"You ignorant simpletons, unlearned peasants, moujiks! Is it a
suitable moment for dinner when the Tsar wants you? Go in haste!"

All the six started running toward the palace, thinking within
themselves: "What can have happened?" In front of the palace stood the
guards with their iron staves; in the halls all the wise and learned
people were gathered together, and the Tsar himself was sitting on his
high throne looking very grim and thoughtful.

"Listen to me," he said when the peasants approached, "you, my brave
fellows, my clever brothers Simeon. I like your trades and I think, as
do my wise advisers, that if thou, the second Simeon, art able to
see everything going on under the sun, thou shouldst climb quickly
on yonder column and glance around to see if there is, as they say,
beyond the great sea an island, Buzan by name. And see if on that
island, as men assert, there is a mighty kingdom, and in that kingdom
a mighty king, and if that king, as the story goes, has a daughter,
the most beautiful princess Helena."

The second Simeon bowed and ran quickly, even forgetting to put on his
cap. He went straight to the column, climbed it, looked around, came
down, and this was his report:

"Tsar Archidei Aggeivitch, I have accomplished thy sovereign wish. I
looked far beyond the sea and have seen the island Buzan. Mighty is
the king there, and he is proud and merciless. He sits within his
palace and his speech is always the same:

'I am a great king and I have a most beautiful daughter, the princess
Helena. There is no one in the universe more beautiful and more wise