But Ivashko knew better. He knew that the voice was not that of his parents, but of a well-known witch; so he told his little boat to swim away from the shore and more towards the other side of the lake.
The witch, seeing that it was useless to call Ivashko unless she had a voice like his mother's, began thinking what she had better do. Then a sudden idea struck her, and she ran off to a blacksmith, and cried,—
"Blacksmith! blacksmith! make me a thin voice like that of Ivashko's mother, or I will eat you up, and not leave a bone in remembrance of you!"
The blacksmith, greatly alarmed, sat down at once to make the thin voice, leaving his other work till later.
In the evening the old witch went to the shore, and called out in the thin voice,—
The voice was so like that of Ivashko's mother that the boy thought it was she, and told the boat to swim towards the shore. But, alas! what was his horror when the witch suddenly seized him and his fish, and took them home to her hut, where she told her daughter, Alenka, to heat the stove and bake Ivashko for her dinner, while she went to invite some of her fellow-witches to make merry!
