Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 11, 2025
'There is no help for it; I must go back and get a better horse, said he, and mounted again and rode homewards. At the gate of the palace his nurse, old Birscha, was waiting for him eagerly. 'Ah, Petru, my son, I knew you would have to come back, she cried. 'You did not set about the matter properly. 'How ought I to have set about it? asked Petru, half angrily, half sadly.
'Look here, my boy, replied old Birscha. 'You can never reach the spring of the Fairy of the Dawn unless you ride the horse which your father, the emperor, rode in his youth. Go and ask where it is to be found, and then mount it and be off with you. Petru thanked her heartily for her advice, and went at once to make inquiries about the horse.
"I'll go home to get a better horse," said Petru, and he mounted his steed, and went away to come back again. When he reached the place his nurse, old Birscha, was waiting for him at the court-yard gate. "Ah, my son Petru! I knew you would be obliged to come back again, because you didn't set out right." "How ought I to have gone?" asked Petru, half angrily, half sadly.
'By the light of my eyes! exclaimed the emperor when Petru had put his question. 'Who has told you anything about that? It must have been that old witch of a Birscha? Have you lost your wits? Fifty years have passed since I was young, and who knows where the bones of my horse may be rotting, or whether a scrap of his reins still lie in his stall? I have forgotten all about him long ago.
Nothing was left of the palace except the ground where it had stood. No trace of any human being who could have uttered a word or given any tidings was to be found. At last old Birscha came out of a ruined cellar. Petru learned what had happened and its cause, turned his bay, and went back even more swiftly than he had come.
The emperor was blind altogether now, and Florea and Costan had besought him to give the government of the kingdom into their hands; but he would not, saying that he did not mean to resign the government till he had washed his eyes from the well of the Fairy of the Dawn. Then the brothers had gone to consult old Birscha, who told them that Petru was already on his way home bearing the water.
The emperor had replied that no one should rule the land except he who brought water from the Fairy Aurora's fountain. "As the brothers understood his meaning they went to old Birscha, who told them that you had been there, accomplished the feat, and set out on your way home.
"Who told you to ask me that? It must surely have been that witch of a Birscha. Are you crazy? Fifty years have passed since I was young, who knows where the bones of the horse I rode then are rotting? It seems to me that there's one strap of the bridle lying on the stable floor. It's all I have left of the horse." Petru went off in a rage and told his old nurse the whole story.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking