Page:Lange - The Blue Fairy Book.djvu/54

 west of the moon, and who was to marry a princess with a nose which was three ells long. ‘How do you happen to know about him?’ enquired the old woman; ‘maybe you are she who ought to have had him.’ ‘Yes, indeed, I am,’ she said. ‘So it is you, then?’ said the old woman; ‘I know nothing about him but that he dwells in a castle which is east of the sun and west of the moon. You will be a long time in getting to it, if ever you get to it at all; but you shall have the loan of my horse, and then you can ride on it to an old woman who is a neighbour of mine: perhaps she can tell you about him. When you have got there you must just strike the horse beneath the left ear and bid it go home again; but you may take the golden apple with you.’

So the girl seated herself on the horse, and rode for a long, long way, and at last she came to the mountain, where an aged woman was sitting outside with a gold carding-comb. The girl asked her if she knew the way to the castle which lay east of the sun and west of the moon; but she said what the first old woman had said: ‘I know nothing about it, but that it is east of the sun and west of the moon, and that you will be a long time in getting to it, if ever you get there at all; but you shall have the loan of my horse to an old woman who lives the nearest to me: perhaps she may know where the castle is, and when you have got to her you may just strike the horse beneath the left ear and bid it go home again.’ Then she gave her the gold carding-comb, for it might, perhaps, be of use to her, she said.

So the girl seated herself on the horse, and rode a wearisome long way onwards again, and after a very long time she came to a great mountain, where an aged woman was sitting, spinning at a golden spinning-wheel. Of this woman, too, she enquired if she knew the way to the Prince, and where to find the castle which lay east of the sun and west of the moon. But it was only the same thing once again. ‘Maybe it was you who should have had the Prince,’ said the old woman. ‘Yes, indeed, I should have been the one,’ said the girl. But this old crone knew the way no better than the others—it was east of the sun and west of the moon, she knew that, ‘and you will be a long time in getting to it, if ever you get to it at all,’ she said; ‘but you may have the loan of my horse, and I think you had better ride to the East Wind, and ask him: perhaps he may know where the castle is, and will blow you thither. But when you have got to him you must just strike the horse beneath the left ear, and he will come home again.’ And then she gave her