In the morning Iván Tsarévich awoke, and when he looked out it was all done: there were no ravines and no crevasses, and the field was as flat as the palm of his hand, and the rye on it was red and so lofty that a jackdaw might hide in it. And he went to report his prowess to the Sea Tsar.

“Thank you,” said the Sea Tsar. “You have been able to fulfil me this service. Here is your second work. I have thirty hayricks, and each hayrick contains as much as thirty piles of white-eared barley. Thresh me all the barley clean, quite clean to the last grain, and do not destroy the hayricks nor beat down the sheaves. If you do not do this, your shoulders and your head will part company.”

“I will obey your Majesty,” said Iván Tsarévich, and again he went to the courtyard and was lost in tears.

“Why are you weeping, Iván Tsarévich, so bitterly?” Vasilísa the Wise asked him.