The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 1 · page 21 2101But the horse guessed this new danger and told the princess how to escape it.102But it is one thing to receive advice when we feel safe and comfortable, and quite another to be able to carry it out when some awful peril is threatening us.103And if the wolf had made the girl quake with terror, it seemed like a lamb beside this dreadful lion.104At the sound of his roar the very trees quivered and his claws were so large that every one of them looked like a cutlass.105The breath of the princess came and went, and her feet rattled in the stirrups.106Suddenly the remembrance flashed across her of the wolf whom she had put to flight, and waving her sword, she rushed so violently on the lion that he had barely time to spring on one side, so as to avoid the blow.107Then, like a flash, she crossed this bridge also.108Now during her whole life, the princess had been so carefully brought up, that she had never left the gardens of the palace, so that the sight of the hills and valleys and tinkling streams, and the song of the larks and blackbirds, made her almost beside herself with wonder and delight.109She longed to get down and bathe her face in the clear pools, and pick the brilliant flowers, but the horse said ‘No,’ and quickened his pace, neither turning to the right or the left.110‘Warriors,’ he told her, ‘only rest when they have won the victory.111You have still another battle to fight, and it is the hardest of all.’112This time it was neither a wolf nor a lion that was waiting for her at the end of the third day’s journey, but a dragon with twelve heads, and a golden bridge behind it.113The princess rode up without seeing anything to frighten her, when a sudden puff of smoke and flame from beneath her feet, caused her to look down, and there was the horrible creature twisted and writhing, its twelve heads reared up as if to seize her between them.114The bridle fell from her hand: and the sword which she had just grasped slid back into its sheath, but the horse bade her fear nothing, and with a mighty effort she sat upright and spurred straight on the dragon.115The fight lasted an hour and the dragon pressed her hard.116But in the end, by a well-directed side blow, she cut off one of the heads, and with a roar that seemed to rend the heavens in two, the dragon fell back on the ground, and rose as a man before her.117Although the horse had informed the princess the dragon was really her own father, the girl had hardly believed him, and stared in amazement at the transformation.118But he flung his arms round her and pressed her to his heart saying, ‘Now I see that you are as brave as the bravest, and as wise as the wisest.119You have chosen the right horse, for without his help you would have returned with a bent head and downcast eyes.120You have filled me with the hope that you may carry out the task you have undertaken, but be careful to forget none of my counsels, and above all to listen to those of your horse.’1 2← previousThe Princess Who Was Hidden Undergroundnext →The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 2↑ back to The Violet Fairy BookThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/38/page/2/