Then he set off running, and he ran and ran as hard as he could. Soon
after the old she dragon discovered that it was not the golden hare, but
her own daughter, so she set about chasing after them and destroying
them both, for the daughter had made haste in the meantime to join Ivan.
But as the she dragon couldn't run herself, she sent her husband, and he
began chasing them and they knew he was coming, for they felt the earth
trembling beneath his tread. Then the she dragon's daughter said to
Ivan:
"I hear him running after us. I'll turn myself into standing wheat and
thee into an old man guarding me, and if he ask thee, 'Hast thou seen a
lad and a lass pass by this way?' say to him: 'Yes, they passed by this
way while I was sowing this wheat!'"
A little while afterwards the she dragon's husband came flying up.
"Have a lad and a lass passed by this way?" said he.
"Yes," replied the old man, "they have."
"Was it long ago?" asked the she dragon's husband.
"It was while this wheat was being sown," replied the old man.
"Oh!" thought the serpent, "this wheat is ready for the sickle; they
couldn't have been this way yesterday."
So he turned back. Then the she dragon's daughter turned herself back
into a maiden and the old man into a youth, and off they set again. But
the dragon returned home, and the she dragon asked him:
"What! hast thou not caught them or met them on the road?"
"Met them, no!" said he. "I did, indeed, pass on the road some standing
wheat and an old man watching it, and I asked the old man if he had seen
a lad and a lass pass by that way, and he said, 'Yes, while this wheat
was being sown'; but the wheat was quite ripe for the sickle, so I knew
it was a long while ago and turned back."
"Why didst thou not tear that old man and the wheat to pieces?" cried
the she dragon; "it was they! Be off after them again, and mind, this
time tear them to pieces without fail."
So the dragon set off after them again, and they heard him coming from
afar, for the earth trembled beneath him. So the damsel said to Ivan:
"He's coming again; I hear him; now I'll change myself into a monastery,
so old that it will be almost falling to pieces, and I'll change thee
into an old black monk at the gate, and when he comes up and asks, 'Hast
thou seen a lad and a lass pass this way?' say to him: 'Yes, they passed
by this way when this monastery was being built.'"
Soon afterwards the dragon came flying past, and asked the monk: "Hast
thou seen a lad and a lass pass by this way?"
"Yes," he replied, "I saw them what time the holy fathers began to build
this monastery."
The dragon thought to himself: "That was not yesterday! This monastery
has stood a hundred years if it has stood a day, and won't stand much
longer either"; and with that he turned him back. When he got home he
said to the she dragon, his wife: "I met a black monk who serves in a
monastery and I asked him about them, and he told me that a lad and a
lass had run past that way when the monastery was being built, but that
was not yesterday, for the monastery is a hundred years old at the very
least."
"Why didst thou not tear the black monk to pieces and pull down the
monastery? for 'twas they. But I see I must go after them myself; thou
art no good at all."
So off she set and ran and ran, and they knew she was coming, for the
earth quaked and yawned beneath her. Then the damsel said to Ivan:
"I fear me 'tis all over, for she is coming herself! Look now, I'll
change thee into a stream and myself into a fish--a perch."
Immediately after the she dragon came up and said to the perch:
"Oh, oh! so thou wouldst run away from me, eh!"
Then she turned herself into a pike and began chasing the perch, but
every time she drew near to it the perch turned its prickly fins toward
her, so that she could not catch hold of it. So she kept on chasing it
and chasing it, but finding she could not catch it, she tried to drink
up the stream, till she drank so much of it that she burst.
Then the maiden who had become a fish said to the youth who had become a
river:
"Now that we are alive and not dead, go back to thy lord father and thy
father's house and see them, and kiss them all except the daughter of
thy uncle, for if thou kiss that damsel thou wilt forget me, and I shall
go to the land of Nowhere."
So he went home and greeted them all, and as he did so he thought to
himself:
"Why should I not greet my uncle's daughter like the rest of them? Why,
they'll think me a mere pagan if I don't!"
So he kissed her, and the moment he did so he forgot all about the girl
who had saved him.
So he remained there half a year, and then bethought him of taking to
himself a wife. So they betrothed him to a very pretty girl, and he
accepted her and forgot all about the other girl who had saved him from
the dragon, the one who herself was the she dragon's daughter. Now the
evening before the wedding they heard a young damsel crying _shishki_[B]
in the streets. They called to the young damsel to go away, or say who
she was, for nobody knew her. But the damsel answered never a word, but
began to knead more cakes, and made a cock dove and a hen dove out of
the dough and put them down on the ground, and they became alive. And
the hen dove said to the cock dove:
"Hast thou forgotten how I cleared the field for thee, and sowed it with
wheat, and thou mad'st a roll from the corn which thou gavest to the she
dragon?"
But the cock dove answered:
"Forgotten! forgotten!"
Then she said to him again:
"And hast thou forgotten how I dug away the mountain for thee, and let
the Dnieper flow by it that the merchant barques might come to thy
storehouses, and that thou might'st sell thy wheat to the merchant
barques?"
But the cock dove replied:
"Forgotten! forgotten!"
Then the hen dove said to him again:
"And hast thou forgotten how we two went together in search of the
golden hare? Hast thou forgotten me then altogether?"
And the cock dove answered again:
"Forgotten! forgotten!"
Then the good youth Ivan bethought him who this damsel was that had made
the doves, and he took her to his arms and made her his wife, and they
lived happily ever afterwards.