Nikita Kozhemyaka (the Leather-worker)

A dragon appeared near Kyiv and exacted a heavy tribute from the people: a beautiful maiden from every household. He would take a maiden and eat her. Then it…

A dragon appeared near Kyiv and exacted a heavy tribute from the people: a beautiful maiden from every household. He would take a maiden and eat her. Then it was the tsar’s daughter’s turn to go to the dragon. He seized the princess and dragged her to his den, but did not eat her. She was so beautiful that he took her as his wife. Whenever he flew off on his business, he blocked her in with logs so she could not escape. The princess had a little dog that had followed her from home. She would write a note to her father and mother and tie it around the dog’s neck. The dog would run to them and even bring back an answer. One day the tsar and tsarina wrote to the princess: find out who is stronger than the dragon. The princess became more affectionate towards her dragon and began questioning him about who was stronger. For a long time he would not tell her, but one day he let slip that a leather-worker lived in the city of Kyiv who was stronger even than he was. On hearing this, the princess wrote to her father: find Nikita Kozhemyaka in Kyiv and send him to free me from captivity.

When the tsar received the news, he found Nikita Kozhemyaka and went in person to ask him to free his land from the fierce dragon and rescue the princess. Nikita was working the hides at the time, holding twelve of them in his hands. When he saw that the tsar himself had come, he trembled with fear, his hands shook, and he tore all twelve hides. But however much the tsar and tsarina begged Kozhemyaka, he would not go against the dragon. Then they thought of gathering five thousand small children and having them plead with him: perhaps their tears would move him to pity. The children came to Nikita and begged him in tears to go against the dragon. Seeing their tears, Nikita Kozhemyaka began to weep himself. He took three hundred poods of hemp, coated it with tar and wrapped himself all over in it so the dragon could not eat him. Then he went to face the dragon.

Nikita approached the dragon’s den, but the dragon had locked himself in and would not come out.

“You’d better come out into the open field, or I’ll tear your den apart!” Kozhemyaka said, and he began breaking down the doors.

Seeing that trouble was unavoidable, the dragon came out to meet him in the open field. Whether Nikita Kozhemyaka fought the dragon for a long time or a short one, he finally brought him down. Then the dragon began begging Nikita:

“Don’t beat me to death, Nikita Kozhemyaka! No one in the world is stronger than the two of us. Let’s divide all the land, the whole world, equally: you can live in one half and I in the other.”

“Very well,” said Kozhemyaka. “We must mark out a boundary.”

Nikita made a plough weighing three hundred poods, harnessed the dragon to it and began ploughing a boundary from Kyiv. He drew a furrow all the way from Kyiv to the Kavstriysky Sea.

“Well,” said the dragon, “now we’ve divided all the land!”

“We’ve divided the land,” Nikita replied. “Let’s divide the sea as well, or you’ll say that people are taking your water.”

The dragon went out into the middle of the sea, and Nikita Kozhemyaka killed him and drowned him there. That furrow can still be seen; it stands two sazhen high. People plough around it but leave the furrow untouched, and those who do not know how it came to be call it a rampart. Having done this holy deed, Nikita Kozhemyaka took no payment and went back to working hides.