"The Dede-Vsevede? Why, I am his mother--he is the shining Sun in person! Every morning he is a child; at noon he becomes a man; at evening he withers to the likeness of a decrepit, hundred-year-old man. But I will contrive to get you three gold hairs from his head, so that you may know that I am not your god-mother for nothing. For all that, however, you cannot remain here any longer as you are. My son, the Sun, is endowed with a charitable soul; but, on returning home, he is always hungry, and it would not astonish me if, as soon as he comes back, he ordered you to be roasted for his supper. To hide you I will overturn this empty box, under which you must creep." Before obeying, Plavacete begged his god-mother to obtain from Dede-Vsevede answers to the three questions which he had promised to get from him. "I will put the questions to him, but you must carefully listen to the answers he returns." Suddenly the wind was unchained without, and, through a window on the western side of the castle, arrived the Sun--an old man with a head of gold. The old man sat down to supper. After the meal was finished, he placed his head of gold upon his mother's knees and fell asleep. As soon as she saw that he was sleeping soundly, she plucked from his head one of his gold hairs and threw it upon the floor: in falling the hair made a metallic sound, like the string of a guitar when struck. "What do you want of me, mother?" asked the old man. "Nothing, my son; I was sleeping and dreaming a strange dream." "What was it about, mother?" "I thought I saw a place--I don't know where--where there was a well supplied with water from a spring, by which sick people were cured, and even dying persons, after drinking a single mouthful of it; and more than that, corpses even were resuscitated after having been sprinkled with a few drops of this marvellous water. But for twenty years this well has remained dry: what should be done to fill it as of old?" [Illustration: HE PLACED HIS HEAD OF GOLD UPON HIS MOTHER'S KNEES."] "The remedy is simple enough: a frog has lodged itself in the opening, and so prevents the water of the spring entering the well. Let them kill the frog, and their well will be as full of water as it used to be." When the old man was again soundly sleeping, the old woman plucked another gold hair from his head and threw it upon the floor. "What do you want of me, mother?" "Nothing, my son, nothing. While sleeping I had a strange vision. It seemed to me that the inhabitants of a city--what city I do not know--had in their garden an apple-tree, the apples of which possessed the virtue of renewing the youth of whomsoever ate of them. A single apple eaten by an old man sufficed to give back to him the strength and freshness of youth. Now, for twenty years, that tree has borne neither flower nor fruit. By what means can they bring back to it its former power?"