prince embraced the
ladies and after having bade them farewell he rode away, but they
sobbed and wept bitterly when he left them.

They reached the country which had once been the kingdom of the
Scorpion Witch, but found cities there; the woods had become fields;
the prince questioned one person and another about the Scorpion Witch
and her house, but they answered that their grandfathers had heard
from their great, great grandfathers that such silly tales had once
been told.

"How is that possible!" replied the prince, "I came through this
region myself only a short time ago," and he told them all he knew.

The people laughed at him as if he were a lunatic or a person talking
in his sleep, and the prince angrily rode on without noticing that his
hair and beard were growing white.

When he reached the realm of the Woodpecker Fairy, the same questions
and answers were exchanged. The prince could not understand how these
places had altered so much in a few days, and again rode angrily on.
He now had a white beard that reached to his waist, and he felt as if
his feet were beginning to tremble.

Quitting this country he arrived in his father's empire. Here he found
new people, new towns, and every thing so much changed that he could
not recognize it. At last he came to the palace where he was born.
When he dismounted, the horse kissed his hand, and said:

"I wish you good health, master, I'm going back to the place from
which I came. If you want to go too, mount quickly, and we'll be off."

"Farewell, I too hope to return soon."

The horse darted away with the speed of an arrow.

When the prince saw the ruined palace and the weeds growing around it,
he sighed deeply and with tears in his eyes tried to remember how
magnificent these places had once been. He walked around the building
two or three times, tried to recollect how every room, every corner
had looked, found the stable where he had discovered the horse, and
then went down into the cellar, whose entrance was choked up with
fallen rubbish.

He groped hither and thither, holding up his eyelids with his hands,
and scarcely able to totter along, while his snowy beard now fell to
his knees, but found nothing except a dilapidated old chest, which he
opened. It seemed empty, but as he raised the lid a voice from the
bottom said: "Welcome, if you had kept me waiting much longer, I too
should have gone to decay."

Then his death, which had become completely shri