"Who are you, good youth?" "I am Ivan, youngest son of the Great White Tsar," was the simple answer. "How did you come here?" asked the Golden Tsaritza, "with your own will, or against your will?" "With my own will," said Ivan. "I am in search of my mother. For, while she walked in the green palace garden, Whirlwind the Whistler came with a shriek and bore her away to an unknown land. Can you tell me where I may find her?" "I can indeed tell you," said the Golden Tsaritza. "She lives not far from here. Whirlwind the Whistler flies to her once a week and to me once a month, and he wearies both of us with his shrieks and his moans. Here is a golden ball for you. Throw it before you and follow it. It will lead you to your mother." Then she gave the good youth a golden ring as a token and said to him: "Within this little circle lies the whole of the Kingdom of Gold. I pray you, good youth, when you have conquered Whirlwind the Whistler, do not forget me, poor unfortunate, but rescue me from this place and take me out into the free white world." "I will take you," promised Ivan. Then he rolled the golden ball before him and wherever it went, there he followed it, until he came at last to such a palace as he could scarcely bear to look upon, it blazed so brightly with diamonds and precious stones. At the gateway six-headed serpents were hissing, but when Ivan had given them water from a well with a diamond bucket, fastened with a chain of fine seed pearls, they sank down in quiet and allowed him to pass into the castle. He walked quickly through one lofty chamber after another and in the last chamber he found his mother. She was sitting on a great throne of a single emerald clad in the festal robes of a Tsaritza, and crowned with a dazzling crown, beneath which her golden tresses flowed downward over the emerald steps. Raising her sad clear eyes, she looked at the stranger, and as she looked the mist of memory cleared, a smile played about her beautiful ruddy lips, and she said eagerly, holding her hands forward, "Ah, is it you, my dear, dear son? How have you found out the place of my concealment?" "That is so and so and by the way and matterless," said Ivan. "Suffice it to say that I have come to fetch you home." "But, my dear, dear son," said Golden Tress, "that will be indeed a hard matter for you. In these mountains the king of all is mighty Whirlwind, whom all the spirits of the air obey. It was he who bore me away, and it is against him that you must fight. Come quickly to the cellar." Golden Tress stepped with the step of youthfulness down from the emerald throne, and taking her son by the hand led him down a dark stairway into the cellar beneath the palace.