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But next morning the old man again got up very early, washed himself clean, and took the child into the field. Iván Tsarévich followed him secretly and hid in the bush. Then the grey geese began soaring by.

“Geese, ye grey ones, where is the baby’s mother?”

“In the next flock!”

Then the next flock came by.

“Geese, ye grey ones, where is the baby’s mother?”

Then the baby’s mother came to them, threw off her feathers, and gave her little child the breast, and began weeping: “For this one day I may come, but to-morrow I must fly away over the woods and over the hills.”

Then she asked: “What do I smell there?” and wanted to put on her feathers again, but could not find them anywhere.

Iván Tsarévich had burnt them. He seized hold of Márya Tsarévna, but she turned first into a frog, then into a lizard, and into all sorts of insects, and last of all into a spindle. Iván Tsarévich took the spindle and broke it in halves, threw the dull end behind him and the sharp one in front; and his beautiful young wife stood in front of him, and they went home.