a strange
noise at his feet, and when he looked down to see what it could be, he saw
a stone-cutter driving tools into his surface. Even while he looked a
trembling feeling ran all through him, and a great block broke off and fell
upon the ground. Then he cried in his wrath: "Is a mere child of earth
mightier than a rock? Oh, if I were only a man!"

And the mountain spirit answered: "Your wish is heard. A man once more you
shall be!"

And a man he was, and in the sweat of his brow he toiled again at his trade
of stone-cutting. His bed was hard and his food scanty, but he had learned
to be satisfied with it, and did not long to be something or somebody else.
And as he never asked for things he had not got, or desired to be greater
and mightier than other people, he was happy at last, and heard the voice
of the mountain spirit no longer.

PRINCE KINDHEARTED

Once upon a time there lived a king who had but one son, and he was called
the Kindhearted. When the prince was twenty years old, he asked the king,
his father, to let him go traveling. His father fitted him out for the
journey, gave him a true servant to guard him, and his fatherly blessing.
The prince took leave of his father, mounted a brave steed and went to
different countries, to see God's world, to learn many things, and to
return home a wiser and a better man.

Once when the prince was slowly riding through a silent field, he suddenly
perceived an eagle in pursuit of a swan. The white swan was almost caught
by the eagle's sharp claws, when the prince, carefully aiming, fired his
pistol. The eagle fell dead, and the happy swan came down and said: "Prince
Kindhearted, I thank you for your help. It is not a swan that is thanking
you, but the enchanted daughter of the Knight Invisible. You have not
saved me from an eagle's claws, but from the terrible magician King
Koshchey. My father will pay you well for your services. Remember whenever
you are in need, to say three times: 'Knight Invisible, come to my help!'"
The swan flew away as soon as it had finished speaking, and the prince
looked after it, then continued his journey.

He crossed many high mountains, traversed deep rivers, passed foreign
countries, and at last he came to a great desert, where there was nothing
to see but sky and sand. No man lived there, no animal's voice was ever
heard, no vegetable ever grew there; the sun was shining so brightly and
burning so terribly that all the rivers