Then Márya Moryévna looked out for a good opportunity, and asked Koshchéy the Deathless.

Koshchéy answered, “Beyond thrice-nine lands, in the thrice-tenth kingdom, beyond the river of fire, lives the Bába Yagá. She has a mare on which every day she rides round the whole of the world. She has many splendid mares. I was there for three days as a herd, and she would not let me have the mare; but she gave me one of the foals.”

“How can one cross the river of fire?”

“I have a kerchief: if you shake it to the right three times a lofty bridge rises and the fires cannot overreach it.”

Márya Moryévna listened, told Iván Tsarévich all about it, and he took the cloth away. Iván Tsarévich crossed the river of fire and he reached the Bába Yagá: but journeying afar, neither eating nor drinking. A seabird came to meet him with her young. Iván Tsarévich asked if he might eat one of her chicks.