So the monarch"s youngest son also bade him farewell and set off for the frontiers of the empire. On the bridge stood a dragon still larger and more horrible, with jaws even more yawning and frightful. The creature now had seven heads instead of three.
Petru stopped when he beheld this monster. "Get out of the way!" he shouted. The dragon did not stir. Petru called a second and a third time, then rushed forward with uplifted sword. Instantly the sky darkened so that he saw nothing but fire--fire on the right, fire on the left, fire before him, fire behind him. The dragon was spitting fire from every one of its seven heads. The horse began to neigh and rear, so that our hero could not strike with his sword.
"Hold! This won"t do!" said Petru, dismounting and seizing the horse"s bridle with his left hand, while he held his sword in the right.
That plan would not do either. The hero saw nothing but fire and smoke.
"I"ll go home--to get a better horse," said Petru, and he mounted his steed, and went away to come back again.
When he reached the place his nurse, old Birscha, was waiting for him at the court-yard gate.
"Ah, my son Petru! I knew you would be obliged to come back again, because you didn"t set out right."
"How ought I to have gone?" asked Petru, half angrily, half sadly.
"You see, my dear Petru," the old nurse began, "you can"t reach the fountain of the Fairy Aurora unless you ride the horse which your father the emperor rode in his youth; go, ask where and whose that horse is, then mount it and depart."
Petru thanked her for her directions, and then went off to inquire about the horse.
"May the light grow black to you!" said the emperor. "Who told you to ask me that? It must surely have been that witch of a Birscha. Are you crazy? Fifty years have pa.s.sed since I was young, who knows where the bones of the horse I rode then are rotting? It seems to me that there"s one strap of the bridle lying on the stable floor. It"s all I have left of the horse."
Petru went off in a rage and told his old nurse the whole story.
"Just wait," cried the old woman, laughing. "If that"s the way things are, very well. Go and bring me the piece of the bridle, I shall know how to turn it to some account."
The floor was covered with saddles, bridles, and straps; Petru chose the most tattered, rusted, and blackest, and carried it to the old woman, that she might do with it what she had promised. The old nurse took the bridle, smoked it with incense, muttered a short spell over it, and then said to Petru. "Now take the bridle and strike the pillars[4] of the house with it."
[Footnote 4: Roumanian peasant cottages usually have several pillars in front, which support the projecting roof.]
Petru did as he was told. The old woman"s charm worked well. Scarcely had Petru struck the pillars when something happened--I don"t know how--that utterly amazed him. A horse stood before him, a horse whose superior the world never saw. Its saddle was made of gold and jewels, its bridle glittered so that one dared not look at it for fear of being blinded. A beautiful horse, beautiful saddle, and beautiful bridle for the handsome prince!
"Jump on the bay"s back, my young hero," cried the old woman, making the sign of the cross over horse and rider; then she repeated a short charm and went into the palace.
After Petru had leaped on the horse he felt thrice as much strength in his arm and thrice as much courage in his heart.
"Hold fast, master, for we have a long journey and must go swiftly,"
said the bay, and the hero soon saw that they galloped, galloped, galloped, as never horse and hero had galloped before.
On the bridge now stood a dragon whose like had never been there, a dragon with twelve heads, each one more terrible, more fiery than the others. Ah, but the monster found its match. Petru did not quail, but began to roll up his sleeves and spit upon his hands. "Out of the way!" he shouted. The dragon began to spit fire. Petru wasted no more words, but drew his sword and prepared to rush upon the bridge.
"Hold, calm yourself, master," said the bay, "do as I tell you; press the spurs into my flanks, draw your sword, and be ready, for we must now leap over the bridge and the dragon. When you see that we are directly over the monster, cut off its head, wipe the blood from your sword on your sleeve, and put it in the sheath, that you may be prepared to fight when we touch the earth again."
Petru struck in the spurs, drew his sword, hacked off the head, wiped the blood away, thrust the blade into its sheath, and was ready when he again felt firm ground under the horse"s hoofs. So they crossed the bridge.
