ed up
the whole forty. By midnight his task was done, and then he laid him
down to sleep. But the prince had gone to sleep long before in the
pig-sty.

Early in the morning they rose up again, and Ivan Golik said to him,
"Up till to-day thou hast been a swineherd, and after to-day thou
shalt be a prince again; but first let us drive the swine into the
field."

"Nay, but," said the prince, "the princess has not yet come out upon
the balcony to drink tea with the serpents, and see me kiss the pig
before it goes out, as is her wont." Ivan Golik said to him, "We will
drive the swine out this time too, but it will not be thou but I who
shall kiss the big boar."

"Good!" said the prince.

And now the time came for the swine to be driven away, and the
princess came out on the balcony to drink tea. They took the swine out
of the sty, and the pair of them drove the beasts before them. When
they reached the gate the leading pig stuck fast in the gateway, and
wouldn't budge an inch. The princess and the serpents grinned and
looked on, but Ivan Golik flicked his heroic whip, and struck the pig
one blow that made it fly to pieces. Then all the serpents wriggled
off as fast as they could. But she, the accursed one, was in no way
frightened, but caught Ivan by the hair of his head. He, however,
caught her also by her long locks, and flicked her with his whip till
he had flicked all the serpent-blood out of her, and she walked the
earth in human guise. So she cast off her serpent nature, and lived
happily with her husband. And that's the end of the _kazka_.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Note:

Illustrations have been moved closer to their relevant paragraphs.

The page numbers in the List of Illustrations do not reflect the new
placement of the illustrations, but are as in the original.

Author's archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is
preserved.

Author's punctuation style is preserved.

Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.

Typographical problems have been changed and are listed below.

Transcriber's Changes:

=Equals signs= are used to highlight changes made in the following
passages.

Page 18: Was '"Oh!".' (in the self-same forest, sat him down, and
said, ="Oh!"= Oh immediately came out of the charred
stump)

Page 64: Added closing double-quote (handkerchief thou findest
there,