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The Wooden Horse

A carpenter and a blacksmith had an argument. Each of them insisted that he was more skilful than the other. Who was actually the more skilful of the two? They disputed this question for a long time without reaching any conclusion. Finally they agreed, "Let's go to the king and ask him to be the judge."

So they came to the king who asked them, "What have you come for?"

"I am a carpenter," said the one. "And my handiwork is more ingenious than the handiwork of any other carpenter in the world. But he said that I cannot match him in skill."

The blacksmith said, "Whoever sees my work praises it. But he insists that my skill is inferior to his."

"We want Your Majesty to be our judge and tell us whose skill is truly superior," the two pleaded. This put the king in a difficult position. "How can I form a judgement without seeing a single thing you have made?" said he. "I'll give you ten days. In that time you must each make a sample of your work and bring it here."

The two went home and each set his hand to his task. Ten days later, they came to the king again. The blacksmith brought with him a huge iron fish. "What can this do?" asked the king.

The blacksmith told him, "This iron fish of mine can float in the sea loaded with a hundred thousand sacks of grain."

These words made the king laugh inwardly. "This fellow is bound to come out the loser," he said to himself. "Such heavy iron will definitely sink when put in the water. How can it possibly float? But anyway, they may as well put a hundred thousand sacks of grain into the thing and see what happens." On his orders, the iron fish was launched. Strangely enough, it moved through the water with speed and without the least trace of clumsiness. It caused quite a sensation among the spectators. The king was most impressed and even promised the blacksmith an official post. Later he actually made him beadle of one of his districts.

The carpenter came with a wooden horse slung over his shoulder. When he saw it, the king pulled a long face, "Surely this is a child's toy? How can it compare with the iron fish?"

"Oh, it's even better than the iron fish," said the carpenter. "It has twenty-six screws on it. When you loosen the first screw, the wooden horse will fly into the sky; when you loosen the second screw, it will accelerate. If you loosen all the twenty-six screws, it will fly more quickly than any bird and take you around the world."

The young prince happened to be present while they were talking about this. His curiosity was greatly aroused when he heard that the wooden horse could fly. How he wished he could fly up into the sky and have a look at the world! He turned to the king and asked him to let

him have a ride. The king said, "No, it's out of the question. Are you even sure that it can really fly? What if it rises into the sky and then falls to the ground?"

"Don't worry," said the carpenter. "There is no chance of that ever happening."

The little prince kept pestering his father. Since the king doted on him and had never refused him anything, he got his way in the end. "But you can only try it out," said the king. "You must fly slowly and only loosen the first screw." Agreeing to this, the little prince mounted the horse. He loosened the first screw, and sure enough, the wooden horse rose into the air. He looked down and saw everything beneath him moving further away: the mountains, the rivers, the trees, the towns, the crowds of people. He was so delighted that he loosened one screw after another. The wooden horse flew faster and faster and soon crowds, trees, towns were all out of sight. As he flew, the little prince became hungry. He looked down and saw another city beneath him. He tightened the screws one by one. The wooden horse slowed down and gradually landed. The little prince had a meal and put up for the night at an inn. What fun! To arrive like this, in the twinkling of an eye, in a new town, a town he had never seen before!

The next day the little prince went sight-seeing. Having strolled along several streets, he found himself in a square filled with people gazing up into the sky. "There must be something fascinating up there in the sky," he thought. He elbowed his way into the crowd and looked up, but there was nothing to be seen.

"What are you looking at?" he asked a man beside him. The man gave him a scrutinizing glance and replied, "Our king has a princess. No one in the world can match her in beauty. The king loves her so much that he will not let anybody look at her. The princess used to live in the palace, but the king thought that she was not safe enough there, so he has had a mansion built in the sky and the princess lives there all by herself. Every day, when the court is dismissed, the king goes up to see her. He has been there for quite a long while and is expected to return at any moment. That's why everyone is here, waiting for him."

This sounded quite strange to the little prince.

"Surely it's impossible to build a palace in the sky?"

"The palace was built by an immortal, and only the king can go there," said the man.

The little prince bore these words in mind. That night he mounted his wooden horse and flew up into the sky, where sure enough, a magnificent palace greeted his eyes. He flew directly to the door, dismounted from his horse and walked in. Seeing a man come in, the princess at first took him for her father. When she discovered her mistake, she thought he must be a god come down from heaven and hurriedly stood up

to greet him. "What a lovely young lady!" thought the prince. "What a handsome young man!" thought the princess. They fell in love at first sight and without knowing what they were doing, they walked up to each other and embraced.

The following morning the little prince returned to the inn on his horse, and later that day, the king came to the palace in the sky as usual. The first thing he did was to weigh the princess. He used to do this every day, for he knew that a woman would put on weight if she had touched a man. As he weighed her that day, he found the princess two pounds heavier than usual. He flew into a rage, he scowled and his beard stood on end. People were very puzzled that day because the king returned to his palace rather early. Seeing that he was in a bad mood, his courtiers came forward to ask what was troubling him. The king told them what had happened. "Who else can go up there but me?" he asked, and then added, "You must find me a way to arrest this man."

