ABSTRACT
In a certain kingdom a soldier served the tsar in the horse guard. He served his twenty-five years with faith and truth and for his honest behavior the king ordered him released into final retirement and as a reward he gave him that very horse that he had ridden in the regiment together with the saddle and all the tack. The soldier said farewell to all his comrades and set off for his native land. He rode for a day, a second, and a third, and then the whole week passed and then a second and a third and the soldier no longer had enough money, nothing to feed himself or his horse and it was still far, far to his home! He saw that things were going pretty badly: he really needed to eat. He started looking on all sides and then to one side he saw a big castle. “Well,” he thought, “perhaps I should stop in there. Perhaps they’ll take me into service for a while, so that I can earn something.”
