Sandmans Rainy Day Stories | Page 7

so he put his daughter, the, Princess, who, of course, was very beautiful, in a tower on top of a high mountain. Then he sent out word all over his kingdom and to all the other kingdoms that to the youth who could get to the top of the tower he would give the Princess for a wife.
But when the youths came from far and near they found the mountain was slippery as glass, and their horses slipped back faster than they could climb.
In a kingdom far from where the King lived was a poor prince whose father had lost all his lands and money in wars, so that when he died he left the Prince nothing but the castle and a black horse.
One day the Prince was feeding his horse and thinking of the Princess on top of the high mountain in the tower, and he spoke his thought out loud.
"If only I had some clothes fit to be seen," he said, "I would try to reach the Princess in the tower, and this poverty would be at an end. And you, my beauty, would have oats in plenty then," patting the horse on the neck.
"Why don't you try, master?" said the horse.
The Prince was surprised to hear the horse speak, but still he had heard of such things happening, and he answered, saying: "I have no clothes; besides, many others have tried, and no horse is able to climb the mountain."
"Master, go to the witch that lives in a cave in the middle of the woods at midnight and get my shoes," said the horse. And then he fell to eating his scanty dinner and said no more.
The Prince thought there was nothing to lose by doing as the horse told him, so that night he went to the woods to find the witch. The woods he found easily, but to find the cave was a different matter. First he met a fox, and he asked the way to the cave of the witch.
"Oh, master," said the fox, "take my advice and go home; no good will come to you if you find it."
But the Prince would not give up the quest, so he asked a wolf that he met next where the cave was located in the woods.
The wolf ran away, saying: "You better go home. That cave will bring only harm to any one who finds it."
The Prince was not to be frightened and on he went, and an owl was the next one he saw. "Where is the cave the old witch lives in?" he asked.
"Hoot! hoot!" said the owl, napping his wings. "Be off, man, while there is time. Don't go near that cave if you value your life," and off flew the owl, leaving the Prince no wiser than before.
After going deep into the woods--in fact, he was at the very center and did not know it --the Prince stood still and listened.
A sound reached his ear which seemed like the clatter of horses' hoofs, and the Prince went in the direction from which the sound came.
All at once he found himself in front of the cave for which he had searched so long, and, looking in, he saw the old witch prancing about in the craziest manner.
She would climb the side of her cave with as much ease as she could walk across the floor, and then, giving a spring, she would walk on the top of the cave, her head hanging down toward the floor.
While the Prince was looking and wondering at this strange performance he noticed something shining on her feet, and when he looked closer, to his surprise he saw that the witch had on her feet silver horseshoes. Then he knew what his black horse had said was worth listening to--he was to get the shoes the old witch was wearing.
But then he thought: "She has on only two; I must have four. I wonder where are the other two."
Just then a black cat came dancing into the cave, and on her hind feet the Prince saw the other two shoes he wanted. Such dancing and climbing the Prince had never seen as was done by the old witch and her black cat. The silver shoes seemed to take them anywhere and they could do anything while they wore them.
After a while the witch and the black cat grew weary and took off the shoes, and the Prince saw them lift up a stone in the middle of the cave and drop the four silver horseshoes into a hole and then drop the stone again.
After the witch and the black cat were fast asleep in one corner of the cave the Prince crept in softly and lifted the stone. At the bottom of a deep hole he saw