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The Seven Foals
by
Next day the second son said that he would now go out into the world to seek his fortune. His father and mother said ‘No,’ and bade him look at his brother’s back, but the youth would not give up his design, and stuck to it, and after a long, long time he got leave to go, and set forth on his way. When he had walked all day he too came to the King’s palace, and the King was standing outside on the steps, and asked where he was going; and when the youth replied that he was going about in search of a place, the King said that he might enter into his service and watch his seven foals. Then the King promised him the same punishment and the same reward that he had promised his brother.
The youth at once consented to this and entered into the King’s service, for he thought he could easily watch the foals and inform the King what they ate and drank.
In the grey light of dawn the Master of the Horse let out the seven foals, and off they went again over hill and dale, and off went the lad after them. But all went with him as it had gone with his brother. When he had run after the foals for a long, long time and was hot and tired, he passed by a cleft in the rock where an old woman was sitting spinning with a distaff, and she called to him:
‘Come hither, come hither, my handsome son, and let me comb your hair.’
The youth liked the thought of this, let the foals run where they chose, and seated himself in the cleft of the rock by the side of the old hag. So there he sat with his head on her lap, taking his ease the livelong day.
The foals came back in the evening, and then he too got a bit of moss and a bottle of water from the old hag, which things he was to show to the King. But when the King asked the youth: ‘Canst thou tell me what my seven foals eat and drink?’ and the youth showed him the bit of moss and the bottle of water, and said: ‘Yes here may you behold their meat, and here their drink,’ the King once more became wroth, and commanded that three red stripes should be cut on the lad’s back, that salt should be strewn upon them, and that he should then be instantly chased back to his own home. So when the youth got home again he too related all that had happened to him, and he too said that he had gone out in search of a place once, but that never would he do it again.
On the third day Cinderlad wanted to set out. He had a fancy to try to watch the seven foals himself, he said.
The two others laughed at him, and mocked him. ‘What I when all went so ill with us, do you suppose that you are going to succeed? You look like succeeding–you who have never done anything else but lie and poke about among the ashes!’ said they.
‘Yes, I will go too,’ said Cinderlad, ‘for I have taken it into my head.’
The two brothers laughed at him, and his father and mother begged him not to go, but all to no purpose, and Cinderlad set out on his way. So when he had walked the whole day, he too came to the King’s palace as darkness began to fall.
There stood the King outside on the steps, and he asked whither he was bound.
‘I am walking about in search of a place,’ said Cinderlad.
‘From whence do you come, then?’ inquired the King, for by this time he wanted to know a little more about the men before he took any of them into his service.
So Cinderlad told him whence he came, and that he was brother to the two who had watched the seven foals for the King, and then he inquired if he might be allowed to try to watch them on the following day.