IVAN GOLIK AND THE SERPENTS, 273

The serpent laughed. “Very good!” said he,
“but now let us go to dinner, for my guests are
ye and we have been waiting for thee this long
time.”

So they went. The DEnee arrived at the house,
where eleven serpents were sitting down to dinner.
He saluted them, and then went on to the daughters,
and said, as he drew off the ring, “To which of you
does this belong ?”

Then the youngest daughter blushed and said :
i To me!”

“Tf it be thine, take it, for I sounded all the depths
of the sea in searching for it.”

All the others laughed, but the youngest daughter
thanked him. |

Then they all went to dine. After dinner the
serpent said to him, in the presence of all the guests:
“ Well, prince, now that thou hast dined and rested,
to thy tasks again! I have a bow of one hundred
poods? in weight. If thou canst bend this bow in
the presence of these my guests, thou shalt have m y
daughter !”

When. dinner was over they all lay down to rest,
but the prince hastened off as quickly as he could to
Ivan Golik, and said : “‘ Now indeed it is all over with
us, for he has given me such and such a task.”

1 A pood = forty pounds.