Page:The Russian story book, containing tales from the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod and other early sources.djvu/46

 and the moon by night. When Ilya saw this great host before him he remembered his vows, leapt quickly to the earth, and knelt at the right foot of Cloudfall.

"Lend me your aid, my shaggy bay steed," he said, and the intelligent animal bowed his head in reply, after which he raised it and sniffed the air with quivering nostril. For a moment Ilya left his side to wrench from moist Mother Earth a ring-barked oak which he bound to the left stirrup of his shaggy bay steed. Then he tore up another tree by the roots, and mounting Cloudfall began to brandish it in his right hand. "Any man can vow a vow, he said grimly, "even before the high altar, but not every man can keep his vow when he has made it; and my vow was to shed no blood with my keen sword nor yet to use my fiery darts."

By this time Cloudfall was again passing through the air swifter than a falcon in its flight, though his progress was somewhat stayed when he reached the outer rim of the watching host. Ilya brandished his oak, and bringing it down with one mighty blow after another cleared a path through the host as a hurricane makes a lane through a forest. Through the pathway Cloudfall passed, alighting upon the earth again and again, and leaving wherever he touched the host a heap of prostrate warriors. So did Ilya the Old Cossáck pass through the great host of Tatars, the enemies of Holy Russia.

When the hero came to the gates of Chernigof he found them strongly barred, and a keen watch kept