Page:The Russian story book, containing tales from the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod and other early sources.djvu/43



ILYA AND NIGHTINGALE THE ROBBER

is the story of the first of the nightingales, those sweet singers of the evening, each of whom, as the old books tell with certainty, sprang from a poppy seed. And the sower of the first seeds of the blood-red poppy was Ilya the Old Cossáck, who rode the shaggy bay steed Cloudfall.

As for Cloudfall, the shaggy bay steed, it is well that you should try to picture him to yourselves. He had a mane of very great length, and a tail ten times as long as his mane, while the shaggy hair of his rough coat was of three colours or tints. He wore a bridle of leather plaited so as to be of enormous strength, twelve saddle-cloths and twelve felts (so cold it was in Holy Russia), and over these coverings a strong leather saddle bound with metal. He had twelve girths made of finest silk, not for display and youthful vanity, but for strength and easiness of movement. His stirrups were of engraved steel brought from Damascus, where the good sword blades are marked with strange devices; the buckles were of bronze which moist Mother Earth is not able to rust, and which no amount of hard wear can in

35