Page:Segnius Irritant or Eight Primitive Folk-lore Stories.pdf/123

 Lord, old mother, I go a long way.” Then the old woman begins to coax and wheedle. “And why does it go so far? and why won’t it tell its old baba where its strength resides? Why, if I knew where its strength resides, I don’t know what I should do for joy; I should go and kiss the place all over.” At this the dragoness laughed, and said: “Look! there’s my strength in yonder fireplace!” Then the old woman goes and embraces and kisses the fireplace all over. And when the dragoness sees it she burst out laughing, and exclaims: “You silly old woman; my strength isn’t there. My strength is in yonder tree.” The old woman now began to embrace and kiss the tree, and the dragoness again burst out laughing and said: “Get away, you old noodle, my strength isn’t there! A long way off, in the next czarstvy near the imperial city is a lake (the bridge near the palace of the three kings, in the kingdom of the ), in that lake is a dragon, and with the dragon a wild boar, and with the wild boar a dove; in the dove is my strength.” The old woman having discovered the secret, confides it to the Czar’s son, who goes to the next kingdom and engages himself with the king of it as his shepherd. The shepherd takes with him two greyhounds to chase the boar, a falcon to chase the dove, and bagpipes. The first two days the fight with the dragoness results in a draw, but the third day the shepherd obtains permission to take the king’s daughter. He bids her at the critical moment of the fight kiss him on the cheek, the eye, and the forehead. This she does, and he flings the dragoness to the height of heaven. She falls on the ground and is broken to pieces. Out of her springs the boar; the greyhounds catch the boar and rend it. Out of it flies the dove. The falcon catches it and brings it to the prince. The Czar’s son says to it: “Now, tell me where my brothers are?” And the dove replies: “I will, only don’t do anything to me. Hard by your father’s city is a water mill, and at that water mill are three willow saplings; cut down those three saplings, and smite upon the rocks; immediately the iron door of a vast underground storey will open. In that underground storey are a host of people, old and young, rich and poor, small and great, women and maidens enough to found a considerable czarstvy. There your brothers are.” When the dove had explained everything, the Czar’s son instantly wrung its neck. The hero and heroine then returned to the palace, the hero triumphantly tootling the bagpipes; and the readers will of course divine the termination of the story.

It is unnecessary to insist upon the identity of this Slav and the Lapp story, which is too obvious to require comment; nor need any more be said of the various phials and bottles hid in lions’ heads, etc., which contain the life of the wicked Magi in the Venetian variants. We have had an instance in the story of the Twelve Brothers, where the twelfth sister wheedles the magician into telling her where his life resides, and betrays it to the twelfth brother, who is thus enabled to set free the other eleven brothers and sisters whom the magician