"Now we must go on," Petru began, after he had cast one more glance back to his native land.
"Forward," replied the bay, "but you must now tell me, master, how we are to hasten. Like the wind? Like thought? Like longing? Or like a curse?"
Petru looked before him and saw nothing but sky and earth--a wilderness which made his hair bristle with horror.
"We will change our pace and ride like each in turn,--not too fast that we may not grow weary, and not too slow lest we should be late."
They rode on,--one day like the wind, one like thought, one like longing, and one like a curse, until in the gray dawn of the morning of the fourth day, they reached the end of the wilderness.
"Now stop and go on at a walk, that I may see what I have never beheld," cried Petru, rubbing his eyes like a person waking from sleep or one who beholds something that seems like an illusion. Before the eyes of the young prince stretched a copper forest--trees, saplings, shrubs, bushes, ferns, and flowers of the most beautiful varieties, all made of copper. Petru stood staring, as a man gazes who beholds something he has never seen or heard of. He rode into the wood. The blossoms along the wayside began to praise themselves and tempt Petru to gather them and make a garland:
"Take me, I am beautiful and give strength to him who breaks me," said one.
"Oh, no, take me, for whoever wears me in his hat will be loved by the greatest beauty in the world," said another. Then a third and a fourth, each lovelier than its companions, stirred, and in sweet tones tried to persuade Petru to gather it.
The bay sprang aside whenever it saw its master stoop toward a flower.
"Why don"t you keep quiet?" cried Petru, somewhat sternly.
"Pick no blossoms, you will fare badly if you gather them," replied the bay.
"Why should I fare badly?"
"A curse rests on these flowers--whoever gathers them must fight with the Welwa[5] of the wood."
[Footnote 5: Welwa, an indescribable monster that exists in the imagination of the Roumanian peasantry.]
"With what sort of a Welwa?"
"Now let me alone! But listen; look at the flowers and gather none of them, keep quiet." Having said this the horse went on at a walk. Petru knew by experience that he would do well to heed the bay"s advice. So he turned his thoughts away from the flowers. But it was all in vain!
If one is unlucky, he can"t get rid of his ill-fortune even if he tries with all his might. The flowers still offered themselves to him, and his heart grew weaker and weaker.
"Come what may," said Petru after a while, "I shall at least see the Welwa of this wood, that I may know what the monster is like and with whom I have to deal. If I am fated to die by its hands, it will kill me in some way, and if not I shall escape, though there should be hundreds and thousands like it." Then he began to pull off the flowers.
"You have done wrong!" said the bay anxiously. "But as the thing has happened it can"t be changed, so gird yourself and prepare to fight, for here is the Welwa."
The bay had scarcely spoken and Petru had hardly twined his wreath, when a light breeze blew from all quarters of the compa.s.s and soon rose to a gale. The gale increased until everywhere there was naught save gloom and darkness, gloom and darkness. The ground under Petru"s feet trembled and shook, till he felt as though somebody had taken the world on his back and was dragging it away at full speed.
"Are you afraid?" asked the bay, shaking its mane.
"Not at all," replied Petru, summoning up his courage, though chills were running down his back. "If a thing must be, all right; let it be as it is."
"You need not fear," replied the bay, to encourage him. "Take the bridle from my neck and try to catch the Welwa with it."
The horse had just time to say this and Petru had not even a chance to unfasten the bridle properly, when the Welwa stood before him, a monster so frightful, so terrible, that he could not look at it. It has no head, yet it is not headless, it does not fly through the air, yet neither does it walk on the earth. It has a mane like the horse, horns like the stag, a face like the bear, eyes like the polecat, and a body that resembles every thing except a living being! Such was the Welwa which rushed upon Petru.
Petru rose in his stirrups and began to strike, sometimes with his sword, sometimes with his arm, till the perspiration ran down his body in streams.
A day and night pa.s.sed away; the battle was not yet decided.
"Stop, so that we can rest a little while," said the Welwa, panting for breath.
The hero let his sword fall.