and people for life and he determined to learn how to mend their bones and cure their wounds. Thus he left his father’s house and village and set out on the distant, unknown journey to find the famous sorcerer who, he had heard, knew how to heal wounds made by arrows. But the incantations of this sorcerer proved to be powerless. When Zakhar first came to his house, he had promised to give the man ten marten skins if he would teach him the magic incantations. The sorcerer agreed, but Zakhar was not satisfied just to learn the incantations, he wanted to make sure first that they really worked, so he drew out his hunting knife, made a deep gash in his thigh and said to the astounded sorcerer, “There, cure this!” But the incantations did no good.
“You see,” the healer excused himself, “they were ineffectual because you made the wound yourself, on purpose. Such a wound cannot be cured by my chants.”
“Then your incantations aren’t suitable for my purpose. I need the kind of incantation that will work all the time irregardless of whether the wounds are self-inflicted or not.” Thereupon Zakhar Berkut departed from the house of the sorcerer and went forth in search of a better master in the art of healing.
He wandered far and wide over the ranges, hills, canyons and valleys for a whole year until at last he was directed to the Scythian monasteries. Among their monks was an hundred-year-old ancient who had lived for many years with the Greek monks in the hills of Athens where he had read and studied many of the classic documents and manuscripts of the Greeks. This monk possessed miraculous powers of healing wounds and moreover was willing to teach all that he knew to anyone who would abide with him in congenial companionship for a year and who would prove himself to be sympathetic, sincere and pure of heart.
Many prospective students came to the thoughtfully ab-
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