out laughing at him again, and one of them
shot an arrow at him and hit him in the leg. So he began to shriek and
to bewail; 'twas enough to break one's heart; and so the _King_ threw
his pocket-handkerchief to him to bind his wound.

When they went out to battle the third day, the lad still sat there.

"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, he 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, and 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 swung the sword and
was to cut his head off, he was so sorry he turned away his face, for
he would not see the stroke fall. But as soon as ever he had cut off
the head, there stood the loveliest _Prince_ on the spot where the
horse had stood.

"Why, where in all the world did you come from?" asked the _King_.

"It was I who was a horse," said the _Prince_; "for I was king of
that land whose king you slew yesterday. He it was who threw this
_Troll's_ shape over me, and sold me to the _Troll_. But now he is
slain I ge