Once upon a time there lived an old man and his old wife, and they had no children, and what on earth did they not do to get them! How did not they beseech God! But for all that the wife bore no children. One day the old man went into the forest to look for mushrooms, and an old gaffer met him. “I know your thoughts. You are thinking of children,” he said. “Go to the village and collect one little egg from every house and put a brood hen over them, and, what will ensue, you will yourself see.” Now there were forty-one houses in the village. The old man went and collected the eggs and put a brood hen over them. Two weeks later he and his wife went to see, and they found that there were children born of the eggs, and they looked again and they found that forty of the children were fine, strong and healthy, and there was one who was a weakling. So the old man gave them names. But he had no name left for the last, so he called him Zamorýshek.[14] And these children grew up not by days, but by hours, and they shot up fast and began to work and to help the mother and father. The forty of them used to go into the fields whilst Zamorýshek stayed at home. When the harvesting season came on the forty began making the hayricks, and in a single week all the ricks were put up. So they came back home to the village, lay down, slept, and ate of the fare God provided. The old man looked at them and said, “Young and green, goes far, sleeps sound, and leaves the work undone!” “You go and see, _bátyushka_,”[15] said Zamorýshek. So the old man went into the fields and saw forty ricks standing. “Ah, these are fine boys of mine! Look at all they have harvested in one week!” Next day he went out again to gloat on his possessions, and found one rick was a-missing. He came home and said, “One rick has vanished.” “Never mind, _bátyushka_,” said Zamorýshek, “we will catch the thief: give me a hundred roubles, and I will do the deed.” Then Zamorýshek went to the smith and asked for a chain big enough to cover a man from head to foot. And the smith said, “Certainly.” “Very well, then: if the chain hold, I will give you one hundred roubles; if it break, your labour’s lost.” The smith forged the chain; Zamorýshek put it round him, stretched it, and it broke. So the smith made a second iron chain, Zamorýshek put it round his body, and it again broke. Then the smith made a third chain, three times as strong, and Zamorýshek could not break it.