"Make ready, master, the Scorpion Witch is coming."
The Scorpion Witch, with one jaw in the sky and the other on the earth, approached like the wind, spitting fire as she came, but the horse darted upward as swiftly as an arrow, and then rushed over her a little on one side. The hero shot an arrow and one of her heads fell, but when he was going to strike off another, the Scorpion Witch entreated him to forgive her, she would do him no harm, and to convince him of this she gave him her promise, written in her own blood.
Like the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r Fairy, she entertained the prince, who returned her head, which grew on again, and at the end of three days he resumed his travels.
When the hero and his horse had reached the boundaries of the Scorpion Witch"s kingdom they hurried on without resting till they came to a field covered with flowers, where reigned perpetual spring. Every blossom was remarkably beautiful and filled with a sweet, intoxicating fragrance; a gentle breeze fanned them all. They remained here to rest, but the horse said:
"We have arrived so far successfully, master, but we still have one great peril to undergo and, if the Lord helps us to conquer it, we shall really be valiant heroes. A short distance further on is the palace where dwell Youth without Age and Life without Death. It is surrounded by a high, dense forest, where roam all the wild animals in the world, watching it day and night. They are very numerous, and it is almost beyond the bounds of possibility to get through the wood by fighting them; we must try, if we can, to jump over them."
After resting about two days they prepared to continue their journey, and the horse, holding its breath, said:
"Buckle my girth as tight as you can, and when you have mounted hold fast to my mane and press your feet close to my neck, that you may not hinder me." The prince mounted, and in a moment they were close to the forest.
"Master," said the horse, "this is the time that the wild beasts are fed; they are all collected together, now we"ll jump over."
"Forward," replied the handsome prince, "and may the Lord have mercy on us."
They flew upward and saw the palace, which glittered so that it would have been easier to look at the sun. They pa.s.sed over the forest, and, just as they were descending at the palace steps, one of the horse"s hoofs lightly touched the top of a tree, which put the whole woods in motion. The wild animals began to howl till it was enough to make one"s hair bristle. They hastily alighted, and if the mistress of the palace had not been outside feeding her chickens (for that is what she called the wild beasts), they would certainly have been killed. She spared their lives out of pure pleasure, for she had never before seen a human being. Restraining the savage beasts, she soothed them, and sent them back to their haunts. She was a tall, slender, lovely fairy, quite too beautiful. When the young hero saw her, he stood still as though turned to stone. But as she gazed at him she pitied him and said:
"Welcome, my handsome prince. What do you seek here?"
"We seek Youth without Age and Life without Death."
Then he dismounted from his horse and entered the palace, where he found two other ladies, both of the same age, the elder sisters of the first one. He began to thank the fairy for having delivered him from danger, but she and her sisters, to show their joy, had a handsome banquet served in golden dishes. They gave the horse liberty to graze wherever it chose, and afterward made it acquainted with all the wild beasts, so that it might rove about the forest in peace. The ladies entreated the prince to stay with them, saying that it was so tiresome to be alone. He did not wait to be asked a second time, but accepted the offer with the satisfaction of a man who has found precisely what he sought.
By degrees they became accustomed to live together; the prince told them his story and related what he had suffered before meeting them, and after some time he married the youngest sister. At their wedding permission was granted to him to go wherever he liked in the neighborhood; they only begged him not to enter one valley, which they pointed out, otherwise some misfortune would befall him; it was called, they said, the Valley of Lamentation.
The prince spent a very long time at the palace without being aware of it, for he always remained just as young as he was when he arrived.
He wandered about the woods without ever having a headache. He amused himself in the golden palace, lived in peace and quiet with his wife and her sisters, enjoyed the beauty of the flowers, and the sweet, pure air. He often went hunting; but one day, while pursuing a hare, he shot two arrows at it without hitting the animal. Angrily chasing it he discharged a third arrow, which struck it, but in his haste the luckless man had not noticed that he had pa.s.sed through the Valley of Lamentation while following the game.
He picked it up and turned toward home, but was suddenly seized with a longing for his father and mother. He did not venture to speak of this wish to his wife, yet by his grief and restlessness both she and her sisters instantly perceived his condition.
"Oh! luckless prince, you have pa.s.sed through the Valley of Lamentation," they said in terror.
