He rode away through the open plain till at last he came to a high mountain. When he reached the high mountain he climbed up it and then lay down to rest, and he slept for twelve days the sleep of a hero. When he awoke he saw at a distance a white tent standing beneath a tree. He mounted his horse again and rode a long way through the plain towards the white tent. This tent stood beneath the shade of a great green oak tree upon another hill. In the tent was a great bed seventy feet long and forty-two feet wide. Ilyá tied up his horse to the oak tree and lay down upon that hero’s bed, and went to sleep. Now the sleep of a hero is sound, and Ilyá slept for three days and three nights. On the third day his good horse heard a terrible noise from the north. Mother Earth rocked, the dark forest shook, the rivers overflowed their steep banks. Ilyá’s good horse struck the ground with his hoofs, but could not waken Ilyá of Múrom. At last the horse spoke to him in a human voice: “O Ilyá of Múrom! thou knowest not that danger is near thee. The hero Svyatogór is coming to his tent. Let me loose that I may flee across the open plain, and thou mayest climb up into the green oak tree.” Ilyá untied his horse’s bridle and set the good horse free to gallop across the plain; and then he climbed up into the oak tree. From the oak tree he saw the hero Svyatogór coming on his great horse. The hero was taller than a standing forest, and his head nearly touched a moving cloud. On his shoulder he carried a great chest of glass. He came down from his horse and placed the chest on the ground and opened it with a golden key. Out of the chest came the hero’s wife. So lovely was she that no such beauty had ever been seen or heard of in the whole white world. Very tall she was and elegant, and delicately did she walk. She had eyes like the eyes of a bright falcon, eyebrows of black sable, and waving black hair. As soon as she came out of the great chest she set to work to lay the table for her husband’s dinner. She spread a bright chequered table-cloth and took from the chest a bottle of honey drink and a cup and sweetmeats full many, and placed them upon the chequered cloth. After he had eaten and drunk, Svyatogór lay down to sleep on his great bed in the tent, but his wife went to walk on the open plain. She caught sight of Ilyá in the oak tree and would have him to come down and talk to her. When her husband suddenly woke up she put Ilyá into her husband’s pocket to hide him. Svyatogór stood up and put his wife back into the glass chest and lifted it on to his shoulder again. He called up his horse and got upon his back and set off to ride, but soon the horse stumbled, and Svyatogór was vexed and asked why he was stumbling. “This morning,” said the horse in a human voice, “I was carrying a hero and a hero’s wife, but now I am carrying two heroes as well as the hero’s wife.”