When Ilyá arrived at the city of Kíev, he went straight to the Prince’s courtyard, entered the white stone palace, prayed to God and did homage to the Prince. The Prince of Kíev asked him, “Say, doughty youth, how do they call thee? Of what city art thou?” And Ilyá Múromets returned answer: “My lord, they call me Ílyushka, and by my father’s name Ivánov; I live in the city of Múrom in the village of Karachárovo.” Then the Prince asked him, “By what road didst thou come?” “From Múrom by the city of Chernígov, and under the walls of Chernígov I routed a Saracen host too many to count, and I relieved the city of Chernígov. And from there I went straight and I took the mighty Nightingale Robber alive and dragged him along at my steel stirrup.” Then the Prince was angry and said, “Why art thou telling such tales?” When the knights Alyósha Popóvich and Dobrýnya Nikítich heard this, they dashed out to look, and assured the Prince that this was really so. Then the Prince bade a goblet of green wine be given to the doughty youth. The Prince, however, wished to hear the whistle of the Robber-Nightingale. Ilyá Múromets put the Prince and Princess into a sable _shúba_, seized them under the arm, called in the Nightingale Robber and bade him whistle like a nightingale with only half his whistle; but the Nightingale Robber whistled with all his robber’s whistle, and he deafened all of the knights, so that they fell to the ground, and as a punishment for this was slain by Ilyá Múromets. Ilyá Múromets swore blood brotherhood with Dobrýnya Nikítich, then they saddled their good horses and rode forth on the open fields; and they journeyed on for about three months and found no opponent worthy of their steel: they had only gone in the open field. Then they met a passer-by, a beggar singing psalms. His shirt weighed fifteen _pud_, and his hat ten _pud_, and his stick was ten _sazhéns_ long. Ilyá Múromets set on him with his horse, and was going to try his mighty strength on him. Then the passing beggar saw Ilyá Múromets and said: “Hail, Ilyá Múromets! Do you recollect? I learned my letters with you in the same school, and now you are setting your horse on me, who am only a beggar, as though I were an enemy, and you do not know that a very great misfortune has befallen the city of Kíev. The infidel knight, the mighty man, the dishonourable Ídolishche, has arrived. His head is as big as a beer cauldron, and his shoulders a _sazhén_ broad. There is a span length between his brows, and between his ears there is a tempered dart. And he eats an ox at a time and he drinks a cask at a time. The Prince of Kíev is very aggrieved with you that you have left him in such straits.” So Ilyá Múromets changed into the beggar’s dress and rode straight back to the palace of the Prince, and cried out in a knightly voice: “Hail to thee, Prince of Kíev! give me, a wandering beggar, alms.”