, on horses and jackasses, riding and walking, crawling and
creeping. "My tight little fellow," says a man that was passing to
Billy, "why don't you come to see the great fight?" "What would take
the likes of me there?" says Billy. But when Billy found them all gone
he saddled and bridled the best black horse his master had, and put on
the best suit of clothes he could get in his master's house, and rode
off to the fight after the rest. When Billy went there he saw the
king's daughter, with the whole court about her, on a platform before
the castle, and he thought he never saw anything half as beautiful,
and the great warrior that was to fight the dragon was walking up and
down on the lawn before her, with three men carrying his sword, and
every one in the whole country gathered there looking at him. But when
the fiery dragon came up with twelve heads on him, and every mouth of
him spitting fire, and let twelve roars out of him, the warrior ran
away and hid himself up to the neck in a well of water, and all they
could do they couldn't get him to come and face the dragon. Then the
king's daughter asked if there was no one there to save her from the
dragon, and get her in marriage. But no one stirred. When Billy saw
this, he tied the belt of the bull's hide round him, swung his stick
over his head, and went in, and after a terrible fight, entirely
killed the dragon. Everyone then gathered about to find who the
stranger was. Billy jumped on his horse and darted away sooner than
let them know; but just as he was getting away the king's daughter
pulled the shoe off his foot. When the dragon was killed the warrior
that had hid in the well of water came out, and cutting off the heads
of the dragon he brought them to the king, and said that it was he who
killed the dragon, in disguise; and he claimed the king's daughter.
But she tried the shoe on him and found it didn't fit him; so she said
it wasn't him, and that she would marry no one only the man the shoe
fitted. When Billy got home he changed his clothes again, and had the
horse in the stable, and the cattle all in before his master came.
When the master came, he began telling Billy about the wonderful day
they had entirely, and about the warrior hiding in the well of water,
and about the grand stranger that came down out of the sky in a cloud
on a black horse, and killed the fiery dragon, and then vanished in a
cloud again. "And now," says he, "Billy, wasn't that wonderful?"