Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/60

44 beautiful little white finger, and gazed at it in admiration as she said softly, in a low, musical voice,—

"Ah, how I should like to find a good and handsome young man to marry me! I don't care for any of the men I have seen, they are none of them to my taste; but I suppose I am difficult to please, and shall have to die an old maid!"

At this moment the pike, who had been left sleeping, appeared on the scene, and, on hearing these words, changed himself at once into a handsome young man, and came up to the princess, saying,—

"I beg your pardon, Princess, I lost my ring just now, and I think you picked it up. Will you please give it back to me; or keep it, and take me for your husband, if you think I am good-looking enough for you."

The princess was very angry at the cool way in which the stranger spoke.

"Marry you, you impudent creature!" she cried. "There, take your ring, and be gone!"

So saying, she took the ring from her finger, and threw it down on the ground before the sorcerer; but the moment the ring fell it turned into a number of very small seeds, one of which rolled under the princess's shoe. On seeing this, the sorcerer changed himself quickly into a cock, and began picking the seeds. When he had finished eating them all up, he cried out in a loud voice,—

"Cock-a-doodle-doo! I have done the very thing I wanted!"

But at that moment the last seed rolled out from under the shoe, and, changing itself into a handsome