Ivan the Tsarevich went on his way; he went on and on, he strode and strode, and he came to the open plains. Three roads lay before him, and in the cross-way stood a wretched little hut turning round and round on hen's legs. And Ivan the Tsarevich said to it, "Izbushka! izbushka! [23] turn your back to the wood and your front to me!" Then Ivan the Tsarevich stepped into the hut, and there in the hut was sitting Baba-Yaga [24] bony-leg. "Fie! fie! fie!" said Baba-Yaga, "up to this day a Russian soul has been a sight unknown to my eyes and a sound unknown to my ears, and now a Russian soul appears before my very eyes! For what hast thou come, good youth?"--"Oh, thou senseless Granny!" said the Tsarevich Ivan to her, "thou shouldst feed me well first, and only after that shouldst thou begin to ask questions." Baba-Yaga leaped up in the twinkling of an eye, heated her little stove, fed Ivan the Tsarevich, and then began to ask him, "Whither dost thou go, good youth, and whither does thy way lie?"--"I go," said Ivan the Tsarevich, "to seek my sisters, the Tsarevna Neotsyenaya and the Tsarevna Beztsyenaya. But now, dear little Granny, tell me, if thou knowest, what way must I go, and where shall I find them?"--"I know where the Tsarevna Neotsyenaya lives!" said Baba-Yaga; "thou must take the middle road to get to her, but she lives in the white stone palace of her old husband the Forest Monster. The road thither is hard, far must thou go; and if thou gettest there 'twill boot thee little, for the Forest Monster will devour thee."--"Well, little Granny, perhaps it will choke him. A Russian man is a bony morsel, and God will not give him over to be eaten by a swine like that! Farewell! and thank you for your bread and salt!" And so the Tsarevich Ivan strode away from her, and look!--there, right across the plain, shone white and dazzling the stony palace of the Forest Monster. Ivan went up to it and saw the gate, and on the gate sat a sort of little devil who said, "No admittance!"--"Open, my friend!" replied Ivan the Tsarevich, "and I'll give thee some vodka!" [25] The little devil took the vodka, but he didn't open the gate for all that. Then Ivan the Tsarevich went round about the palace and resolved to climb over the wall. He climbed up and along and never observed the trap into which he was falling, for on the top of the walls wires were spread all about, and the moment the Tsarevich Ivan touched one of these wires with his foot all the bells fell a-ringing. Ivan the Tsarevich looked, and out upon the balcony rushed his sister the Tsarevna Neotsyenaya and said, "Is it thou then that hast come, my beloved brother, Ivan the Tsarevich?" And the brother and the sister embraced and kissed each other. "Where shall I hide thee from the Monster of the Forest?" said the Tsarevna Neotsyenaya, "for I believe he will be here at once."--"Where indeed, for I am no needle." The brother and sister were still talking when suddenly there