I had a dream last night...
I saw a golden horse and his rider approaching a great golden castle, with the animal’s four hooves scraping across the stone-laded path up to the front entrance.
The rider nervously looked around at all the dead trees that littered the courtyard, saying to himself “Oh how I’d rather be as far away from this creepy place as possible.” Leaning forward, he patted the horse on the shoulder. “Once we’ve received this last task, boy, yI want you to get us out of here quick. Or I’ll be selling you to the market for your meat and golden hide for sure! I want to be done with this woman for good!”
They approached the large wooden door on the front of the castle, but the rider remained on his horse, slowly looking around, getting more and more anxious.
Finally, the door creaked open, swinging inward about a third of the way, but with no one to be seen, until the ugly old woman came shuffling out, carrying the bag of golden apples and a folded note.
She looked up at the rider as she stepped near the two. “There’s been a change of plans.” she reported.
“What do you mean?” he asked, grabbing hold of the golden horse’s mane. “You said one more request, and the horse would be mine!”
“Calm yourself.” replied the woman. “And so the horse shall. Only your destination has changed, my boy.”
And with some effort, she lifted the sack into the air, and handed it up to him on the back of the horse, before carefully placing the note in his hands. “You must take both of these to the village just north of the kingdom of the Golden Apples, and ask for the man to whom the note is addressed. The instructions will tell him what to do with the contents of the bag.”
“Only as far as the village?” he asked.
“Yes.” she answered.
“And that is all that you require of me?”
“Yes.”
But the man still seemed suspicious. “So you don’t need the bird let loose another night?”
“No. His usefulness has met its end.” she explained. “And you will have too, once this deed is done. Now get going, there’s no need wasting any more time!”
Insulted, the rider sneered back “I’ve done everything you’ve asked, just the way you’ve asked it! I was risking my neck bribing that servant to leave that stupid bird’s cage open like that! And an extra night too!”
But her temper wasn’t flared. “Well you shall have your horse in return. Do this last task and I will ask no more of you. Only, fail, and you will instantly be turned into a creature far dumber than the one on which you sit!”
He nervously smiled back. “Yes ma’am, yes ma’am. I won’t waist any more of your time.” and he pulled the horse around, digging his heals into the animal’s sides to get it going into a gallop. “And I thank you for it all!”
The golden horse took off, running faster than the wind, for it was no ordinary horse, leaving the castle in a flash, and traveling down a road that went east from the golden castle, until they were quickly to another kingdom.
As they raced along, the rider looked up at the gray castle of this kingdom, to a window of one of the towers, where he thought he saw a flash of golden hair.
“There she is!” he exclaimed. “And now that I have this horse, she can’t help but marry me. Then I’ll have both the most beautiful female in the land, and be next in line to become king!”
But the horse shook his head and whinnied at what his rider had said, glancing back at the princess as if hoping it wouldn’t come true.
–Charles M Warren
