Page:Czech Folk Tales.pdf/52

32 that she liked him well and she would marry him.

"I like you well too," confessed Víťazko, "and, if I could, I would go with you at once. But if you really love me, and if you will consent to wait a year for me, I will come to you then."

The princess pledged herself by shaking hands with him, and she said she would wait a year for him. And so they said good-bye to each other. Víťazko mounted his horse, cleared the rampart at a leap, killed the horses on the meadow for the black raven, and hastened home.

"Well, how have you fared?" asked Holy Sunday.

"Very well, but if it hadn't been for a ring which was given me by a princess I should have fared very badly," answered Víťazko, and he told her everything. She told him to go home with the golden apples and to take the magic horse with him too. Víťazko obeyed.

The griffin and the mother were carousing again. They were greatly startled when Víťazko came riding home; they had never expected that he would return alive even from