And the Prince saw him and spoke in this wise: “Come into my palace, beggar. I will give you food and drink and will give you gold on your way.” So the beggar went into the palace and stood at the stove and looked round. Ídolishche asked to eat, so they brought him an entire roasted ox and he ate it to the bones; then Ídolishche asked for drink, so they brought him a cauldron of beer; and twenty men had to bring it in. And he held it up to his ears and drank it all through. Ilyá Múromets said, “My father had a gluttonous mare; it guzzled until its breath failed.” Ídolishche could not stand this affront, and said, “Hail, wandering beggar! Do you dare me? I could take you in my hands; if it had been Ilyá Múromets I would even have braved him.” “Well,” said Ilyá Múromets, “that is the kind of man he was!” And he took off his cap and struck him lightly on the head, and he nearly knocked through the walls of the palace, took Ídolishche’s trunk and flung it out. And in return the Prince honoured Ilyá Múromets, praised him highly, and placed him amongst the mighty knights of his court. NIKÍTA THE TANNER One day, somewhere near Kíev, a dragon appeared, who demanded heavy tribute from the people. He demanded every time to eat a fair maiden: and at last the turn came to the Tsarévna, the princess. But the dragon would not eat her, she was too beautiful. He dragged her into his den and made her his wife. When he flew out on business, he used to pile logs of wood in front of the den to prevent the Tsarévna escaping. But the Tsarévna had a little dog that had followed her all the way from home. When she wrote a letter to her father and mother she used to tie it to the neck of her little dog, which would run all the way home and bring an answer back. One day her parents wrote to her: “Try to discover any one who is stronger than the dragon.” The Tsarévna got every day on more intimate terms with her dragon in order to discover who was stronger. At last he owned that Nikíta, the tanner at Kíev, was the stronger. So the Tsarévna at once wrote to her father: “Look for Nikíta, the tanner at Kíev, and send him on to me to deliver me from my imprisonment.” So the Tsar looked for Nikíta, and went to him himself to beg him to release the land from the cruelty of the dragon and redeem the princess.