Page:Russian Fairy Book (N. H. Dole).djvu/123

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THE WHITE DUCKLING
89

When the prince looked at the princess he also wept. He ordered the sorceress to be brought out, and when she came he commanded her to bring the children to life again.

The sorceress was very angry, she gnashed her teeth, but she saw that there was no help for it. So she told them to catch a certain Raven and attach to it two vials, and order the Raven to bring in one the Water of Life and in the other the Water of Speech.

The raven flew away and brought back the water. They sprinkled the children with the Water of Life; they began to move. They sprinkled them with the Water of Speech; they spoke. And so the prince and his whole family from that time forth lived and flourished, and lived well and forgot what trouble had passed.

But they fastened the sorceress to a horse's tail, and she was torn to pieces over the field. Where a leg was torn off there lay a poker, and where an arm was torn off they found a rake, and where her head was torn off, there was a shrub and a stump. And the birds came and pecked it to pieces, and the winds blew the dust away, so that nothing was left of her—not a trace, nor even a memory!