“Thank you,” said the Sea Tsar. “You have been able to fulfil me this service. Here is your second work. I have thirty hayricks, and each hayrick contains as much as thirty piles of white-eared barley. Thresh me all the barley clean, quite clean to the last grain, and do not destroy the hayricks nor beat down the sheaves. If you do not do this, your shoulders and your head will part company.”
“I will obey your Majesty,” said Iván Tsarévich, and again he went to the courtyard and was lost in tears.
“Why are you weeping, Iván Tsarévich, so bitterly?” Vasilísa the Wise asked him.
“Why should I not weep? The Sea Tsar has bidden me thresh clean thirty hayricks of barley without destroying a hayrick or a single sheaf, and all in a single night.”
“That is an easy task. Harder tasks are to come. Sleep in peace, for the morning is wiser than the evening.”
So Iván Tsarévich went and lay down.
Vasilísa went to her window and cried out in a threatening voice, “Hail, ye creeping ants, as many as there be of you in the white world, all creep here and pick out all the corn of my father’s hayricks quite cleanly.”
In the morning the Sea Tsar asked Iván Tsarévich if he had done this service.
“I have, your Majesty.”
“Let us go and see.”
So they went to the barn floor, and there all the hayricks stood untouched; and they went to the granary, and all the lofts were filled to the top with corn.
“Thank you, brother,” said the Sea Tsar. “Now you must make me a church out of white wax, to be ready tonight, and this shall be your last task.”
Once again Iván Tsarévich went to the courtyard and began to weep.
“Why are you weeping, Iván Tsarévich?”
“Why should I not weep? The Sea Tsar has bidden me in a single night build a church of white wax.”
“That is an easy task: harder tasks are near at hand. Lie down in peace, for the morning is wiser than the evening.”
So Iván Tsarévich went to sleep.
Then she went to her window and called to her all the bees in the white world, “Hail, ye bees my servants, do ye build me a church of your white wax, and let it be finished before the morning.”
In the morning Iván got up, looked, and saw the church stood there made of clean wax, and he went to the Sea Tsar and reported.
“Thank you, Iván Tsarévich: of all the servants I have had, none of them have been able to do as well as you. Now be my heir and the preserver of my kingdom. Now select yourself a bride out of my twelve daughters. They are all alike, face for face, hair with hair, clothing with clothing. If you guess three times the same one, she shall be your bride; if you do not, you shall suffer.”
Vasilísa the Wise learned of this, chose her opportunity, and said to the Tsarévich, “The first time I will wave my dress, the second time I will smooth my dress, and the third time there shall be a fly buzzing round my head.” Thus he was able to guess Vasilísa all three times. And they were betrothed, and there was a merry feast for three days.
Time went by, maybe little, maybe much. Iván Tsarévich grew anxious to see his father and mother, and he wished to go back to Holy Russia.
“Why are you so grieved, Iván Tsarévich?”
“O Vasilísa the Wise, I am afflicted for my father and my mother, and desire to behold Holy Russia.”
“If we go away there will be a mighty chase after us. The Sea Tsar will be wroth, and will give us over to death. We must be cunning.” So Vasilísa spat in three corners, and the doors of her room opened, and she, with Iván Tsarévich, ran into Sacred Russia. On the second day, very early, an embassy came from the Sea Tsar to catch the young couple and to summon them into the palace, and they knocked on the door: “Wake up, get up from your sleep; your father is calling you.”
“It is yet early: we have not yet had our sleep; come later on,” one pool answered.
Then the ambassadors retired, and they waited one hour and another hour, and they knocked again: “This is not the time and season to sleep; this is the time and season to get up.”
“Have a little patience, we will get up; we are dressing,” the second pool answered.
And the third time the envoys came, saying that the Sea Tsar was angry: “Why are you so long making ready?”
“We will be down soon,” answered the third pool.
So the messengers waited and waited, and then again knocked. Then there was no answer and no reply, so they broke in the door, and all was empty. Then they went and sent word to the Sea Tsar that the young folk had run away. He was very angry, and he set a mighty hunt after them.
But Vasilísa the Wise, with Iván Tsarévich, was already very far ahead: they were leaping on swift horses without staying, without taking breath. “Now, Iván Tsarévich, bend your head down to the grey earth and listen. Is there no noise of a hunt from the Sea Tsar?”
Iván Tsarévich leapt down from his horse, put his ear to the ground, and said, “I hear the talk of people, and the tramp of horses.”
“This is the hunt after us,” said Vasilísa the Wise. And she at once turned the horses into a green meadow, Iván Tsarévich into an old shepherd, and herself into a brooding lamb.
The hunt passed by.
“Ho, old man, have you seen a doughty youth with a fair maiden galloping by?”
“No, good folk, I have not seen them,” said Iván Tsarévich. “It
