twelve poles. On the tops of eleven were men's heads, but the twelfth had none.
Tzarevich Alexis drew near and said:
Little Hut, little Hut!
Stand the way thy mother placed thee,
With thy back to the wood and thy face to me!
And when the hut stood still facing him, he climbed up one of the hens' legs and entered. There lay the old witch on the stove, snoring.
The Tzarevich woke her. "Health to thee, grandmother!" he said.
"Health to thee, Tzarevich!" she answered. "Why hast thou come to me? Is it by thine own will, or by need?"
"By both," said Tzarevich Alexis. "I come to serve thee as herder, to graze thy she-horses and to earn a colt for my payment."
"Why shouldst thou not?" the Baba-Yaga said. "With me folk serve no round year, but only three days. If thou dost graze well my mares, I will give thee a steed fit for a hero. But if thou dost lose one of them, thy head shall be set upon my twelfth pole."
Tzarevich Alexis agreed. The old witch gave him food and drink, and ordered him to take her
