Page:Czech Folk Tales.pdf/110

90 posts, with a hook on each one of them. There are heads on twenty-three of them. The last hook is waiting for your head. If you herd my horses badly, that hook is waiting for your head."

Then she fitted him out for herding the horses. She gave him a piece of bread, so that he might have enough to eat and not starve. He meant to follow the horse's advice, and threw the bread away. But a fierce hunger came upon him, and he had to go and look for the bread and eat it up.

The moment he had eaten it he fell asleep and all the horses were lost. When he awoke there wasn't a single horse there. Sorrowfully he said: "The Devil's grandmother was right; my head will hang from that hook." In his grief he thought of the fly, and it came flying up and called out: "Why are you weeping and wailing?"

He said that he had been hungry, and had been forced to eat the bread, so that he fell asleep and all the horses were lost.

The fly tried to comfort him, saying: "Don't be troubled, dear lad; I will help you."

So she called together all the flies, and