The Magic Horse
"Any more Wonder?" asked the King of Persia. That was the day in a year when the king loved to witness all that was wonderful. Magicians and wizards gathered in dozens to demonstrate their tricks and feats. They returned with bagfuls of pure gold. "Last but not least, my lord, here is a wooden horse," said a fellow who looked like the cousin of a scarecrow. "You sport before the King of Persia who owns ten thousand horses, the best in the world, a wooden horse and call it wonderful!" demanded the king, his face red like an over-ripe orange.
"My lord, my wooden horse can drive your ten thousand real horses to hide in shame," claimed the fellow. Next, he hopped on to it and gave a gentle twist to its left ear, and lo and behold! the horse rose to the sky. Higher and higher went the horse and its rider, leaving the king and the crowd looks up agape. They descended ten minutes later, the scarecrow sporting a proud smile. "Price, please?" asked the king when he found his tongue. "The princess!" replied the fellow. Yes, he would agree to no other price than the princess to wife, not even the most charming chief maid of the princess. The prince who observed the feat and heard the negotiation with great interest suddenly jumped onto the horse and twisted its left ear. The next moment he was seen disappearing beyond the clouds "Haha!" laughed the king. "He loves his sister too well to allow you to marry her," said the king. "But how is the prince going to return? He never learned the trick! Ha, ha!" laughed the fellow. The king looked as gloomy as an overcast sky. "Dump this fellow in a dungeon!"" he ordered. The man pleaded that he was not to blame for the rashness of the prince. "You are to blame for your laugh," growled the king. High over the city and the hills flew the magic horse. It carried the prince through layers of cloud-of silver, gold, and diamond hue. By and by the moon grew big and bright, and a million and a billion stars twinkled in the sky which had never looked so splendidly blue and twinkled brighter. The prince now decided to return and realized that he knew not how to. But clever that he was, he gave a twist to the horse's right ear. The horse began to descend. But the prince now realized that he knew not how to lead the horse to a particular destination. The horse came down and down and stood on the roof of a huge castle. Everything was quiet. Leaving the horse in a corner of the roof, the daring prince descended through the stairs into a wide hall filled with armed men- all asleep. He crossed the hall and entered a smaller hall filled with armed women- all asleep.
He crossed it and entered a magnificent room in which, on an ivory cot, lay a beauty.. asleep too. "What a beauty!" whispered the prince to himself bringing his face as close to the beauty's as decency would permit. But the princess opened her eyes wide and looked amazed. "Sorry for disturbing your sleep," said the prince. "You ought to be sorry for violation of several other palace rules, before being sorry for that," said the princess. "I, the prince of Persia, am here seeking your hospitality, led astray - but now I doubt if astray is the word - by a magic horse. "I, the princess of Bengal, am not sure that I am not dreaming. But you are welcome," replied the beauty. The princess woke up her pet maids and arranged for the prince to be lodged in a comfortable private apartment. She continued to overwhelm the prince with her lavish hospitality even after she had been pretty sure that he was not a figure in a dream. Days passed and weeks. The two realized that it is going to be very hard for one to separate from the other. "Let us first escape to Persia. Your father would surely then agree to our marriage," proposed the prince.
The princess loved adventure. At midnight they rode the magic horse and rose high. Again the prince remembered that he knew not how to lead the horse to a particular destination. However, for a trial, he whispered in the horse's ear, "To the capital of Persia!" And the wooden horse had more than a mere horse sense, a clear sense of geography. It changed its direction. To the great delight of the prince, soon the towers of his town were visible below the clouds. But, instead of going straight to the palace, the prince landed in a garden, and leaving the horse and princess there, hurried to report to his father. The king jumped up in joy. The first thing he did was to free the owner of the wooden horse. He gave him a bagful of gold and a kindly smile. But as soon as the fellow heard from others all about the prince's return with a beautiful bride, he ran towards the garden. While the king was still organizing a procession to go and receive the princess of Bengal, the fellow met her and said, "The king and the prince have sent for you. Hurry up!" The princess, impatient for the prince, did not even reflect why a scarecrow should be sent to take her to the palace. The fellow sat on the magic horse and the princess jumped onto it. Up they went instantly. The great royal procession saw the horse rising into the frothy clouds. The king swooned away, more in anger than in sorrow. "Father! Either I will come back with the princess, or I will not be back at all," said the prince when the king sat up. The king nodded understandingly and wiped his eyes. The prince galloped away. The scarecrow landed in a forest in a faraway country. "You must marry me," he demanded taking hold of the princess with violence. "I will rather die," shrieked the princess struggling to free herself. "If die one must, it must be the other one," said a roaring voice from behind. Next moment the kidnapper was seen lying slain and the princess taken hold of by a rider. "Who are you?" asked the princess. "I am the one who marries the damsels he saves," replied the rider.
The princess shrieked again. Although many heard her cry, nobody uttered a word, for her captor was the Sultan of the land. However, she continued to scream. She was imprisoned in a beautiful mansion. Physician after physician came to cure hear. If one lost a part of his beard to the princess, another the full. And there was no physician sans beard. The screaming princess was growing ever more violent, even ready to bite. "You must not go near the biting princess," advised the sultan's granny. "A lady's teeth bear poison. And a bite of a princess- a mad princess at that - might prove incurably poisonous." At last, came a young physician who claimed that he had cured the King of Kabul of his baldpate and the King of Kashmir of his bulging belly. Hopefully, the sultan led him to the princess. But as soon as the screaming princess came to tear his beard, the physician uttered and he uttered it in the style of muttering a hymn - "This beard, O princess, have I grown on account of you!" The princess knew the voice of her prince. She stopped screaming. The prince told the sultan to leave them alone for a while. The sultan obliged him. The prince hit upon a plan and discussed it with the princess and left her. He asked the sultan how he got such a wonderful prize as the princess of Bengal. The sultan told him all about the magic horse which of course the prince knew.
"Now I understand. The princess has got her craziness from the magic horse. I can make the magic horse suck the craziness out of her if she sits on it for an hour while it is on the ground," said the prince. The magic horse was brought from the royal museum and the princess was asked to sit on it. The prince recited strange sorts of hymns as he lit a fire around the horse. The sultan was amazed to see the result, for no more was the princess wroth against a beard although beards galore were available handy. When the flames and the smoke enveloped the horse, the prince hopped on to it and gave its left ear a prompt twist. They rose into a clear sky. The prince laughed and the princess giggled looking below. The sultan's bodyguards hurled their weapons and courtiers their bejeweled staffs. Only the clown's cap touched the tip of the horse's tail. In a few hours, they were in Persia. They married as soon as the prince had shaved off his beard. The king of Bengal was proud to get a son-in-law who moved about in a flying horse, for the son-in-law of fellow kings had nothing better than ordinary horses to trot about.
For More Bedtime Stories Click Here
Comments
Post a Comment