to think of marriage. I desire you to select maidens to be loving wives to you and to me dutiful daughters-in-law. Take, therefore, your well-arched bows and arrows which have been hardened in the fire. Go into the untrodden field wherein no one is permitted to hunt, draw the bows tight and shoot in different directions, and in whatsoever courts the arrows fall, there demand your wives-to-be. She who brings to each his arrow shall be his bride."
So the Tzareviches made arrows, hardened them in the fire, and going into the untrodden field, shot them in different directions. The eldest brother shot to the east, the second to the west, and the youngest, Tzarevich Ivan, drew his bow with all his strength and shot his arrow straight before him.
On making search, the eldest brother found that his arrow had fallen in the courtyard of a Boyar, where it lay before the tower in which were the apartments of the maidens. The second brother's arrow had fallen in the courtyard of a rich merchant who traded with foreign countries, and pierced a window at which the merchant's daughter—a lovely girl soul—was standing. But the arrow of Tzarevich Ivan could not be found at all.
Tzarevich Ivan searched in deep sorrow and
