Page:The Russian story book, containing tales from the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod and other early sources.djvu/126

 with golden horns, silver hoofs, and a coat as sleek as velvet. And she drove him out into the open steppe to drink swamp water and to eat marsh grass and to be lord over the nine brown oxen which had once been Russian heroes, strong and mighty. Now as he roamed about the plain not far away from the dwellings of Kiev, he saw a flock of geese which belonged to his aunt; and wickedness entered into his heart, so that he trampled the whole gabbling flock to death down to the very last gosling. Then the goose-girls went to their mistress and with much shaking of dark locks and heaving of white shoulders they told their tale.

As soon as they had finished their story the swan-keepers came with a similar tale, and then the shepherds, and after these the herdsmen. Not a living creature of all the flocks and herds had the golden-horned monster spared.

"I know," said the aunt of Nikitich, "whence comes this fierce beast. It is my well-beloved Nikitich whom the vile witch Marina has changed by her sorcery." Even as she spoke the horse-keepers came to tell how the animal had driven the steeds before him so that all had been lost far over the open steppe, dispersed and driven away many miles from Kiev city. Then the aunt of Nikitich rose in white anger, and by means of a secret charm she knew she changed herself into a chattering magpie and flew away to the palace of Marina, where she perched herself upon the sill of the lattice-window and began to scold with all her might and to say: