THE SERPENT-TSAREVICH AND HIS WIVES. 197

—Then the bride said: “Nay, but, granny dear, I have
already lodged with the like of thee. I have lodged
with the Mother of the Winds, and the Mother of the
Moon, and they each gave me a little apple.” Then
the Mother of the Sun also let her in. Immediately
afterwards her son, the Sun, came flying up, and he
said: “Why, what is this, little mother? I smell
an evil smell of Cossack bones!’”—But his mother
answered : “ A young woman came hither who begged
for a night’s lodging.” ‘She did not tell -her son the
whole truth, that the bride was in search of her
husband, but he knew it already, and said: “ Her
husband is about to marry another wife. Let her go
to the land where now he is, and give her the diamond
apple, which is the best and most precoius apple in
the whole world, and tell her to hasten on to the
house where her husband abides. They won’t let her
in there, but she must diseuise herself as an old
woman, and sit down outside in the courtyard, and
spread out a cloth and lay upon it her little silver
apple, and all the people will come flocking around to
see the old woman who is selling apples of silver.”
So the bride did as the Sun bade her, and went to
that distant empire, and the Empress of that empire,
whom her husband had married, came to see what
she was selling, and said to her: “ What dost thou
want for thy silver apple?” And she answered :