The Princess Olga gave her consent and married the Eagle. The Eagle
took her and carried her off to his own kingdom.
Another year went by. Prince Ivan said to his youngest sister:
‘Let us go out and stroll in the garden green!’
They strolled about for a time. Again there arose a storm-cloud, with
whirlwind and lightning.
‘Let us return home, sister!’ said he.
They returned home, but they hadn’t had time to sit down when the
thunder crashed, the ceiling split open, and in flew a raven. The Raven
smote upon the floor and became a brave youth. The former youths had
been handsome, but this one was handsomer still.
‘Well, Prince Ivan! Before I came as a guest, but now I have come as a
wooer! Give me the Princess Anna to wife.’
‘I won’t interfere with my sister’s freedom. If you gain her
affections, let her marry you.’
So the Princess Anna married the Raven, and he bore her away into his
own realm. Prince Ivan was left alone. A whole year he lived without
his sisters; then he grew weary, and said:
‘I will set out in search of my sisters.’
He got ready for the journey, he rode and rode, and one day he saw a
whole army lying dead on the plain. He cried aloud, ‘If there be a
living man there, let him make answer! Who has slain this mighty host?’
There replied unto him a living man:
‘All this mighty host has been slain by the fair Princess Marya
Morevna.’
Prince Ivan rode further on, and came to a white tent, and forth came
to meet him the fair Princess Marya Morevna.
‘Hail, Prince!’ says she; ‘whither does God send you? and is it of your
free will or against your will?’
Prince Ivan replied, ‘Not against their will do brave youths ride!’
‘Well, if your business be not pressing, tarry awhile in my tent.’
Thereat was Prince Ivan glad. He spent two nights in the tent, and he
found favour in the eyes of Marya Morevna, and she married him. The
fair Princess, Marya Morevna, carried him off into her own realm.
They spent some time together, and then the Princess took it into her
head to go a warring. So she handed over all the house-keeping affairs
to Prince Ivan, and gave him these instructions:
‘Go about everywhere, keep watch over everything; only do not venture
to look into that closet there.’
He couldn’t help doing so. The moment Marya Morevna had gone he rushed
to the closet, pulled open the door, and looked in—there hung Koshchei
the Deathless, fettered by twelve chains. Then Koshchei entreated
Prince Ivan, saying:
‘Have pity upon me and give me to drink! Ten years long have I been
here in torment, neither eating nor drinking; my throat is utterly
dried up.’
The Prince gave him a bucketful of water; he drank it up and asked for
more, saying:
‘A single bucket of water will not quench my thirst; give me more!’
The Prince gave him a second bucketful. Koshchei drank it up and asked
for a third, and when he had swallowed the third bucketful, he regained
his former strength, gave his chains a shake, and broke all twelve at
once.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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