really with his sheep.
She found Yan asleep and, when she saw her kerchief bound about his
foot, she knew that he was the prince.

She woke him up and cried:

"You are he! You know you are!"

Yan looked at her and laughed and he asked:

"How can I be a prince?"

"But I know you are!" the princess said. "Oh, Yanitchko, dear
Yanitchko, I beg you please to tell me!"

So then Yan, because he always did anything the princess asked him when
she said: "Please," told her his true name and his rank.

The princess, overjoyed to hear that her dear shepherd was really a
prince, carried him off to her father, the king.

"This is the man I shall marry," she said, "this and none other."

So Yan and the merry little princess were married and lived very
happily. And the people of the country when they speak of the princess
always say:

"That's a princess for you! Why, even if she is a princess, she always
says 'Please' to her own husband!"

VITAZKO THE VICTORIOUS

THE STORY OF A HERO WHOSE MOTHER LOVED A DRAGON

[Illustration]

VITAZKO THE VICTORIOUS

There was once a mother who had an only son. "He shall be a hero," she
said, "and his name shall be Vitazko, the Victorious."

She suckled him for twice seven years and then, to try his strength, she
led him out to the forest and bade him pull up a fir-tree by the roots.

When the boy was not strong enough to do this, she took him home and
suckled him for another seven years. Then when she had suckled him for
thrice seven years, she led him out to the forest again and ordered him
to pull up a beech-tree by its roots.

The youth laid hold on the tree and with one mighty pull uprooted it.

"Now, my son, you are strong enough," the mother said. "Now you are
worthy of your name Vitazko. Forget not the mother who has suckled you
for thrice seven years but, now that you are grown, take care of her."

"I will, my mother," Vitazko promised. "Only tell me what you want me to
do."

"First," the mother said, "go out into the world and find me a splendid
dwelling where I may live in peace and plenty."

Taking in his hand the uprooted beech-tree as a club and armed only with
it, Vitazko set forth. He followed the wind here and there and the other
place and it led him at last to a fine castle.

This castle was inhabited by dragons. Vitazko pounded on the castle
gates but the dragons refused to admit him. Thereupon the young hero
battered down the gates, pursue