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Updated: May 22, 2025
So they went on farther along the track that scorched the bare soles of their feet, and under the sun that burned their heads and their little bare necks. The sun was high in the sky above them, and it seemed to Vanoushka that they would never come to the well.
"What is your name," says the fine gentleman, "and why are you in trouble? Perhaps I may be able to help you." "My name is Alenoushka, and this is my little brother Vanoushka, whom I love." And she told him the whole story.
"Oh," said little Vanoushka, "my throat is so dry. I want a drink. I must have a drink just a little drink of cool water." "We must go on," said Alenoushka, "till we come to a well. Then we will drink." They went on along the track, with their eyes burning and their throats as dry as sand on a stove. But presently Vanoushka cried out joyfully. He saw a horse's hoofmark in the ground.
"You must go to the river and bathe this afternoon," says the old witch. "I will be there and put a spell on the water. Secretly you must go, for if any one knows whither you have gone my spell will not work." So Alenoushka wrapped a shawl about her head, and slipped out of the house and went to the river. Only the little lamb, Vanoushka, knew where she had gone.
"I am so very thirsty," says Vanoushka; but he did as his sister told him, and they walked on together under the burning sun. A little farther on Vanoushka saw the hoofmark of a cow, and there was water in it glittering in the sun. "Sister, sister," says Vanoushka, "the cow has made a little well for me, and now I can have a drink." "Not yet, brother," says Alenoushka.
Their father and mother were dead, and they had not even an old grandfather to spend his time in telling them stories. They were alone. The little boy was called Vanoushka, and the little girl's name was Alenoushka. They set out together to walk through the whole of the great wide world.
But they had no sooner done all this than she woke up, more beautiful than ever she had been before, though then she was pretty enough, God knows. She woke, and sprang up, and threw her arms round the neck of the little white lamb, who suddenly became once more her little brother Vanoushka, who had been so thirsty as to drink water from the hoofmark of a sheep.
And she became an ugly old hag, and went away to the deep woods, shrieking as she went. "And did she ever come back again?" asked Ivan. "No, she never came back again," said old Peter. "Once was enough." "And what happened to Vanoushka when he grew up?" "He grew up as handsome as Alenoushka was pretty. And he became a great hunter. And he married the sister of the fine gentleman.
And Vanoushka laughed and shouted in the sunshine, and the fine gentleman wept tears of joy. And they all praised God and kissed each other, and went home together, and began to live as happily as before, even more happily, because Vanoushka was no longer a lamb. But as soon as they got home the fine gentleman turned the old witch out of the house.
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