Oh: The Tsar of the Forest

“A halter of this kind is worth but three grivni (coins) and the gipsy offers me five roubles for it; let him have it.” So they clinched the bargain with a good drink, and the old man went home with the money, and the gipsy walked off with the horse. But it was not really a gipsy, but Oh, who had taken the shape of a gipsy.

Then Oh rode off on the horse, and the horse carried him higher than the trees of the forest, but lower than the clouds of the sky. At last they sank down among the woods and came to Oh’s hut, and Oh went into his hut and left his horse outside on the steppe. “This son of a dog shall not escape from my hands so quickly a second time,” said he to his wife. At dawn Oh took the horse by the bridle and led it away to the river to water it. But no sooner did the horse get to the river and bend down its head to drink than it turned into a perch and began swimming away. Oh, without more ado, turned himself into a pike and pursued the perch. But just as the pike was almost up with it, the perch gave a sudden twist and stuck out its spiky fins and turned its tail toward the pike, so that the pike could not lay hold of it. So when the pike came up to it, it said, “Perch! perch! turn thy head toward me, I want to have a chat with thee!”––“I can hear thee very well as I am, dear cousin, if thou art inclined to chat,” said the perch. So off they set again, and again the pike overtook the perch. “Perch! perch! turn thy head round toward me, I want to have a chat with thee!” Then the perch stuck out its bristly fins again and said, “If thou dost wish to have a chat, dear cousin, I can hear thee just as well as I am.” So the pike kept on pursuing the perch, but it was of no use. At last the perch swam ashore, and there was a Tsarivna (a Tsar’s daughter) whittling an ash twig. The perch changed itself into a gold ring set with garnets, and the Tsarivna saw it and fished up the ring out of the water. Full of joy she took it home, and said to her father, “Look, dear papa!