and around that garden is coiled like
a ring a mighty serpent. Another tells how a flying Snake brought two
heroes to a lake, into which they flung a green bough, and immediately
the bough broke into flame and was consumed. Then it took them to
another lake, into which they cast a mouldy log. And the log
straightway began to put forth buds and blossoms.[306]

In some cases the magic waters are the property, not of a Snake, but
of one of the mighty heroines who so often occur in these stories, and
who bear so great a resemblance to Brynhild, as well in other respects
as in that of her enchanted sleep. Thus in one of the Skazkas[307] an
aged king dreams that "beyond thrice nine lands, in the thirtieth
country, there is a fair maiden from whose hands and feet water is
flowing, of which water he who drinks will become thirty years
younger." His sons go forth in search of this youth-giving liquid, and,
after many adventures, the youngest is directed to the golden castle in
which lives the "fair maiden," whom his father has seen in his vision.
He has been told that when she is awake her custom is to divert herself
in the green fields with her Amazon host--"for nine days she rambles
about, and then for nine days she sleeps a heroic slumber." The Prince
hides himself among the bushes near the castle, and sees a fair maiden
come out of it surrounded by an armed band, "and all the band consists
of maidens, each one more beautiful than the other. And the most
beautiful, the most never-enough-to-be-gazed-upon, is the Queen
herself." For nine days he watches the fair band of Amazons as they
ramble about. On the tenth day all is still, and he enters the castle.
In the midst of her slumbering guards sleeps the Queen on a couch of
down, the healing water flowing from her hands and feet. With it he
fills two flasks, and then he retires. When the Queen awakes, she
becomes conscious of the theft and pursues the Prince. Coming up with
him, she slays him with a single blow, but then takes compassion on
him, and restores him to life.

In another version of the story, the precious fluid is contained in a
flask which is hidden under the pillow of the slumbering "Tsar
Maiden." The Prince steals it and flees, but he bears on him the
weight of sin, and so, when he tries to clear the fence which girds
the enchanted castle, his horse strikes one of the cords attached to
it, and the spell is broken which maintains the magic sleep in which
the real