n the thicker
boughs; so there he sat, hugging the millstone in his arms. Presently
some robbers came along that way, red-handed from their work, and they
too prepared to pass the night under the tree. So they cut them down
firewood, and made them a roaring fire beneath a huge cauldron, and in
this cauldron they began to boil their supper. They boiled and boiled
till their mess of pottage was ready, and then they all sat down round
the cauldron and took out their large ladles, and were just about to
fall to--in fact they were blowing their food because it was so
boiling hot--when Ivan let his big millstone plump down into the
middle of the cauldron, so that the pottage flew right into their
eyes. The robbers were so terrified that they all sprang to their feet
straightway and scampered off through the forest, forgetting all the
booty of which they had robbed the merchantmen. Then Ivan came down
from the oak and cried to his brothers, "You come down here and divide
the spoil!" So the wise brothers came down, put all the merchandise on
the backs of the robbers' horses, and went home with it; but the only
thing that Ivan was able to secure for himself was a bag of incense.
This he immediately took to the nearest churchyard, placed it on the
top of a tomb, and began to pound away at it with his millstone.
Suddenly St Peter appeared to him and said, "What art thou doing, good
man?"--"I am pounding up this incense to make bread of it."--"Nay,
good man, I will advise thee better: give me the incense and take from
me whatever thou wilt."--"Very well, St Peter," said the fool; "thou
must give me a little fife, but a fife of such a sort that whenever I
play upon it, every one will be obliged to dance."--"But dost thou
know how to play upon a fife?"--"No, but I can soon learn." Then St
Peter drew forth a little fife from his bosom and gave it to him, and
took away the incense, and who can say where he went with it? But Ivan
stood up and gazed at the sky and said, "Look now! if St Peter hath
not already burnt my incense and made of it that large white cloud
that is sailing above my head!" Then he took up his fife and began to
play, and the moment he began to play, everything around him began to
dance; the wolves, and the hares, and the foxes, and the bears, nay,
the very birds lit down upon the ground and began to dance, and Ivan
went on laughing and playing all the time. Even the savage, surly
bears danced and danced till their leg