He took from his saddle his tough bow and brought out from his quiver a sharp arrow. He bent his bow and fitted the arrow to the silken string, and shot—not at the village folk—brigands though they were—for he would have been loth to slay them, but he shot at the green oak tree; and the bowstring sang in the tough bow, the villagers fell from their horses, the arrow struck the crackling green oak tree and shattered the oak into chips and shavings. By this heroic deed of thunder the brigand villagers were filled with fear, and for five hours they lay without sense, and Ilyá made sport of them. “Come, come, good youths, you village brigands! Why do you lie half the night there upon the damp earth? Why go off to sleep and sleep half the night? On my way here I passed many people both on horseback and on foot; you have let many a good chance escape you.” The goodly youths stood up upon their nimble feet and threw themselves at Ilyá’s feet and said: “O thou brave hero! come and join our band and be thou our chieftain.” The good hero, Ilyá of Múrom, answered them: “I desire not to join your band; I am on my way to Kiev town, to Vladímir the Prince, to help him, and to fight and defend him.” The bold hero rode on through the open plain till he came to a pillar of white oak. On the pillar this writing was written: “To ride straight on—only five hundred miles, But making a round—seven hundred miles.” Ilyá looked at this writing and said: “If I ride straight, I shall cease to live; this way I can neither ride nor walk nor fly. Nightingale the Robber sits in his nest upon the seven oaks, and the robber-dog will seize me at the seventh mile.” Ilyá stood still to think what he should do. “The straight horse-road is broken up, the little bridge of white hazel is broken down. It would be no honour to me, or glory to my knighthood to ride by that roundabout way. It is better to ride by the straight road.” At once he got down from his good steed; with one hand he led his horse, while with the other he put planks across the stream for a bridge—that bridge of white hazel. The straight road he mended, and he rode on till he came near the clump of seven oak trees upon which Nightingale the Robber had built his great nest. Nightingale the Robber was sitting upon his nest of twisted boughs upon the seven oak trees, and Ilyá rode up to the oak trees. The robber-dog tried to seize him just as he had come to the seventh mile, and Nightingale the Robber roared like a wild aurochs, and the villain whistled like a nightingale, and the robber-dog howled like a dog. And at these sounds Ilyá’s good steed fell upon his knees with terror at the roar of the aurochs, and the whistle of the nightingale, and the dog-like howling of the robber-dog. Ilyá struck his horse between the ears and also struck him upon the flank, saying: