s heaven. There he finds a
hand-mill and a cock with a golden comb, both of which he carries off.
The mill grinds pies and pancakes, and the old man and his wife live
in plenty. But after a time a Barin or Seigneur steals the mill. The
old people are in despair, but the golden-combed cock flies after the
mill, perches on the Barin's gates, and cries--

"Kukureku! Boyarin, Boyarin! Give us back our golden, sky-blue mill!"

The cock is flung into the well, but it drinks all the water, flies
up to the Barin's house, and there reiterates its demand. Then it is
thrown into the fire, but it extinguishes the flames, flies right into
the Barin's guest-chamber, and crows as before. The guests disperse,
the Barin runs after them, and the golden-combed cock seizes the mill
and flies away with it.[389]

In a variant from the Smolensk Government, it is the wife who climbs
up the pea-stalk, while the husband remains down below. When she
reaches the top, she finds an _izbushka_ or cottage there, its walls
made of pies, its tables of cheese, its stove of pancakes, and so
forth. After she has feasted and gone to sleep in a corner, in come
three goats, of which the first has two eyes and two ears, the second
has three of each of these organs, and the third has four. The old
woman sends to sleep the ears and the eyes of the first and the second
goat; but when the third watches it retains the use of its fourth eye
and fourth ear, in spite of the incantations uttered by the intruder,
and so finds her out. On being questioned, she explains that she has
come "from the earthly realm into the heavenly," and promises not to
repeat her visit if she is dismissed in peace. So the goats let her
go, and give her a bag of nuts, apples, and other good things to take
with her. She slides down the pea-stalk and tells her husband all that
has happened. He persuades her to undertake a second ascent together
with him, so off they set in company, their young granddaughter
climbing after them. Suddenly the pea-stalk breaks, they fall headlong
and are never heard of again. "Since that time," says the story, "no
one has ever set foot in that heavenly izbushka--so no one knows
anything more about it."[390]

Clearer and fuller than these vague and fragmentary sketches of a
"heavenly realm," are the pictures contained in the Russian folk-tales
of the underground world. But it is very doubtful how far the stories
in which they figure represent ancient Slavonic