e course of time the
King-Bear arrives to claim them, finds out their hiding-place, digs
them up, and carries them off on his back to a distant region where no
man lives. During his absence they attempt to escape being carried
through the air on the back of a friendly falcon, but the King-Bear
sees them, "strikes his head against the earth, and burns the falcon's
wings." The twins fall to the ground, and are carried by the King-Bear
to his home amid inaccessible mountains. There they make a second
attempt at escape, trusting this time to an eagle's aid; but it meets
with exactly the same fate as their first trial. At last they are
rescued by a bull-calf, which succeeds in baffling all the King-Bear's
efforts to recover them. At the end of their perilous journey the
bull-calf tells the young prince to cut its throat, and burn its
carcase. He unwillingly consents, and from its ashes spring a horse, a
dog, and an apple-tree, all of which play important parts in the next
act of the drama.[148]

In one of the variants of the Water King story,[149] the seizer of
the drinking kings' beard is not called the _Morskoi Tsar_ but _Chudo
Morskoe_, a Water Chudo, whose name recalls to mind the Chudo Yudo we
have already met with.[150] The Prince who is obliged, in consequence
of his father's promise, to surrender himself to the Water Giant,
falls in love with a maiden whom he finds in that potentate's palace,
and who is an enchantress whom the Chudo has stolen. She turns herself
into a ring, which he carries about with him, and eventually, after
his escape from the Chudo, she becomes his bride.

In another story,[151] the being who obtains a child from one of the
incautious fathers of the Jephthah type who abound in popular fiction,
is of a very singular nature. A merchant is flying across a river on
the back of an eagle, when he drops a magic "snuff-box," which had
been entrusted to his charge by that bird, and it disappears beneath
the waters. At the eagle's command, the crayfish search for it, and
bring back word that it is lying "on the knees of an Idol." The eagle
summons the Idol, and demands the snuff box. Thereupon the Idol says
to the merchant--"Give me what you do not know of at home?" The
merchant agrees and the Idol gives him back his snuff-box.

In some of the variants of the story, the influence of ideas
connected with Christianity makes itself apparent in the names given
to the actors. Thus in the "Moujik and Anasta