the thirtieth realm, across three times nine lands, beyond the sea-ocean, there once lived an old peasant with his wife. They were honest and industrious, though they did not swim in cheese and butter. Indeed, they were very poor and moreover had no children, which was a great grief to them. In scanty seasons the peasant eked out his living by hunting wolves and bears, whose skins he marketed to buy bread.

One day he tracked a bear to its den and having killed it, he found there to his astonishment a little boy three years old, naked and sturdy, whom the bear had stolen and had been rearing like a cub. The peasant took the little boy home, called in the priest, had him baptized Ivashko Medvedko, which is to say "Little Ivan, Bear's-Son," and began to bring him up as his own.