nt
on and on till he came to a place where lay a feather of the bird
Zhar. "Look!" cried he, "what I've found!"--But the foal said to
him, "Pick not up that feather, for it will bring thee evil as well
as good!"--But his master said, "Why, I should be a fool not to pick
up a feather like that!" So he turned back and picked up the
feather. Then he went on farther and farther, until he came to a
clay hut. He went into this clay hut, and there sat an old woman.
"Give me a night's lodging, granny!" said he.--"I have neither bed
nor light to offer thee," said she. Nevertheless he entered the hut
and put the feather on the window-corner, and it lit up the whole
hut. So he went to sleep. But the old woman ran off to the Tsar, and
said to him, "A certain man has come to me and laid a certain
feather on the window-sill, and it shines like fire!" Then the
Tsar guessed that it was a feather of the bird Zhar, and said to his
soldiers, "Go and fetch that man hither!" And the Tsar said to him,
"Wilt thou enter my service?"--"Yes," he replied, "but you must give
me all your keys." So the Tsar gave him all the keys and a hut of his
own to live in besides. But one day the Tsar said to his servants,
"Boil me now a vat of milk!" So they boiled it. Then he took off his
gold ring, and said to the man, "Thou didst get the feather of the
bird Zhar, get me also this golden ring of mine out of the vat of
boiling milk!"--"Bring hither, then, my faithful horse," said he,
"that he may see his master plunge into the vat of boiling milk and
die!" So they brought his horse, and, taking off his clothes, he
plunged into the vat, but as he did so the horse snorted so
violently that all the boiling milk leaped up in the air and the
man seized the ring and gave it back to the Tsar. Now when the Tsar
saw that the man had come out of the vat younger and handsomer than
ever, he said, "I'll try and fish up the ring in like manner." So he
flung his ring into the vat of boiling milk and plunged after it
to get it. The people waited and waited and wondered and wondered
that he was so long about it, and at last they drained off the
milk and found the Tsar at the bottom of the vat boiled quite red.
Then the man said, "Now, Tsaritsa, thou art mine and I am thine." And
they lived together happily ever afterward.

THE STORY OF THE UNLUCKY DAYS

At the end of a village on the verge of the steppe dwelt two brothers,
one rich and the other poor. One day the p