said they to the Tsar, "beyond lands thrice-ten, beyond the great sea Ocean, we strove with the Serpent Goruinich, and look! he bit off our ears, but for thy sake we reck not of life or goods, but would swim through rivers of blood, and would sacrifice limb and substance in thy service." In his joy Tsar Gorokh measured them out riches without number, made them the first of his Boyars, and got ready such a feast that the royal kitchens were not big enough for it, though they cooked and roasted there three days, while the royal wine-cellars ran dry, and at the banquet Tsar Gorokh placed one of the brethren of little fool Ivan at his right hand, and the other at his left. And the feast proceeded right merrily, and the guests had eaten themselves half full, and drank themselves half full, and were humming and buzzing like bees in a hive, when they saw entering the palace a gallant warrior, little fool Ivan, in just the same guise as when he had leaped as high as the two-and-thirty oaken beams. And when his brothers saw him, one of them nearly choked himself with a drop of wine from his beaker, and the other nearly suffocated himself with a bit of roast swan, and they wrung their hands, rolled their eyes, and could not utter a word. Little fool Ivan bowed low to his father-in-law, the Tsar, and told how he had got the apple tree with the silver leaves and the golden apples, and after that the swine with the golden bristles and the silver tusks and the twenty sucklings, and after that the golden-maned mare with the diamond hoofs; and he drew out the fingers, and the toes, and the ears for which he had sold them to his brethren. Then Tsar Gorokh was very wroth, and stamped with his feet, and bade them drive out the brothers of little fool Ivan with broomsticks, and one of them he sent to tend his swine in the cattle-yard, and the other he sent to look after the turkeys in the poultry-yard. But little fool Ivan he set beside himself, and made him the chief over the Boyars, and the captain of the captains. And long did they feast together in gladness of heart, till everything was eaten and everything was drunk up. And little fool Ivan began to rule the realm, and his rule was wise and terrible, and on the death of his father-in-law he took his place. His children were many, and his subjects loved him, and his neighbours feared him, but the Tsarina Baktriana was just as beautiful in her old age as when she was young. THE LITTLE FEATHER OF FENIST THE BRIGHT FALCON.