Sacred-Texts Legends & Sagas Index Previous Next WE find this
story in a familiar form in that of “The Lucky Rouble”
(Kreutzwald). The father of three sons, before his death, gives
Peter,2 the youngest, a magic silver rouble, which always
returns to the pocket of its possessor. Peter afterwards meets a
one-eyed old man, who sells him three black dogs, named Run-for-
Food, Tear-Down, and Break-Iron. Afterwards, when passing
through a forest, he meets a grand coach, in which a princess,
who has been chosen by lot to be delivered over to a monster, is
being conveyed to her doom. Peter abides the issue, and
encounters the p. 7 monster, which is described as like a bear,
but much bigger than a horse, covered with scales instead of
hair, with two crooked horns on the head, two long wings, long
boars’ tusks, and long legs and claws.1 With the assistance of
the dog Tear-Down, Peter kills the monster, cuts off his horns
and tusks, and leaves the princess with the coachman, promising
to return in three years. The coachm