one has been found to do it yet."

"Well, mother, go and tell the King that you will make one.
I'll manage it for you," said Prince Ivan.

So the old woman immediately dressed herself, and hastened
to the King, and said:

"Please, your Majesty, I will make the wedding ring."

"Make it, then, make it, mother! Such people as you are
welcome," said the king. "But if you don't make it, off goes
your head!"

The old woman was dreadfully frightened; she ran home,
and told Prince Ivan to set to work at the ring. But Ivan lay
down to sleep, troubling himself very little about it. The ring
was there all the time. So he only laughed at the old woman,
but she was trembling all over, and crying, and scolding him.

"As for you," she said, "you're out of the scrape; but you've
done for me, fool that I was!"

The old woman cried and cried until she fell asleep. Early in
the morning Prince Ivan got up and awakened her, saying:

"Get up, mother, and go out! take them the ring, and mind,
don't accept more than one ducat for it. If anyone asks who
made the ring, say you made it yourself; don't say a word about
me."

The old woman was overjoyed and carried off the ring. The
bride was delighted with it.

"Just what I wanted," she said. So they gave the old woman
a dish full of gold, but she took only one ducat.

"Why do you take so little?" said the king.

"What good would a lot do me, your Majesty? if I want some
more afterwards, you'll give it me."

Having said this the old woman went away.

Time passed, and the news spread abroad that the bride had
told her lover to fetch her her wedding-dress or else to get one
made, just such a one as she wanted. Well, the old woman,
thanks to Prince Ivan's aid, succeeded in this matter too, and
took her the wedding-dress. And afterwards she took her the
seamless shoes also, and would only accept one ducat each time
and always said that she had made the things herself.

Well, the people heard that there would be a wedding at the
palace on such-and-such a day. And the day they all anxiously
awaited came at last. Then Prince Ivan said to the old woman:

"Look here, mother! when the bride is just going to be
married, let me know."

The old woman didn't let the time go by unheeded.

Then Ivan immediately put on his princely raiment, and went
out of the house.

"See, mother, this is what I'm