they
asked him, "Hast thou seen our son? Lo, these four years we have not
had news of him. He went off to the wars, and perchance he has been
slain there."--And he answered them, "I have seen him, and if you will
give me the magic egg, I will bring him before your eyes."--And the
eagle's father said to him, "What good will such a thing do thee? We
had better give thee the lucky penny!"--But he answered, "I don't want
the lucky penny, give me the magic egg!"--"Come hither then," said he,
"and thou shalt have it." So he went into the hut. Then the eagle's
father rejoiced and gave him the egg, and said to him, "Take heed
thou dost not break it anywhere on the road, and when thou gettest
home, hedge it round and build a strong fence about it, and it will do
thee good."

So he went homeward. He went on and on till a great thirst came upon
him. So he stopped at the first spring he came to, and as he stooped
to drink he stumbled and the magic egg was broken. Then he perceived
that an ox had come out of the egg and was rolling away. He gave chase
to the ox, but whenever he was getting close to one side of it, the
other side of it got farther away from him. Then the poor fellow
cried, "I shall do nothing with it myself, I see."--At that moment an
old she-dragon came up to him and said, "What wilt thou give me, O
man, if I chase this ox back again into the egg for thee?"--And the
archer replied, "What _can_ I give?"--The dragon said to him, "Give me
what thou hast at home without thy will and wit!"--"Done!" said the
archer. Then the dragon chased the ox nicely into the egg again,
patched it up prettily and gave it into the man's hand. Then the
archer went home, and when he got home he found a son had been born to
him there, and his son said to him, "Why didst thou give me to the old
she-dragon, dad? But never mind, I'll manage to live in spite of her."
Then the father was very grieved for a time, but what could he do? Now
the name of this son was Ivan.

So Ivan lost no time in going to the dragon, and the dragon said to
him, "Go to my house and do me three tasks, and if thou dost them not,
I'll devour thee." Now, round the dragon's house was a large meadow
as far as the eye could reach. And the dragon said to him, "Thou must
in a single night weed out this field and sow wheat in it, and reap
the wheat and store it, all in this very night; and thou must bake me
a roll out of this self-same wheat, and the roll must be lying read