thought a lot
of the two smart young men; but the Fool of the World was lucky if he
got enough to eat, because they always forgot him unless they happened
to be looking at him, and sometimes even then.

But however it was with his father and mother, this is a story that
shows that God loves simple folk, and turns things to their advantage
in the end.

For it happened that the Tzar of that country sent out messengers
along the highroads and the rivers, even to huts in the forest like
ours, to say that he would give his daughter, the Princess, in
marriage to any one who could bring him a flying ship--ay, a ship with
wings, that should sail this way and that through the blue sky, like a
ship sailing on the sea.

"This is a chance for us," said the two clever brothers; and that
same day they set off together, to see if one of them could not build
the flying ship and marry the Tzar's daughter, and so be a great man
indeed.

And their father blessed them, and gave them finer clothes than ever
he wore himself. And their mother made them up hampers of food for the
road, soft white rolls, and several kinds of cooked meats, and bottles
of corn brandy. She went with them as far as the highroad, and waved
her hand to them till they were out of sight. And so the two clever
brothers set merrily off on their adventure, to see what could be done
with their cleverness. And what happened to them I do not know, for
they were never heard of again.

The Fool of the World saw them set off, with their fine parcels of
food, and their fine clothes, and their bottles of corn brandy.

"I'd like to go too," says he, "and eat good meat, with soft white
rolls, and drink corn brandy, and marry the Tzar's daughter."

"Stupid fellow," says his mother, "what's the good of your going? Why,
if you were to stir from the house you would walk into the arms of a
bear; and if not that, then the wolves would eat you before you had
finished staring at them."

But the Fool of the World would not be held back by words.

"I am going," says he. "I am going. I am going. I am going."

He went on saying this over and over again, till the old woman his
mother saw there was nothing to be done, and was glad to get him out
of the house so as to be quit of the sound of his voice. So she put
some food in a bag for him to eat by the way. She put in the bag some
crusts of dry black bread and a flask of water. She did not even
bother to go as far as the footpath t