Atondido Stories
him back, Yan was able to escape.
That evening when he was driving home his sheep the prin-
cess ran out to him and said:
"Yanitchko, it was you! I know it was!"
But again Yan laughed and put her off and asked her how
she could think such a thing of a poor shepherd.
Again the princess was not convinced and she said in anoth-
er month, when the princes were to come for the third and last
time, she would make sure.
So for another month Yan tended his sheep and plucked
nosegays for the merry little princess and the princess waited for
him at the palace window every afternoon and, when she saw
him, she always said politely: "Please."
For the third meeting of the princes the servants of the chest
arrayed Yan in a gorgeous suit of black and gave him a black
horse with golden trappings studded in diamonds. He rode to
the palace and took his place behind the other suitors. Things
went as before and again the princess saved her kerchief and
ring for him.
This time when he tried to ride off the other suitors sur-
rounded him and, before he escaped, one of them wounded him
on the foot.
He galloped back to the castle in the forest, dressed once
again in his shepherd's clothes, and returned to the meadow
where his sheep were grazing. There he sat down and bound up
his wounded foot in the kerchief which the princess had given
him. Then, when he had eaten some bread and cheese from his
magic wallet, he stretched himself out in the sun and fell asleep.
Meanwhile the princess, who was sorely vexed that her mys-
terious suitor had again escaped, slipped out of the palace and
ran up the mountain path to see for herself whether the
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