Bába Yagá sat down to supper, and Vasilísa sat silently in front of her. “Why do you not speak; why do you stay there as if you were dumb?” Bába Yagá asked.
“I did not venture to say anything; but if I might, I should like to ask some questions.”
“Ask, but not every question turns out well: too knowing is too old.”
“Still, I should like to ask you of some things I saw. On my way to you I met a white horseman, in a white cloak, on a white horse: who was he?”
“The bright day.”
“Then a red horseman, on a red horse, in a red cloak, overtook me: who was he?”
“The red sun.”
“What is the meaning of the black horseman who overtook me as I reached your door, grandmother?”
“That was the dark night. Those are my faithful servants.”
Vasilísa then thought of the three pairs of hands and said nothing.
“Why don’t you ask any further?” Bába Yagá asked.
“I know enough, for you say yourself ‘too knowing is too old.’ ”
“It is well you asked only about things you saw in the courtyard, and not about things without it, for I do not like people to tell tales out of school, and I eat up everybody who is too curious. But now I shall ask you, how did you manage to do all the work I gave you?”
“By my mother’s blessing!”
“Ah, then, get off with you as fast as you can, blessed daughter; no one blessed may stay with me!”
So she turned Vasilísa out of the room and kicked her to the door, took a skull with the burning eyes from the fence, put it on a staff, gave it her and said, “Now you have fire for your stepmother’s daughters, for that was why they sent you here.”
Then Vasilísa ran home as fast as she could by the light of the skull; and the flash in it went out with the dawn.
By the evening of the next day she reached the house, and was going to throw the skull away, when she heard a hollow voice coming out of the skull and saying: “Do not throw me away. Bring me up to your stepmother’s house.” And she looked at her stepmother’s house and saw that there was no light in any window, and decided to enter with the skull. She was friendlily received, and the sisters told her that ever since she had gone away they had had no fire; they were able to make none; and all they borrowed of their neighbours went out as soon as it came into the room.
“Possibly your fire may burn!” said the stepmother.
So they took the skull into the room, and the burning eyes looked into the stepmother’s and the daughters’ and singed their eyes out. Wherever they went, they could not escape it, for the eyes followed them everywhere, and in the morning they were all burned to cinders. Vasilísa alone was left alive.
Then Vasilísa buried the skull in the earth, locked the house up, and went into the town. And she asked a poor old woman to take her home and to give her food until her father came back; she said to the old woman, “Mother, sitting here idle makes me feel dull. Go and buy me some of the very best flax; I should like to spin.”
So the old woman went and bought good flax. Vasilísa set herself to work, and the work went merrily along, and the skein was as smooth and as fine as hair, and when she had a great deal of yarn, no one would undertake the weaving, so she turned to her doll, who said: “Bring me some old comb from somewhere, some old spindle, some old shuttle, and some horse mane; and I will do it for you.”
Vasilísa went to bed, and the doll in that night made a splendid spinning stool; and by the end of the winter all the linen had been woven, and it was so fine that it could be drawn like a thread through the eye of a needle. And in the spring they bleached the linen, and Vasilísa said to the old mistress: “Go and sell the cloth, and keep the money for yourself.”
The old woman saw the cloth and admired it, and said: “Oh, my child! nobody except the Tsar could ever wear such fine linen; I will take it to Court.”
The old woman went to the Tsar’s palace, and kept walking up and down in front of it.
The Tsar saw her and said: “Oh, woman, what do you want?”
“Almighty Tsar, I am bringing you some wonderful goods, which I will show to nobody except you.”
The Tsar ordered the old woman to be given audience, and as soon as ever he had seen the linen he admired it very much. “What do you want for it?” he asked her.
“It is priceless, Bátyushka,” she said; “I will give it you as a present.”
And the Tsar thought it over and sent her away with rich rewards.
Now the Tsar wanted to have shirts made out of this same linen, but he could not find any seamstress to undertake the work. And he thought for long, and at last he sent for the old woman again, and said: “If you can spin this linen and weave it, perhaps you can make a shirt out of it?”
“I cannot weave and spin the linen,” said the old woman; “only a maiden can who is staying with me.”
“Well, she may do the work.”
So the woman went home and told Vasilísa everything.
“I knew that I should have to do the work!” said Vasilísa. And she locked herself up in her little room, set to work, and never put her hands again on her lap until she had sewn a dozen shirts.
The old woman brought the Tsar the shirts, and Vasilísa washed and combed herself, dressed herself, and sat down at the window, and waited. Then there came a henchman of