"I did so, my dear ones, without meaning to be so imprudent, but now the longing to see my parents is killing me! Yet I can not forsake you. I have already spent several days with you and have no cause to complain. So I"ll go and see my parents once more, and then come back to you, never to leave you again."
"Do not quit us, beloved prince! Your parents died two or three hundred years ago, and if you go, we fear you yourself will never return; stay with us, for a presentiment of evil tells us that you will perish!"
All the entreaties of the three ladies, as well as those of the horse, were unable to quiet the young hero"s longing for his parents, which was fairly consuming him alive.
At last the horse said: "If you don"t listen to me, master, whatever happens to you will be your own fault. I"ll tell you something, and if you accept my condition, I"ll take you back."
"I"ll accept it with many thanks," replied the prince; "let me hear it."
"As soon as you reach your father"s palace you will dismount, but I am to return alone in case you stay even an hour."
"Be it so," the prince agreed.
They made their preparations for the journey, the prince embraced the ladies and after having bade them farewell he rode away, but they sobbed and wept bitterly when he left them.
They reached the country which had once been the kingdom of the Scorpion Witch, but found cities there; the woods had become fields; the prince questioned one person and another about the Scorpion Witch and her house, but they answered that their grandfathers had heard from their great, great grandfathers that such silly tales had once been told.
"How is that possible!" replied the prince, "I came through this region myself only a short time ago," and he told them all he knew.
The people laughed at him as if he were a lunatic or a person talking in his sleep, and the prince angrily rode on without noticing that his hair and beard were growing white.
When he reached the realm of the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r Fairy, the same questions and answers were exchanged. The prince could not understand how these places had altered so much in a few days, and again rode angrily on.
He now had a white beard that reached to his waist, and he felt as if his feet were beginning to tremble.
Quitting this country he arrived in his father"s empire. Here he found new people, new towns, and every thing so much changed that he could not recognize it. At last he came to the palace where he was born.
When he dismounted, the horse kissed his hand, and said:
"I wish you good health, master, I"m going back to the place from which I came. If you want to go too, mount quickly, and we"ll be off."
"Farewell, I too hope to return soon."
The horse darted away with the speed of an arrow.
When the prince saw the ruined palace and the weeds growing around it, he sighed deeply and with tears in his eyes tried to remember how magnificent these places had once been. He walked around the building two or three times, tried to recollect how every room, every corner had looked, found the stable where he had discovered the horse, and then went down into the cellar, whose entrance was choked up with fallen rubbish.
He groped hither and thither, holding up his eyelids with his hands, and scarcely able to totter along, while his snowy beard now fell to his knees, but found nothing except a dilapidated old chest, which he opened. It seemed empty, but as he raised the lid a voice from the bottom said: "Welcome, if you had kept me waiting much longer, I too should have gone to decay."
Then his death, which had become completely shriveled in the chest, seized him; but the prince fell lifeless on the ground and instantly crumbled into dust.
Into the saddle then I sprung, The tale to tell to old and young.
The Little Purse with two Half-pennies.
There was once an old man and an old woman. The old woman had a hen and the old man had a rooster; the old woman"s hen laid two eggs a day and she ate a great many, but she would not give the old man a single one. One day the old man lost patience and said: "Listen, old crony, you live as if you were in clover, give me a couple of eggs so that I can at least have a taste of them."
"No indeed!" replied the old woman, who was very avaricious. "If you want eggs, beat your rooster that he may lay eggs for you, and then eat them; I flogged my hen, and just see how she lays now."
The old man, being stingy and greedy, listened to the old woman"s talk, angrily seized his rooster, gave him a sound thrashing and said:
"There, now, lay some eggs for me or else go out of the house, I won"t feed you for nothing any longer."
As soon as the rooster escaped from the old man"s hands it ran off down the high-road. While thus pursuing its way, lo and behold! it found a little purse with two half-pennies. Taking it in its beak, the bird turned and went back toward the old man"s house. On the road it met a carriage containing a gentleman and several ladies. The gentleman looked at the rooster, saw a purse in its bill, and said to the driver:
"Get down and see what this rooster has in its beak."
The driver hastily jumped from his box, took the little purse from the rooster"s bill, and gave it to his master. The gentleman put it in his pocket and drove on. The rooster was very angry and ran after the carriage, repeating continually:
"Kikeriki, sir, Kikerikak, To me the little purse give back."
The enraged gentleman said to the coachman as they pa.s.sed a well: