"O Cricket!" he cried, "upon this mound sit and take snuff! Beetle, do thou beat a drum. And do thou crawl, O Bug, the bun-like, beneath the ash, and spread abroad this news of me, the Spider, the wrestler, the hero bold--that the Spider, the wrestler, the hero bold, no longer in the world exists; that they have sent him to Kazan; that in Kazan, upon a block, they've chopped his head off, and the block destroyed." On the mound sat the Cricket and took snuff. The Beetle smote upon the drum. The Bug crawled in among the ash-tree's roots, and cried:-- "Why have ye fallen? Wherefore as in death do ye lie here? Truly no longer lives the Spider, the wrestler, the hero bold. They've sent him to Kazan and in Kazan they've chopped his head off on a block, and afterwards destroyed the block." The gnats and flies grew blithe and merry. Thrice they crossed themselves, then out they flew--and straight into the Spider's snares. Said he:-- "But seldom do ye come! I would that ye would far more often come to visit me! to quaff my wine and beer, and pay me tribute!"[68] This story is specially interesting in the original, inasmuch as it is rhymed throughout, although printed as prose. A kind of lilt is perceptible in many of the Skazkas, and traces of rhyme are often to be detected in them, but "The Mizgir's" mould is different from theirs. Many stories also exist in an artificially versified form, but their movement differs entirely from that of the naturally cadenced periods of the ordinary Skazka, or of such rhymed prose as that of "The Mizgir." The following legend is not altogether new in "motive," but a certain freshness is lent to it by its simple style, its unstrained humor, and its genial tone. THE SMITH AND THE DEMON.[69] Once upon a time there was a Smith, and he had one son, a sharp, smart, six-year-old boy. One day the old man went to church, and as he stood before a picture of the Last Judgment he saw a Demon painted there--such a terrible one!--black, with horns and a tail. "O my!" says he to himself. "Suppose I get just such another painted for the smithy." So he hired an artist, and ordered him to paint on the door of the smithy exactly such another demon as he had seen in the church. The artist painted it. Thenceforward the old man, every time he entered the smithy, always looked at the Demon and said, "Good morning, fellow-countryman!" And then he would lay the fire in the furnace and begin his work.