12 SLAV TALES

“Well,” replied the Water-King, ‘as you love your
wife so tenderly I will forgive you for coming here, but
I cannot help you to find her, for I do not know where
she is. Yet I remember seeing two ducks on the lake
yesterday, perchance she is one of them. But I should
advise you to ask my brother the Fire-King; he may be
able to tell you more.”

Happy to have escaped so easily, he thanked the Water-
King and set out to find the Fire-King. But the latter
was unable to help him, and could only advise him to
consult his other brother, the Air-King. But the Air-King,
though he had travelled all over the earth, could only say
he thought he had seen a woman at the foot of the Crystal
Mountain.

But the traveller was cheered at the news, and went to
seek his wife at the foot of the Crystal Mountain, which was
close to their cottage. On reaching it he began at once to
climb the mountain by making his way up the bed of the
torrent that came rushing down there. Several ducks that
were in the pools near the waterfall called out, ‘‘My good
man, don’t go up there; you'll be killed.”

But he walked fearlessly on till he came to some thatched
cottages, at the largest of which he stopped. Here a crowd
of wizards and witches surrounded him, screaming at the
top of their voices, “‘ What are you looking for?”

“‘ My wife,” said he.

“She is here,” they cried, “but you cannot take her away
unless you recognise her among two hundred women all
exactly like her.”

“What! Not know my own wife? Why, here she is,”