The next St. John’s eve it was the same thing, once again: neither of
the two brothers dared to go to the outlying field to watch the crop,
but Cinderlad went, and everything happened exactly the same as on the
previous St. John’s eve: first there was a rumbling and an earthquake,
and then there was another, and then a third: but all three earthquakes
were much, very much more violent than they had been the year before.
Then everything became still as death again, and the boy heard something
chewing outside the barn door, so he stole as softly as he could to
the door, which was slightly ajar, and again there was a horse standing
close by the wall of the house, eating and chewing, and it was far
larger and fatter than the first horse, and it had a saddle on its back,
and a bridle was on it too, and a full suit of armor for a knight, all
of bright silver, and as beautiful as anyone could wish to see. “Ho,
ho!” thought the boy, “is it thou who eatest up our hay in the night?
but I will put a stop to that.” So he took out his steel for striking
fire, and threw it over the horse’s mane, and the beast stood there as
quiet as a lamb. Then the boy rode this horse, too, away to the place
where he kept the other, and then went home again.
“I suppose you will tell us that you have watched well again this time,”
said the brothers.
“Well, so I have,” said Cinderlad. So they went there again, and there
the grass was, standing as high and as thick as it had been before, but
that did not make them any kinder to Cinderlad.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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