One day he was sitting in his golden armchair looking out of the window lost in thought.  He had gazed for quite a while before he noticed foreign sailors landing opposite the imperial palace.  The sailors ran their ship up to the wharf, reefed their white sails, threw the heavy anchor into the sea and prepared the plank ready to go ashore.  Before them all walked an old merchant; white was his beard and he had about him the air of a wise man.  An idea suddenly occurred to the Tsar:  “Sea merchants generally are well informed on many subjects.  If I ask them, perchance I shall find that they have met somewhere a princess, beautiful and clever, suitable for me, the Tsar Archidei.”

Without delay the order was given to call the sea merchants into the halls of the palace.

The merchant guests appeared, prayed to the holy icons hanging in the corner, bowed to the Tsar, bowed to the wise advisers.  The Tsar ordered his servants to serve them with tumblers of strong green wine.  The guests drank the strong green wine and wiped their beards with embroidered towels.  Then the Tsar Archidei addressed them: 

“We are aware that you gallant sea merchants cross all the big waters and see many wonderful things.  My desire is to ask you about something, and you must give a straightforward answer without any deceit or evasion.”

“So be it, mighty Tsar Archidei Aggeivitch,” answered the merchant guests, bowing.

“Well, then, can you tell me if somewhere in an empire or kingdom, or among great princes, there is a maiden as beautiful and wise as I myself, Tsar Archidei; an illustrious maiden who would be a proper wife for me, a suitable Tsaritza for my country?”

The merchant guests seemed to be puzzled, and after a long silence the eldest among them thus replied: 

“Indeed, I once heard that yonder beyond the great sea, on an island called Buzan, there is a great country; and the sovereign of that land has a daughter named Helena, a princess very beautiful, not less so, I dare say, than thyself.  And wise she is, too; a wise man once tried for three years to guess a riddle that she gave, and did not succeed.”

“How far is that island, pray tell, and where are the roads that lead to it?”

“The island is not near,” answered the old merchant.  “If one chooses the wide sea he must journey ten years.  Besides, the way to it is not known to us.  Moreover, even suppose we did know the way, it seems that the Princess Helena is not a bride for thee.”

The Tsar Archidei shouted with anger: 

“How dost thou dare to speak such words, thou, a long-bearded buck?”

“Thy will be done, but think for thyself.  Suppose thou shouldst send an envoy to the island of Buzan.  He would require ten long years to go there, ten years equally long to come back, and so his journey would require fully twenty years.  By that time a most beautiful princess would grow old—­a girl’s beauty is like the swallow, a bird of passage; it lasts not long.”