Page:The Green Fairy Book (1902).djvu/326

 his part would give him his written promise to let him have whatever first met him on his return.

The King thought to himself, ‘That’s easy enough to promise. The creature won’t understand a word about it, so I can just write what I choose.’

So he took pen and ink and wrote something, and when he had



done Jack my Hedgehog pointed out the way and the King got safely home.

Now when the King’s daughter saw her father returning in the distance she was so delighted that she ran to meet him and threw herself into his arms. Then the King remembered Jack my Hedgehog, and he told his daughter how he had been obliged to give a written promise to bestow whatever he first met when he got home on an extraordinary creature which had shown him the way. The creature, said he, rode on a cock as though it had been a horse,