246 COSSACK FAIRY. TALES.

they! Be off after them again, and mind, this time
tear them to pieces without fail.”

So the dragon set off after them again, and they
heard him coming from afar, for the earth trembled
beneath him, so the damsel said to Ivan: “He’s
coming again, I hear him; now Ill change myself
into amonastery, so old that it will be almost falling to
pieces, and I’ll change thee into an old black monk at
the gate, and when he comes up and asks: ‘Hast thou
seen a lad and a lass pass this way?’ say to him: ‘Yes,
they passed by this way when this monastery was
being built.’” Soon afterwards the dragon came flying
past, and asked the monk: ‘Hast thou seen a lad
and a lass pass by this way ?”—“ Yes,” he replied,
“I saw them what time the holy fathers began to
build this monastery.” The dragon thought to him-
self: “That was not yesterday! This monastery has
stood a hundred years if it has stood a day, and won't
stand much longer either,” and with that he turned
him back. When he got home, he said to the she-
dragon, his wife: “I met a black monk who serves in
a monastery, and I asked him about them, and he
told me that a lad and a lass had run past that way
when the monastery was being built, but that was not
yesterday, for the monastery is a hundred years old
at the very least.’—‘* Why didst thou not tear the
black monk to pieces and pull down the monastery ?