One of his courtiers made a suggestion, "We have four mighty warriors in our kingdom. Your Majesty can send them up to stand at the foot of the four walls of the palace. When the man turns up, they wil1 he sure to catch him." The king thought this an excellent idea. That evening he personally took the warriors up and showed them where to hide and keep watch. When everything was set, the king went down to his palace. But, unfortunately for his plans, the warriors were inveterate sleepy heads and soon fell asleep at their posts. The little prince came again and stayed with impunity until dawn.

When the king arrived and weighed the princess, he discovered that she had put on weight again. He was speechless with rage.

He called in another courtier for consultation. The courtier said, "Why not apply a coat of paint to the bed and chairs of the princess? Then tomorrow we can search the city and whoever has paint on his clothes is our man." The king followed his advice and had the princess' bed, chairs and all her other furniture painted. In the evening the little prince came again. On his way back, he noticed that his clothes were badly stained with paint, so he took them off and threw them away.

It so happened that in the town there lived a poor old man who got up before dawn every day and went from door to door waking people to go to mosque. While he was on his rounds that day, something dropped from the sky. He picked it up and found it to be a set of very fine clothes. "I have been serving Allah all my life and this must be my reward!" the old man thought to himself and took the clothes home.

That evening, when the whole town came to the mosque to pray, the king secretly sent his men to search for the suspect. The old man who was happily wearing his "reward from Allah" soon got into trouble. In the middle of the service, he was arres

ted and brought to the king. "Why are your clothes stained with paint?" the king questioned him. The old man answered, "I picked these clothes up off the ground and they were like this when I found them." The king didn't believe his story and sent him to prison to be interrogated under torture. Without much trouble, they managed to extract some sort of confession from him, and he was sentenced to death by hanging.

The whole town was abuzz with this affair, and everyone was curious to know what this man was like who had succeeded in getting into the palace in the sky. When they saw this old man being led to the scaffold, no one thought he could possibly have done it. They began to talk about the case, and all felt that he must have been

falsely accused. When the news reached the ears of the little prince, his conscience drove him to intervene. Carrying the wooden horse under his arm, he dashed to the execution ground where the noose had already been tied around the man's neck.

"Don't hang him! He is innocent!" shouted the prince. "It is I who went to the palace in the sky. The paint-stained clothes are mine. If you want to hang someone, hang me and let him go!"

The king, who was watching from a distance, saw the execution come to a halt and sent someone to ask what had happened. The hangman told him, "A young man has just come forward and confessed the crime. Which of them should be hanged?"

"Hang the one who has pleaded guilty," ordered the king. So the old man was released and went home, thanking his lucky stars for this narrow escape. The little prince, meanwhile, just as the hangman came over to bind him for the hanging, mounted his wooden horse, loosened the screws and rose into the air before everyone's eyes. Seeing that all his men could not even deal with this one youth, the king fainted with rage.

The little prince arrived at the palace in the sky and said to the princess, "Our love is so deep that we can never part. Now that we have been detected by your father, I am sure he won't allow me to stay here any longer. There is only one way out. Come home with me. I know my father will like you."

The princess agreed and said, "Wherever you go, I will go too." The two hurried out of the palace in the sky and flew away on the wooden horse. They had been flying for a long time when the princess suddenly cried out, "I forgot to bring the two precious stones my mother gave me when I was a little girl. Let me go back and get them. I should like to give them to your parents at our wedding."

"We are already a long way from the palace," said the little prince. "Let's not bother with them now." But the princess insisted on going back, and in the end, the little prince had to give in. He tightened the screws and the wooden horse landed.

The prince said, "

;I'll wait for you here. Go to the palace on the wooden horse and come back as soon as you have collected the precious stones." The princess mounted the wooden horse and flew away.

Meanwhile, the king, who had been brought round by his courtiers, feared the worst for his daughter. He hurried up to the palace in the sky and, just as expected, found the place empty. He was at his wits' end when suddenly the princess arrived on the wooden horse. His men captured her and took her down to his palace, where they locked her up in an empty room. The wooden horse also fell into the hands of the king, but he had no idea how to use it and just stored it in another empty room.

Long before all this, there had been another king who, hearing of the beauty of the princess, had asked for her hand for his own son, only to be rejected by the princess' father. After this affair, however, it suited him to marry her to someone who lived a long way away, and he sent a message to this king, saying, "My daughter has reached the age of marriage, and I am therefore willing to marry her to your son. This will make our two families closely related and will bring an enduring peace to our two kingdoms. Please let your son come and take his bride."

But let us leave aside the king and his daughter and turn once more to the little prince.

He waited for a long time, but there was no sign of the princess. Looking around, he found himself in a boundless stretch of desert with towering sand dunes in every direction. The sand was blowing in the wind, the scorching sun was directly over head and there was not so much as a single blade of grass to be seen. Time passed, and he became hungry and thirsty. But when he rose to his feet and went in search of water, there was not a drop to be found. "I may be able to see something from the top of those dunes," he thought, but as he climbed, the shifting sand buried his feet, making every step a struggle. With great difficulty he finally reached the top. As he raised his head to look around, the sand underneath gave way like melting ice in spring. He slipped over and downward and when he came to a stop, he saw before him a lush orchard filled with all kinds of fruit trees. The ripe fruits, red and green, hung heavy on the trees. His mouth watered. He ran in, picked several peaches and began gobbling them up. He ate his fill of the sweet, juicy fruits and then fell asleep against a tree.