Free The Firebird and Other Russian Fairy Tales by Arthur Ransome Page B

the waters shall obey me, and all the fishes shall be my servants.”
    â€œI don’t like to ask that,” said the old man, trembling.
    â€œWhat’s that?” she screamed at him. “Do you dare to answer the Tzaritza? If you do not set off this minute, I’ll have your head cut off and your body thrown to the dogs.”
    Unwillingly the old man hobbled off. He came to the shore, and cried out with a windy, quavering old voice,—
    â€œHead in air and tail in sea,
Fish, fish, listen to me.”
    Nothing happened.
    The old man thought of his wife, and what would happen to him if she were still Tzaritza when he came home. Again he called out,—
    â€œHead in air and tail in sea,
Fish, fish, listen to me.”
    Nothing happened, nothing at all.
    A third time, with the tears running down his face, he called out in his windy, creaky, quavering old voice,—
    â€œHead in air and tail in sea,
Fish, fish, listen to me.”
    Suddenly there was a loud noise, louder and louder over the sea. The sun hid itself. The sea broke into waves, and the waves piled themselves one upon another. The sky and the sea turned black, and there was a great roaring wind that lifted the white crests of the waves and tossed them abroad over the waters. The golden fish came up out of the storm and spoke out of the sea.
    â€œWhat is it now?” says he, in a voice more terrible than the voice of the storm itself.
    â€œO fish,” says the old man, trembling like a reed shaken by the storm, “my old woman is worse than before. She is tired of being Tzaritza. She wants to be the ruler of the seas, so that all the waters shall obey her and all the fishes be her servants.”
    The golden fish said nothing, nothing at all. He turned over and went down into the deep seas. And the wind from the sea was so strong that the old man could hardly stand against it. For a long time he waited, afraid to go home; but at last the storm calmed, and it grew towards evening, and he hobbled back, thinking to creep in and hide amongst the straw.
    As he came near, he listened for the trumpets and the drums. He heard nothing except the wind from the sea rustling the little leaves of birch trees. He looked for the palace. It was gone, and where it had been was a little tumbledown hut of earth and logs. It seemed to the old fisherman that he knew that little hut, and he looked at it with joy. And he went to the door of the hut, and there was sitting his old woman in a ragged dress, cleaning out a saucepan, and singing in a creaky old voice. And this time she was glad to see him, and they sat down together on the bench and drank tea without sugar, because they had not any money.
    They began to live again as they used to live, and the old man grew happier every day. He fished and fished, and many were the fish that he caught, and of many kinds; but never again did he catch another golden fish that could talk like a human being. I doubt whether he would have said anything to his wife about it, even if he had caught one every day.

Alenoushka and Her Brother
    ONCE UPON a time there were two orphan children, a little boy and a little girl. Their father and mother were dead, and they were alone. The little boy was called Vanoushka, 2 and the little girl’s name was Alenoushka. 2
    They set out together to walk through the whole of the great wide world. It was a long journey they set out on, and they did not think of any end to it, but only of moving on and on, and never stopping long enough in one place to be unhappy there.
    They were travelling one day over a broad plain, padding along on their little bare feet. There were no trees on the plain, no bushes; open flat country as far as you could see, and the great sun up in the sky burning the grass and making their throats dry, and the sandy ground so hot that they could scarcely bear to set their feet on it. All day from early morning they had been walking, and the heat grew