Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/258

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lived once an old woman who had an only son, called Foma Berennekoff. One day Foma went out ploughing; his horse was a poor, lean creature, and was not of much use. Foma generally left it by the dung-hill to rest, and went on with his work by himself. On this occasion the unfortunate animal was being greatly tormented by a number of flies, which would persist in buzzing round him and tickling his nose.

Foma rushed forward, and taking a dry branch began switching it on the dung-heap where the flies were in great numbers, and then set to work to count how many he had killed. He counted up to five hundred; but seeing that there were still many hundreds more lying dead, he came to the conclusion that it would be impossible to count them all.

He then turned to his horse, and saw twelve gadflies sitting on it; he killed them, and, mounting the animal, rode off home to his mother, and asked her for her blessing.

"I have killed a number of small giants," he said, "so many that I could not count them all, and twelve mighty heroes. And now, mother dear, I want you to let me go and become a soldier, for ploughing is no business of mine, it is only fit for a mujik!"