naged
to gnaw his way through the wood, and then flew after them again. Then
cried the little Tsar, "Alas! bullock, it begins to burn again. Thou
wilt perish, and we shall perish also!"--Then said the bullock, "Look
into my right ear, and pull out the brush thou dost find there, and
fling it behind thee!"--So he threw it behind him, and it became a
forest as thick as a brush. Then the serpent came up to the forest and
began to gnaw at it; and at last he gnawed his way right through it.
But the bullock went on at his old pace: every little while they went
a little mile, and they jolted so that they nearly tumbled off. But
when the serpent had gnawed his way through the forest, he again
pursued them; and again they felt a burning. And the little Tsar said,
"Alas! bullock, look! look! how it burns. Look! look! how we perish."
Now the bullock was already nearing the sea. "Look into my right ear,"
said the bullock, "draw out the little handkerchief thou findest
there, and throw it in front of me." He drew it out and flung it, and
before them stood a bridge. Over this bridge they galloped, and by the
time they had done so, the serpent reached the sea. Then said the
bullock to the little Tsar, "Take up the handkerchief again and wave
it behind me." Then he took and waved it till the bridge doubled up
behind them, and went and spread out again right in front of them.
The serpent came up to the edge of the sea; but there he had to stop,
for he had nothing to run upon.

So they crossed over that sea right to the other side, and the serpent
remained on his own side. Then the bullock said to them, "I'll lead
you to a hut close to the sea, and in that hut you must live, and you
must take and slay me." But they fell a-weeping sore. "How shall we
slay thee!" they cried; "thou art our own little dad, and hast saved
us from death!"--"Nay!" said the bullock; "but you must slay me, and
one quarter of me you must hang up on the stove, and the second
quarter you must place on the ground in a corner, and the third
quarter you must put in the corner at the entrance of the hut, and the
fourth quarter you must put round the threshold, so that there will be
a quarter in all four corners." So they took and slew him in front of
the threshold, and they hung his four quarters in the four corners as
he had bidden them, and then they laid them down to sleep. Now the
Tsarevko awoke at midnight, and saw in the right-hand corner a horse
so gorgeously ca