eaks the egg. Koshchei falls on the
floor and dies.

This heart-breaking episode occurs in the folk-tales of many
lands.[125] It may not be amiss to trace it through some of its forms.
In a Norse story[126] a Giant's heart lies in an egg, inside a duck,
which swims in a well, in a church, on an island. With this may be
compared another Norse tale,[127] in which a _Haugebasse_, or Troll,
who has carried off a princess, informs her that he and all his
companions will burst asunder when above them passes "the grain of
sand that lies under the ninth tongue in the ninth head" of a certain
dead dragon. The grain of sand is found and brought, and the result is
that the whole of the monstrous brood of Trolls or _Haugebasser_ is
instantaneously destroyed. In a Transylvanian-Saxon story[128] a
Witch's "life" is a light which burns in an egg, inside a duck, which
swims on a pond, inside a mountain, and she dies when it is put out.
In the Bohemian story of "The Sun-horse"[129] a Warlock's "strength"
lies in an egg, which is within a duck, which is within a stag, which
is under a tree. A Seer finds the egg and sucks it. Then the Warlock
becomes as weak as a child, "for all his strength had passed into the
Seer." In the Gaelic story of "The Sea-Maiden,"[130] the "great beast
with three heads" which haunts the loch cannot be killed until an egg
is broken, which is in the mouth of a trout, which springs out of a
crow, which flies out of a hind, which lives on an island in the
middle of the loch. In a Modern Greek tale the life of a dragon or
other baleful being comes to an end simultaneously with the lives of
three pigeons which are shut up in an all but inaccessible
chamber,[131] or inclosed within a wild boar.[132] Closely connected
with the Greek tale is the Servian story of the dragon[133] whose
"strength" (_snaga_) lies in a sparrow, which is inside a dove, inside
a hare, inside a boar, inside a dragon (_ajdaya_) which is in a lake,
near a royal city. The hero of the story fights the dragon of the
lake, and after a long struggle, being invigorated at the critical
moment by a kiss which the heroine imprints on his forehead--he flings
it high in the air. When it falls to the ground it breaks in pieces,
and out comes the boar. Eventually the hero seizes the sparrow and
wrings its neck, but not before he has obtained from it the charm
necessary for the recovery of his missing brothers and a number of
other victims of the dragon's cru