mbled into the very same spring where Siminok
had fallen, and there Busujok, too, ended his days. But at the same
time the morning star, the emperor's son Busujok, and the evening
star, the maid-servant's son Siminok, appeared in the sky.

Into the saddle then I sprung,
This tale to tell to old and young.

The Two Step-Sisters.

Once upon a time there was an old widower, who had one daughter; he
married again and took for his wife a widow, who also had a daughter.
The widow's daughter was ugly, lazy, obstinate and spiteful; yet as
she was her mother's own child, the latter was delighted with her and
pushed every thing upon her husband's daughter. But the old man's
child was beautiful, industrious, obedient and good. God had gifted
her with every virtuous and lovable quality, yet she was persecuted by
her spiteful sister, as well as by her step-mother; it was fortunate
that she possessed endurance and patience, or she would have fared
badly. Whenever there was any hard work to be done, it was put upon
the old man's daughter--she was obliged to get dry wood from the
forest, drag the heavy sacks of grain to the mill; in short, every
task always fell to her lot. The whole livelong day she had no rest,
but was kept continually going up stairs and down. Still the old woman
and her treasure of a daughter were constantly dissatisfied, and
always had something to find fault with. The step-daughter was a
heavy cross to the second wife, but her own daughter was like the
basil plant, which is placed before the images of the saints.

When the step-sisters went to the village in the evening to spin, the
old man's daughter did not allow herself to be interrupted in her
work, but finished a whole sieve full of spools, while the old woman's
daughter with difficulty completed a single one. When they came home
late at night, the old woman's daughter jumped nimbly over the fence
and asked to hold the sieve till the other had leaped over it too.
Meantime the spiteful girl hurried into the house to her parents, and
said she had spun all the spools. The step-sister vainly declared that
they were the work of her own hands; mother and daughter jeered at her
words, and of course gained their cause. When Sunday or Friday came
the old woman's daughter was brushed and bedizened as though the
calves had licked her. There was no dance, no feather-plucking in the
village to which the old woman's daughter did not go, but the
step-d