"The means are not difficult. A viper has hidden itself amongst the roots of their tree and feeds on its sap; let them kill the viper and transplant the tree, and they will soon see it covered with fruit as it used to be." Thereupon the old man once more went off to sleep soundly. The old woman plucked from his head the third gold hair. "Why do you not let me sleep in peace, mother?" cried the old man, angrily, and trying to rise. "Lie still, my beloved son, and do not disturb yourself. I am sorry for having waked you. I was having a strange dream. Fancy! I seemed to see a boatman, on the shore of the Black Sea, complaining to a traveller that, for twenty years, nobody had come to replace him: when will that poor old man be relieved of his task?" "He is an imbecile, that is all! He has only to put his oar into the hand of the first person who wants to be rowed and jump ashore. Whoever receives the oar will replace him as boatman. But leave me in peace, mother, and do not wake me any more; for I have to be up early, first to dry the tears of the Princess, the wife of a charcoal-burner's son. The young creature passes her nights in weeping for her husband, who has been sent by the King, her father, to fetch him three gold hairs from my head." Next morning the winds were heard howling around the palace of Dede-Vsevede, and instead of an old man, a beautiful child, with hair of gold, awoke on the old woman's knees: it was the divine Sun, who, after taking leave of his mother, flew out of the eastern window of his palace. The old woman hastened to turn over the box, and said to Plavacete:-- "See! here are the three gold hairs, and you already know the three answers given by Dede-Vsevede. Now hasten away, and Heaven be with you on your way. You will never see me again, for you will never again have need of me." Plavacete gratefully thanked her and departed. On reaching the city of the dried-up well, and questioned by the King as to what good news he was the bearer of, he replied:-- "Have your well carefully cleared out; then kill the frog which obstructs the incoming of the marvellous water from the spring, and you will see it flow as freely as ever." The King followed the direction of Plavacete, and, delighted to see his well once more filled, made him a present of twelve horses as white as swans, to which he added as much gold and silver as they could carry. On arriving at the second city and questioned by the King as to the news he brought, he replied:-- "The news I bring you is excellent; none could be better, in fact. You have but to dig up your apple-tree and transplant it, after killing the reptile which has been living amongst its roots; that done, your tree will produce you apples as it formerly did."