Page:Czech Folk Tales.pdf/54

34 the cord cut into him. So he was helpless, and had to lie like a baby in its swaddling-clothes. Now the griffin hastened to cut his head off; he hewed the body in pieces and hung the heart from the ceiling. The mother packed the body in a cloth, and put the bundle on the back of the magic horse, which was waiting in the courtyard, saying:

"You carried him alive, so you can carry him dead too, wherever you like."

The horse did not wait, but flew off, and soon they reached home.

Holy Sunday had been expecting him, for she knew what would probably happen to him. Without delay she rubbed the body with the Water of Death, then she put it together and poured the Water of Life over it. Víťazko yawned, and rose to his feet alive and well. "Well, I have had a long sleep," he said to himself.

"You would have been sleeping till doomsday if I hadn't awakened you. Well, how do you feel now?"

"Oh! I am all right! Only, it's funny: it's as though I had not got any heart."

"That is true; you haven't got a heart," answered Holy Sunday.