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And the Welwa? She had vanished.

‘You had better take breath now you can, for the fight will have to begin all over again,’ said the horse.

‘What was it?’ asked Petru.

‘It was the Welwa,’ replied the horse, ‘changed into a fog ‘Listen! She is coming!’

And Petru had hardly drawn a long breath when he felt something approaching from the side, though what he could not tell. A river, yet not a river, for it seemed not to flow over the earth, but to go where it liked, and to leave no trace of its passage.

‘Woe be to me!’ cried Petru, frightened at last.

‘Beware, and never stand still,’ called the brown horse, and more he could not say, for the water was choking him.

The battle began anew. For a day and a night Petru fought on, without knowing at whom or what he struck. At dawn on the second, he felt that both his feet were lame.

‘Now I am done for,’ thought he, and his blows fell thicker and harder in his desperation. And the sun came out and the water disappeared, without his knowing how or when.

‘Take breath,’ said the horse, ‘for you have no time to lose. The Welwa will return in a moment.’

Petru made no reply, only wondered how, exhausted as he was, he should ever be able to carry on the fight. But he settled himself in his saddle, grasped his sword, and waited.

And then something came to him–WHAT I cannot tell you. Perhaps, in his dreams, a man may see a creature which has what it has not got, and has not got what it has. At least, that was what the Welwa seemed like to Petru. She flew with her feet, and walked with her wings; her head was in her back, and her tail was on top of her body; her eyes were in her neck, and her neck in her forehead, and how to describe her further I do not know.

Petru felt for a moment as if he was wrapped in a garment of fear; then he shook himself and took heart, and fought as he had never yet fought before.

As the day wore on, his strength began to fail, and when darkness fell he could hardly keep his eyes open. By midnight he knew he was no longer on his horse, but standing on the ground, though he could not have told how he got there. When the grey light of morning came, he was past standing on his feet, but fought now upon his knees.

‘Make one more struggle; it is nearly over now,’ said the horse, seeing that Petru’s strength was waning fast.

Petru wiped the sweat from his brow with his gauntlet, and with a desperate effort rose to his feet.

‘Strike the Welwa on the mouth with the bridle,’ said the horse, and Petru did it.

The Welwa uttered a neigh so loud that Petru thought he would be deaf for life, and then, though she too was nearly spent, flung herself upon her enemy; but Petru was on the watch and threw the bridle over her head, as she rushed on, so that when the day broke there were three horses trotting beside him.

‘May your wife be the most beautiful of women,’ said the Welwa, ‘for you have delivered me from my enchantment.’ So the four horses galloped fast, and by nightfall they were at the borders of the golden forest.

Then Petru began to think of the crowns that he wore, and what they had cost him.

‘After all, what do I want with so many? I will keep the best,’ he said to himself; and taking off first the copper crown and then the silver, he threw them away.

‘Stay!’ cried the horse, ‘do not throw them away! Perhaps we shall find them of use. Get down and pick them up.’ So Petru got down and picked them up, and they all went on.