his robber’s whistle, and he deafened all of the knights, so that they fell to the ground, and as a punishment for this was slain by Ilyá Múromets.
Ilyá Múromets swore blood brotherhood with Dobrýnya Nikítich, then they saddled their good horses and rode forth on the open fields; and they journeyed on for about three months and found no opponent worthy of their steel: they had only gone in the open field. Then they met a passerby, a beggar singing psalms. His shirt weighed fifteen pud, and his hat ten pud, and his stick was ten sazhéns long. Ilyá Múromets set on him with his horse, and was going to try his mighty strength on him.
Then the passing beggar saw Ilyá Múromets and said: “Hail, Ilyá Múromets! Do you recollect? I learned my letters with you in the same school, and now you are setting your horse on me, who am only a beggar, as though I were an enemy, and you do not know that a very great misfortune has befallen the city of Kíev. The infidel knight, the mighty man, the dishonourable Ídolishche, has arrived. His head is as big as a beer cauldron, and his shoulders a sazhén broad. There is a span length between his brows, and between his ears there is a tempered dart. And he eats an ox at a time and he drinks a cask at a time. The Prince of Kíev is very aggrieved with you that you have left him in such straits.”
So Ilyá Múromets changed into the beggar’s dress and rode straight back to the palace of the Prince, and cried out in a knightly voice: “Hail to thee, Prince of Kíev! give me, a wandering beggar, alms.”
And the Prince saw him and spoke in this wise: “Come into my palace, beggar. I will give you food and drink and will give you gold on your way.”
So the beggar went into the palace and stood at the stove and looked round.
Ídolishche asked to eat, so they brought him an entire roasted ox and he ate it to the bones; then Ídolishche asked for drink, so they brought him a cauldron of beer; and twenty men had to bring it in. And he held it up to his ears and drank it all through.
Ilyá Múromets said, “My father had a gluttonous mare; it guzzled until its breath failed.”
Ídolishche could not stand this affront, and said, “Hail, wandering beggar! Do you dare me? I could take you in my hands; if it had been Ilyá Múromets I would even have braved him.”
“Well,” said Ilyá Múromets, “that is the kind of man he was!” And he took off his cap and struck him lightly on the head, and he nearly knocked through the walls of the palace, took Ídolishche’s trunk and flung it out. And in return the Prince honoured Ilyá Múromets, praised him highly, and placed him amongst the mighty knights of his court.
Nikíta the Tanner
One day, somewhere near Kíev, a dragon appeared, who demanded heavy tribute from the people. He demanded every time to eat a fair maiden: and at last the turn came to the Tsarévna, the princess. But the dragon would not eat her, she was too beautiful. He dragged her into his den and made her his wife. When he flew out on business, he used to pile logs of wood in front of the den to prevent the Tsarévna escaping. But the Tsarévna had a little dog that had followed her all the way from home. When she wrote a letter to her father and mother she used to tie it to the neck of her little dog, which would run all the way home and bring an answer back. One day her parents wrote to her: “Try to discover anyone who is stronger than the dragon.” The Tsarévna got every day on more intimate terms with her dragon in order to discover who was stronger. At last he owned that Nikíta, the tanner at Kíev, was the stronger. So the Tsarévna at once wrote to her father: “Look for Nikíta, the tanner at Kíev, and send him on to me to deliver me from my imprisonment.”
So the Tsar looked for Nikíta, and went to him himself to beg him to release the land from the cruelty of the dragon and redeem the princess.
Just then Nikíta was tanning skins. He was just enfolding twelve hides in his hands. But when he saw the Tsar come to see him, his hands so trembled for fear that he rent the twelve hides. But, however much the Tsar and the Tsarítsa asked him, he would not set out against the dragon. Then the Tsar assembled five thousand children, who were to mollify the tanner with their bitter tears. The little ones came to Nikíta and begged him to go and fight the dragon. And when he saw them weep, Nikíta the tanner himself almost felt the tears flowing. He took thirty puds of hemp, tarred it, and swathed himself in it in order that the dragon might find him a hard morsel, and then set out. But the dragon locked himself up in his den and would not come to view.
“Come with me into the open field, otherwise I will shatter your den to pieces!” said the tanner, and began clattering at the doors.
Then the dragon, seeing his doom approach, came out into the open. Nikíta the tanner fought the grisly worm some time, maybe long, maybe short, and at last got him under.
Then the dragon besought Nikíta the tanner: “Do not beat me to death. Stronger than us two there is nothing in the white world. Let us divide the earth. You may live on the one half and I on the other.”
“Very well!” said Nikíta, “only we must delimit frontiers.”
So the tanner took the plough, which weighed three hundred puds,
