"Folks say there's no getting hold of him the way we tried;[354] we must entice him by cunning, and the best way of all will be to promise him a red shirt, and a red caftan, and red boots." So the King's runners came for the fool. "Go to the King," they say, "he will give you red boots, a red caftan, and a red shirt." Well, the fool said: "By the Pike's command, at my request, do thou, O stove, go to the King!" He was seated on the stove at the time. The stove went; the fool arrived at the King's. The King was going to put him to death, but he had a daughter, and she took a tremendous liking to the fool. So she began begging her father to give her in marriage to the fool. Her father flew into a passion. He had them married, and then ordered them both to be placed in a tub, and the tub to be tarred over and thrown into the water; all which was done. Long did the tub float about on the sea. His wife began to beseech the fool: "Do something to get us cast on shore!" "By the Pike's command, at my request," said the fool, "cast this tub ashore and tear it open!" He and his wife stepped out of the tub. Then she again began imploring him to build some sort of a house. The fool said: "By the Pike's command, at my request, let a marble palace be built, and let it stand immediately opposite the King's palace!" This was all done in an instant. In the morning the King saw the new palace, and sent to enquire who it was that lived in it. As soon as he learnt that his daughter lived there, that very minute he summoned her and her husband. They came. The King pardoned them, and they all began living together and flourishing.[355] "The Pike," observes Afanasief, "is a fish of great repute in northern mythology." One of the old Russian songs still sung at Christmas, tells how a Pike comes from Novgorod, its scales of silver and gold, its back woven with pearls, a costly diamond gleaming in its head instead of eyes. And this song is one which promises wealth, a fact connecting the Russian fish with that Scandinavian pike which was a shape assumed by Andvari--the dwarf-guardian of the famous treasure, from which sprang the woes recounted in the _Völsunga Saga_ and the _Nibelungenlied_. According to a Lithuanian tradition,[356] there is a certain lake which is ruled by the monstrous pike Strukis. It sleeps only once a year, and then only for a single hour. It used always to sleep on St. John's Night, but a fisherman once took advantage of its slumber to catch a quantity of its scaly subjects. Strukis awoke in time to upset the fisherman's boat; but fearing a repetition of the attempt, it now changes each year the hour of its annual sleep. A gigantic pike figures also in the _Kalevala_.