Then the Tsarévna wept and swore in every way that she had been guilty with nobody. “I do not know myself,” she said, “why the Lord has chastised me.”

The Tsar asked, but found nothing out.

Soon a boy was born who grew not by days but by hours; and at the end of a week he could already talk. So the Tsar summoned all the boyárs and the senators from every part of the kingdom to show them the youth, but none of them acknowledged that he was the father.

“No,” the boy answered, “none of them is my father.”

Then the Tsar bade the maids of honour and attendants take him up to every courtyard, through all the streets, and to show him to all manner of people. So the attendants and maids of honour took the youth through all the courtyards, through all the streets they went. But the boy said nothing.