down, and devoured the whole of
her, clothes and skin, and hair and all, so that nothing remained but
her tongue and heart, which were too poisonous for even the wild beasts
to touch. Neither her husband nor her servants lamented the misfortune,
for every one was delighted to be rid of such an infernal woman.

The prince wandered about the world for some years, trying his hand
first at one trade and then at another, but he never stayed long in one
place, for the recollections of his childhood, which hovered about him
like vivid dreams, always warned him that he was born to a higher
condition. From time to time he encountered the old man again, who had
read this in his eyes while he was still a herd-boy. When the prince was
eighteen years old, he engaged himself to a gardener to learn gardening.
Just at this time an event happened which changed the course of his
life. The wicked old woman who had taken him away by the queen's
orders, and had given him into the charge of the people at the
forest-farm, confessed her crime to the priest on her death-bed, for her
soul was burdened with the weight of her sins, and could not find rest
till she had revealed it. She indicated the farmhouse to which she had
brought the child, but could not tell whether the prince was now living
or dead. The priest hastened to the king with the joyful tidings that a
trace of his lost son was found at last. The king informed no one of
what he had heard, but immediately ordered his horse to be saddled, and
set out on his way with three faithful attendants. In a few days they
reached the farm in the wood. Both the farmer and his wife confirmed the
fact that at such and such a time a male child had been given into their
charge to rear, and that they had received one hundred roubles at the
same time for their expenses. They had concluded from this circumstance
that the child was probably of high birth, but they had never supposed
that he was of royal descent, and had thought that the boy was only
jesting when he had called himself a prince. Then the farmer himself
attended the king to the village where he had taken the youth as
herd-boy, not, indeed, by his own wish, but at the request of the boy,
who could not live longer in that lonely place. But how shocked was the
farmer, and still more the king, when they did not find the boy, who
must now be grown to a young man, in the village, and could learn no
further tidings of him! All that the people could