Page:Popular tales from the Norse (1912).djvu/507

 Rh "Gee up, gee up!' he said to his hack.

"Nay, nay," said the King's men; "if he won't stick there till he's starved to death."

And then they rode on, and laughed at him till they were fit to fall from their horses. When they were gone, lie ran again to the lime, and came up to the battle just in the very nick of time. This day he slew the enemy's king, and then the war was over at once.

When the battle was over, the King caught sight of his handkerchief, which the strange warrior had bound round his leg, and so it wasn't hard to find him out. So they took him with great joy between them to the palace, anr 1 the Princess, who saw him from her window, got so glad, no one can believe it.

"Here comes my own true love," she said.

Then he took the pot of ointment and rubbed himself on the leg, and after that he rubbed all the wounded, and so they all got well again in a moment.

So he got the Princess to wife; but when he went down into the stable where his horse was on the day the wedding was to be, there it stood so dull and heavy, and hung its ears down, and wouldn't eat its corn. So when the young King—for he was now a king, and had got half the kingdom—spoke to him and asked what ailed him, the Horse said,—

"Now I have helped you on, and now I won't live any longer. So just take the sword, and cut my head off."

"No, I'll do nothing of the kind," said the young King; "but you shall have all you want, and rest all your life."

"Well." said the Horse, "if you don't do as I tell you, see if I don't take your life somehow."

So the King had to do what he asked; but when he