144 COSSACK FAIRY TALES.

“Oh, mammy!” she said, “my head ached so the
whole day, and the sun scorched so, that I couldn’t
go down to the stream to moisten the flax.” —“ Never
mind,” said her mother, “lie down and sleep; it will
do for another day.”

And the next day she called the old man’s daughter
again: “Get up, thou daughter of a dog, and take
the heifer out to graze. And here thou hast a bundle
of raw flax; unravel it, heckle it, wind it on to thy
spindles, bleach it, weave with it, and make it into
fine cloth for me by the evening!’”—Then the girl
drove out the heifer to graze. The heifer began
grazing, but she sat down beneath a willow-tree, and
threw her flax down beside her, and began weeping
with all her might. But the heifer came up to her
and said: “Tell me, little maiden, wherefore dost
thou weep ?”—“ Why should I not weep?” said she,
and she told the heifer all about it—‘ Grieve not!”
said the heifer, ‘it will all come right, but lie down
to sleep.’—So she lay down and immediately fell
asleep. And by evening the bundle of raw flax was
heckled and spun and reeled, and the cloth was
woven and bleached, so that one could have made
shirts of it straight off. Then she drove the heifer
home, and gave the cloth to her step-mother.

Then the old woman said to herself: “ How comes
it that this daughter of the son of a dog has done all