On the night of Ivanov's Day (that is the day of Saint John, which is
Midsummer) there was born the pike, a huge fish, with such teeth as
never were. And when the pike was born the waters of the river foamed
and raged, so that the ships in the river were all but swamped, and
the pretty young girls who were playing on the banks ran away as fast
as they could, frightened, they were, by the roaring of the waves, and
the black wind and the white foam on the water. Terrible was the birth
of the sharp-toothed pike.

And when the pike was born he did not grow up by months or by days,
but by hours. Every day it was two inches longer than the day before.
In a month it was two yards long; in two months it was twelve feet
long; in three months it was raging up and down the river like a
tempest, eating the bream and the perch, and all the small fish that
came in its way. There was a bream or a perch swimming lazily in the
stream. The pike saw it as it raged by, caught it in its great white
mouth, and instantly the bream or the perch was gone, torn to pieces
by the pike's teeth, and swallowed as you would swallow a sunflower
seed. And bream and perch are big fish. It was worse for the little
ones.

[Illustration: "Head in air and tail in sea,
Fish, fish, listen to me"]

What was to be done? The bream and the perch put their heads together
in a quiet pool. It was clear enough that the great pike would eat
everyone of them. So they called a meeting of all the little fish,
and set to thinking what could be done by way of dealing with the
great pike, which had such sharp teeth and was making so free with