AGIC EGG

There was once upon a time a lark who was the Tsar among the birds,
and he took unto himself as his Tsaritsa a little shrew-mouse. They
had a field all to themselves, which they sowed with wheat, and when
the wheat grew up they divided it between them, when they found that
there was one grain over! The mouse said, "Let me have it!" But the
lark said, "No, let me have it!"--"What's to be done?" thought they.
They would have liked to take counsel of some one, but they had no
parents or kinsmen, nobody at all to whom they could go and ask advice
in the matter. At last the mouse said, "At any rate, let me have the
first nibble!" The lark Tsar agreed to this; but the little mouse
fastened her teeth in it and ran off into her hole with it, and there
ate it all up. At this the Tsar lark was wrath, and collected all the
birds of the air to make war upon the mouse Tsaritsa; but the Tsaritsa
called together all the beasts to defend her, and so the war began.
Whenever the beasts came rushing out of the wood to tear the birds to
pieces, the birds flew up into the trees; but the birds kept in the
air, and hacked and pecked the beasts wherever they could. Thus they
fought the whole day, and in the evening they lay down to rest. Now
when the Tsaritsa looked around upon her forces, she saw that the ant
was taking no part in the war. She immediately went and commanded the
ant to be there by evening, and when the ant came, the Tsaritsa
ordered her to climb up the trees with her kinsmen and bite off the
feathers round the birds' wings.

Next day, when there was light enough to see by, the mouse Tsaritsa
cried, "Up, up, my warriors!" Thereupon the birds also rose up, and
immediately fell to the ground, where the beasts tore them to bits. So
the Tsaritsa overcame the Tsar. But there was one eagle who saw there
was something wrong, so he did not try to fly, but remained sitting on
the tree. And lo! there came an archer along that way, and seeing the
eagle on the tree, he took aim at it; but the eagle besought him and
said, "Do not kill me, and I'll be of great service to thee!" The
archer aimed a second time, but the eagle besought him still more and
said, "Take me down rather and keep me, and thou shalt see that it
will be to thy advantage." The archer, however, took aim a third time,
but the eagle began to beg of him most piteously, "Nay, kill me not,
but take me home with thee, and thou shalt see what great advantage it
will