very instant closed his eyes and fell on the floor, as though he were dead. And when he took the shirt off him and cast it into the stove, the boy revived, but the stove was split into small pieces.
The stepmother saw that she was doing no good, so she again went to the old soothsayer and asked and besought her how she should destroy her stepson. The old woman answered, "As long as the horse is alive nothing can be brought about. But you pretend to be ill, and when your husband comes back tell him, 'I saw in my sleep that the throat of our foal must be cut and the liver extracted, and I must be rubbed with the liver; then my disease will pass away.'"
Some time after the merchant came back, and the son went out to meet him.
"Hail, my son!" said the father. "Is all well with you at home?"
"All is well, only mother is ill," he answered.
So the merchant unloaded his wares and went home, and he found his wife lying in the bedclothes groaning, saying, "I can only recover if you will fulfil my dream."
So the merchant agreed at once, summoned his son and said, "Now, my son, I want to cut the throat of your horse: your mother is ill, and I must cure her."
So Iván the merchant's son wept bitterly and said, "Oh, father, you wish to take away from me my last luck!" Then he went into the stable.
The foal saw him and said, "My beloved master, I have saved you from three deaths—do you now save me from one. Ask your father that you may go out on my back for the last time to fare in the open fields with your companions."
So the son asked his father for leave to go into the open field for the last time on the horse, and the father agreed. Iván the merchant's son mounted his horse, leapt into the open field, and went and diverted himself
