FullReads

The girl’s eyes filled with tears, and she stood gazing at him. The horse lifted his head, gave a little neigh, and said softly, ‘You look gentle and pitiful, but I know it is your love for your father which makes you tender to me. Ah, what a warrior he was, and what good times we shared together! But now I too have grown old, and my master has forgotten me, and there is no reason to care whether my coat is dull or shining. Yet, it is not too late, and if I were properly tended, in a week I could vie with any horse in the stables!’

‘And how should you be tended?’ asked the girl.

‘I must be rubbed down morning and evening with rain water, my barley must be boiled in milk, because of my bad teeth, and my feet must be washed in oil.’

‘I should like to try the treatment, as you might help me in carrying out my scheme.’

‘Try it then, mistress, and I promise you will never repent.’

So in a week’s time the horse woke up one morning with a sudden shiver through all his limbs; and when it had passed away, he found his skin shining like a mirror, his body as fat as a water melon, his movement light as a chamois.

Then looking at the princess who had come early to the stable, he said joyfully,

‘May success await on the steps of my master’s daughter, for she has given me back my life. Tell me what I can do for you, princess, and I will do it.’

‘I want to go to the emperor who is our over-lord, and I have no one to advise me. Which of all the white-headed boyards shall I choose as counsellor?’

‘If you have me, you need no one else: I will serve you as I served your father, if you will only listen to what I say.’

‘I will listen to everything. Can you start in three days?’

‘This moment, if you like,’ said the horse.

The preparations of the emperor’s youngest daughter were much fewer and simpler than those of her sisters. They only consisted of some boy’s clothes, a small quantity of linen and food, and a little money in case of necessity. Then she bade farewell to her father, and rode away.

A day’s journey from the palace, she reached the copper bridge, but before they came in sight of it, the horse, who was a magician, had warned her of the means her father would take to prove her courage.

Still in spite of his warning she trembled all over when a huge wolf, as thin as if he had fasted for a month, with claws like saws, and mouth as wide as an oven, bounded howling towards her. For a moment her heart failed her, but the next, touching the horse lightly with her spur, she drew her sword from its sheath, ready to separate the wolf’s head from its body at a single blow.

The beast saw the sword, and shrank back, which was the best thing it could do, as now the girl’s blood was up, and the light of battle in her eyes. Then without looking round, she rode across the bridge.

The emperor, proud of this first victory, took a short cut, and waited for her at the end of another day’s journey, close to a river, over which he threw a bridge of silver. And this time he took the shape of a lion.

But the horse guessed this new danger and told the princess how to escape it. But it is one thing to receive advice when we feel safe and comfortable, and quite another to be able to carry it out when some awful peril is threatening us. And if the wolf had made the girl quake with terror, it seemed like a lamb beside this dreadful lion.

At the sound of his roar the very trees quivered and his claws were so large that every one of them looked like a cutlass.