282 COSSACK FAIRY TALES.

and caressing him, and began asking him all about
the time when they were first married, and how he
had been able to do her father’s commands. And
the prince said to her: “My head would long ago
have been mouldering on the posts of thy father’s
palace had it not been for Ivan Golik. “Twas he who
did it all and not I.”

Then she was very wroth. But she never changed
countenance, and shortly afterwards she went out.

Ivan Golik was sitting in his own house at his ease,
when the princess came flying in to him. And imme-
diately she drew out of the ground a handkerchief
with gold borders, and no sooner had she waved this
serpentine handkerchief, than Ivan fell asunder into
two pieces. His lees remained where they were, but
his trunk with his head disappeared through the roof,
and fell seven miles away from the house. And as
he fell he cried: “Oh, accursed one! did I not charge
thee not to confess! Did I not implore thee not to
tell thy wife the truth for seven years! And now I
perish and thou also!”

He raised his head and found himself sitting in a
wood, and there he saw an armless man pursuing a
hare. He pursued and pursued it, but though he
caught it up, he couldn’t catch it, for he had no arms.
Then Ivan Golik caught it and they fell out about it.
The armless one said: “The hare is mine !’—‘‘ No,”