64 COSSACK FAIRY TALES.

serpent; “perhaps when he goes for it his beasts
will leave him in the lurch!” Then he changed
himself into a needle, and she stuck him still
higher in the wall, so that the dogs could not
get at him. The Tsar again dismounted from his
horse, and his dogs rushed up to the hut and began
snuffing at the needle. But his sister fell a-Weeping,
and said: “Why dost thou keep such monstrous
dogs?” He shouted to them, and they sat down
quietly on their haunches. Then his sister said
again: “I am ailing, my brother; go and get me
fox’s milk, and I shall be well.”— I'll fetch it for
thee,” said her brother.

But first he lay down to sleep. Nedviga lay at
his head, Protius at his feet, and Vovchok, Medvedik,
and the leveret by his side. The little Tsar slept
through the night, and at dawn he arose, mounted
‘his horse, took his pack with him, and went off.
They came to a little thicket, and a vixen popped
out. Protius ran her down, Nedviga held her
fast, and the little Tsar milked her and let her go.
Then said the vixen to him: “Thanks to thee,
little Tsar Novishny, that thou hast let me go.
Methought thou wouldst tear me in pieces with
thy dogs. For thy kindness Ill give thee a little
fox.” But to the little fox she said: “ Obey him
as though he were thine own father.” So he went