Page:Russian Wonder Tales.djvu/312

266 Beware also to draw thy sword before she has drunk of the Weak Water, for until then it will be powerless against her spells."

Little Bear's-Son immediately changed the places of the two casks, putting the right one on the left hand and the Weak Water where the Strong Water had been. And soon, as he conversed with the lovely maiden in the garden, the trees began to sob and the timbers of the hut to creak, and the Baba-Yaga came riding home. Little Bear's-Son hid himself behind a hedge and the old witch stopped and leaped down from her mortar.

"Poo! poo!" she cried, smelling around her. "I smell a Russian smell! Who has visited here?"

"No one, grandmother," said the damsel. "How could one from the upper-world find his way here?"

"Well," said the Baba-Yaga, "I fear no one here save a Russian named Ivashko Medvedko, and he is so far away at this moment that it would take a he-crow a year to fly hither with one of his bones."

"Thou liest, old witch!" cried Little Bear's-Son, and with the words sprang out and seized hold of her iron pestle. The Baba-Yaga whistled and spat and howled with rage, but try as she might, she could not shake him off. She tore away in a whirlwind, over the tree-tops of the forest, striving to