THE SERPENT-TSAREVICH AND HIS TWO
WIVES.

  

Oye WERE was once a Tsaritsa who had
S no child, and greatly desired one,
so the soothsayers said to her:
“Bid them catch thee a pike, bid
them boil its head and nothing
but its head, eat it, and thou shalt
see what will happen.’ So she did so. She ate the
pike’s head and went about as usual for a whole year,
and when the year was out she gave birth to a son
who was a serpent.

And no sooner was he born than he looked about
him, and said: “Mammy and daddy! Bid them
make me a stone hut, and let there be a little bed
there, and a little stove and a fire to warm me, and
let me be married in a fortnight!”—So they did as
he desired. ‘They shut him up in a stone hut, with
a little bed and a little stove and fire to warm him,
and in a fortnight he erew quite big, indeed he grew