Note 1 — The Tsarevna Loveliness-Inexhaustible.

There was once upon a time an old man and an old woman, and they had two orphan grandchildren so lovely, gentle, and good, that the old man and the old woman could not love them enough. The old man once took it into his head to go out into the fields with his grandchildren to look at the peas, and they saw that their peas were growing splendidly. The old man rejoiced at the sight with his grandchildren, and said: “Well, now, you won’t find peas like that in the whole world! By and by we’ll make kisel1 out of it, and bake us some pea-cakes.” And next morning the grandfather sent the eldest grandchild, and said: “Go and drive away the sparrows from the peas!” The grandchild sat down beside the peas, shook a dry branch, and kept on saying, “Whish! whish! sparrows, ye have pecked at grandfather’s peas till you’re quite full!” And all at once she heard a rumbling and a roaring in the wood, and Verlioka came, huge of stature, with one eye, a hooked nose, ragged stubbly hair, moustaches half an ell long, swine’s bristles on his head, hobbling on one leg, in a wooden boot, leaning on a crutch, grinding all his teeth, and smiling. He went up to the pretty little grandchild, seized her and dragged her away with him behind the lake. The grandfather waited and waited, but there was no grandchild, and he sent his young grandson after her. Verlioka walked off with him also. The grandfather waited and waited, and said to his wife: “How very late our grandchildren are! I suppose they are running about there and idling their time away, or catching starlings with some lads or other, and meanwhile the sparrows are looting our peas! Go along, old woman, and teach them sense!” The old woman rose from the stove, took her stick from the corner, gave the pasties another turn, went away—and never came back. As soon as Verlioka saw her in the field, he cried: “What dost thou want here, old hag? Hast thou come hither to shell peas? Then I’ll make thee stand here among the peas for ever and ever!” Then he set to work belabouring her with his crutch, till little by little her very soul oozed out of her, and she lay upon the field more dead than alive.