Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales Part 12

"Catch hold of me," said the serpent, "and I'll take you, only torture me no more."

So Legless clung on to him with his arms and Armless with his feet, and the serpent flew away with them till he came to a spring. "There's your healing water!" cried he.

Armless wanted to plunge in straightway, but Legless shrieked, "Wait, brother! Hold the serpent tight with your legs while I thrust a dry stick into the spring, and then we shall see whether it really is healing water."

So he thrust a stick in, and no sooner had it touched the water than it was consumed as though by fire. Then the pair of them, in their rage, fell upon that false serpent and almost killed him. They beat him and beat him till he cried for mercy. "Beat me no more!" cried he; "the spring of healing water is not very far off!" Then he took them to another spring. Into this they also dipped a dry stick, and immediately it burst into flower. Then Armless leaped into the spring and leaped out again with arms, whereupon he pitched in Legless, who immediately leaped out again with legs of his own. So they let the serpent go, first making him promise never to fly to the Tsarivna again, and then each thanked the other for his friends.h.i.+p, and so they parted.

But Ivan Golik went again to his brother the prince, to see what had become of him. "I wonder what the princess has done to him?" thought he. So he went toward that tsardom, and presently he saw not very far from the roadside, a swineherd tending swine; he was tending swine, but he himself sat upon a tomb. "I'll go and ask that swineherd what he's doing there," thought Ivan Golik.

So he went up to the swineherd, and, looking straight into his eyes, recognized his own brother. And the swineherd looked at him, and recognized Ivan Golik. There they stood for a long time looking into each other's eyes, but neither of them spoke a word. At last Ivan Golik found his voice: "What!" cried he. "Is it thou, O prince, who art feeding swine? Thou art rightly served! Did I not bid thee, 'Tell not thy wife the truth for seven years'?"

At this the prince flung himself down at the other's feet, and cried, "O Ivan Golik! forgive me, and have mercy!"

Then Ivan Golik raised him up by the shoulders and said, "'Tis well for thee that thou art still in G.o.d's fair world! Yet wait a little while, and thou shalt be Tsar again!"

The prince thereupon asked Ivan Golik how he had got his legs back again, for the princess had told him how she had cut Ivan Golik in two. Then Ivan Golik confessed to him that he was his younger brother, and told him the whole story of his life. So they embraced and kissed each other, and then the prince said, "'Tis high time I drove these swine home, for the princess doesn't like being kept waiting for her tea."

"Well," said Ivan Golik, "we'll drive them back together."

"The worst of it, brother, is this," said the prince. "Dost thou see that accursed pig that leads the others? Well, he will go only up to the gate of the sty, and there he stands fast as if rooted to the ground, and until I kiss his bristles he will not move from the spot.

And all the time the princess and the serpents are sitting in the gallery at tea, and they look on and laugh!"

But Ivan Golik said, "It needs must be so! Kiss it again to-day, and to-morrow thou shalt kiss it no more!"

Then they drove the swine up to the gates, and Ivan Golik looked to see what would happen. He saw the princess sitting in the gallery with six serpents drinking tea, and the accursed pig stuck fast in the gate, and stretched out its legs and wouldn't go in. The princess looked on and said, "Look at my fool driving the swine, and now he is going to kiss the big boar!"

So the poor fellow stooped down and kissed its bristles, and the pig ran grunting into the courtyard. Then the princess said, "Look! he has picked up from somewhere an under-herdsman to help him!"

The prince and Ivan Golik drove the pigs into their sty, and then Ivan Golik said, "Brother, get me twenty poods of hemp and twenty poods of pitch, and bring them to me in the garden." And he did so. Then Ivan Golik made him a huge whip of the twenty poods of hemp and the twenty poods of tar. First he twined tightly a pood of hemp, and tarred it well with a pood of pitch; round this he plaited another pood of hemp, and tarred that also with another pood of pitch, till he had used up the whole forty. By midnight his task was done, and then he laid him down to sleep. But the prince had gone to sleep long before in the pig-sty.

Early in the morning they rose up again, and Ivan Golik said to him, "Up till to-day thou hast been a swineherd, and after to-day thou shalt be a prince again; but first let us drive the swine into the field."

"Nay, but," said the prince, "the princess has not yet come out upon the balcony to drink tea with the serpents, and see me kiss the pig before it goes out, as is her wont." Ivan Golik said to him, "We will drive the swine out this time too, but it will not be thou but I who shall kiss the big boar."

"Good!" said the prince.

And now the time came for the swine to be driven away, and the princess came out on the balcony to drink tea. They took the swine out of the sty, and the pair of them drove the beasts before them. When they reached the gate the leading pig stuck fast in the gateway, and wouldn't budge an inch. The princess and the serpents grinned and looked on, but Ivan Golik flicked his heroic whip, and struck the pig one blow that made it fly to pieces. Then all the serpents wriggled off as fast as they could. But she, the accursed one, was in no way frightened, but caught Ivan by the hair of his head. He, however, caught her also by her long locks, and flicked her with his whip till he had flicked all the serpent-blood out of her, and she walked the earth in human guise. So she cast off her serpent nature, and lived happily with her husband. And that's the end of the _kazka_.