“Let me go home and bid farewell to my wife.” So he went home and said, “O fair Swan-maiden, what have I done? I became drunk and I bragged of you and have lost my life.”

“I know it all, Danílo the Unfortunate. Go, summon the Prince and Princess here as your guests, and all the burghers and generals and field-marshals and boyárs .”

“But the Prince will not come out in the mud and the mire!” (For the roads were bad, and the blue sea became stormy; the marshes surged and opened.)

“You are to tell him: ‘Have no fear, Prince Vladímir: across the rivers have been built hazel-tree bridges, the transoms are of oak covered with cloth of purple and with nails of tin. The shoes of the doughty warrior will not be soiled, nor will the hoofs of his horse be smeared.’ ”