y
for me on my table in the morning."

Then Ivan went and leaned over the fence, and his heart within him was
sore troubled. Now near to him there was a post, and on this post was
the dragon's starveling daughter. So when he came thither and fell
a-weeping, she asked him, "Wherefore dost thou weep?"--And he said,
"How can I help weeping? The dragon has bidden me do something I can
never, never do; and what is more, she has bidden me do it in a single
night."--"What is it, pray?" asked the dragon's daughter. Then he told
her. "Not every bush bears a berry!" cried she. "Promise to take me to
wife, and I'll do all she has bidden thee do." He promised, and then
she said to him again, "Now go and lie down, but see that thou art up
early in the morning to bring her her roll." Then she went to the
field, and before one could whistle she had cleaned it of weeds and
harrowed it and sown it with wheat, and by dawn she had reaped the
wheat and cooked the roll and brought it to him, and said, "Now, take
it to her hut and put it on her table."

Then the old she-dragon awoke and came to the door, and was amazed at
the sight of the field, which was now all stubble, for the corn had
been cut. Then she said to Ivan, "Yes, thou hast done the work well.
But now, see that thou doest my second task." Then she gave him her
second command. "Dig up that mountain yonder and let the Dnieper flow
over the site of it, and there build a store-house, and in the
store-house stack the wheat that thou hast reaped, and sell this wheat
to the merchant barques that sail by, and everything must be done by
the time I get up early next morning!" Then he again went to the fence
and wept, and the maiden said to him, "Why dost thou weep?" and he
told her all that the she-dragon had bidden him do. "There are lots of
bushes, but where are the berries? Go and lie down, and I'll do it all
for thee." Then she whistled, and the mountain was levelled and the
Dnieper flowed over the site of it, and round about the Dnieper
store-houses rose up, and then she came and woke him that he might go
and sell the wheat to the merchant barques that sailed by that way,
and when the she-dragon rose up early in the morning she was amazed to
see that everything had been done which she had commanded him.

Then she gave him her third command. "This night thou must catch the
golden hare, and bring it to me by the morning light." Again he went
to the fence and fell a-weeping. And the