Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/256

182 upon the floor, saying no one should drink from the glass that he had drunk from.

But the pieces were gathered and mended after he was gone, and are now shown as an interesting relic of his visit to Germany.



was ruler of Russia, For a long time he had asked his wizards and magicians, “By whom is it fated that I shall die?”

And one of his magicians said that his horse would be the cause of his death.

So he ordered them to take care of the horse, but never to bring it to him again. So many years passed, and be did not ride his horse, bot went among the Greeks.

Then he returned and stayed at Kief for four years, and in the fifth year he called his oldest groom and asked him where his horse was. And the groom said that it was dead.

Then Oleg laughed and said, “The wizard spoke falsely; the horse is dead, and I am alive.”

And he went to the place where the skull and bones of the horse lay unburied.

And he said, “How can a skull he the cause of my death?”

So he planted his foot on the skull, and out darted a snake and bit him, so that he fell sick and died. They buried him on the mountain called Stchekovitsa, and his grave is there to this day.

years ago my great-aunt Elizabeth, who lives in Russia, wrote to us and said in one of the prisons some state prisoners were kept.

On the Fourth of July the people saw floating on the breeze red, white, and blue rags in the prison windows. The tags had been torn from their clothing.

The officials were very much surprised to see the rags.

The prisoners wished to show the Russians that they loved a country of liberty.

The prisoners communicated together by tapping on the water-pipes.