Horse of Fire

by Lari Don

  To Trina, thanks for all your horse expertise,

  over many years and many books.

  Contents

  Pegasus and the Monsters

  Greek myth

  The Golden Horse

  Gambian folktale

  Riddling for the Foal

  Russian folktale

  The Horse of Fire

  Finnish myth

  Flint Feet

  Navajo myth

  Bradamante and the Hippogriff

  European legend

  The Unicorns and the Flood

  Ukrainian folktale

  The Headless Horseman of New South Wales

  Australian folktale

  The Kelpie with the Tangled Mane

  Scottish folktale

  The Wise Colt

  Jewish folktale

  Fire and Clay

  Indian tribal tale

  Selling the Goddess

  Tibetan tale

  The Centaur’s Heroes

  Greek myth

  What You Learn at Wolf School

  Balkan folktale

  The Horse Who Fought a Lion

  Persian legend

  Following the trail of magical horses

  Pegasus and the Monsters

  Greek myth

  Heroes are often more trouble than they’re worth, especially to their horses.

  Perseus was a typical Greek hero: tall, strong, handsome and good with long sharp weapons. Like many Greek heroes, he was the son of a god. Perseus wanted to prove himself worthy to his father Zeus, so he set off on a quest, to kill the monster Medusa.

  Medusa hadn’t been born a monster. She’d been a human girl until a powerful goddess, who was jealous of Medusa’s beauty, transformed her hair into snakes and her eyes into weapons. Now anyone who looked Medusa in the eye was turned to stone, so she didn’t have many friends and spent a lot of time chatting to statues.

  But Perseus was on a quest, so he was determined to kill her. He crept up on her, he watched her in the reflection of his shiny shield and waited for his chance, then he sliced off her head.

  As Medusa died, her only child was born, from the blood-soaked earth under her fallen body, and from her pain and loneliness.

  Medusa’s child was a winged black horse called Pegasus, who was furious at the death of his mother. He struggled up from the pool of mud and blood, and flexed his wide feathered wings. Then he rose into the air and swooped down to take revenge on his mother’s killer, who was calmly dropping Medusa’s severed head into a sturdy bag.

  Pegasus attacked with his hooves and his teeth.

  But Pegasus had only just been born, and Perseus had trained as a warrior all his life. So Perseus stepped to one side, let Pegasus rush past him, and leapt onto the horse’s back.

  He tugged on the horse’s mane with his hands, he squeezed the horse’s flanks with his legs and he jabbed the horse’s belly with his heels. Perseus sat on this magnificent flying beast and said, “Take me home, horsie, quick as you like.”

  Pegasus obeyed, because the hero was resting a sharp sword on his neck and twisting heavy fists in his mane. So the winged horse glided over the sea towards Perseus’s home.

  On the way, Perseus spotted a girl chained to a rock. “Fly down,” he ordered, with a painful jerk of his hands. “This looks like another job for a hero…”

  As Pegasus circled above the rock, the girl called up to Perseus, “I’ve been chained here as a sacrifice to the sea monster Cetus. You look like a proper hero on your fabulous winged horse, so I’d be really grateful if you could save me.” She shouted, even louder, “Also, I’m a princess and I’ll marry you if you rescue me.”

  “Right, horsie,” said Perseus. “Ready to make me a hero all over again?”

  The waters surged below them and a massive scaly monster rose from the deep. Perseus forced Pegasus to fly close to its stinking fishy fangs, then Perseus pulled Medusa’s head from the bag and turned Cetus to stone. The monster became a cliff-sided island in the sea.

  Then the hero forced Pegasus to land on the rock beside the girl. He jumped off the horse and gave the chained girl a kiss. “Let me take you home,” he said.

  But he couldn’t take her home on Pegasus, because the horse had flown away as soon as Perseus leapt off his back.

  Pegasus flew to a clear pool high in the mountains to wash off the rotting-fish smell of the sea monster’s breath and the sweat of the hero who’d killed his mother then treated him like a servant.

  Pegasus decided to have no more to do with heroes.

  But heroes are hard to avoid.

  Just as Perseus was settling down with his princess, another hero was starting his monster-killing career.

  Bellerophon was even taller and even more skilled at fighting than Perseus. He was fast and strong, charming and handsome. He sang in tune, wrote poetry and rescued kittens from trees.

  He was such a wonderful hero that his own king was afraid of him. Afraid that one day the people would decide they’d prefer Bellerophon to be their king. So the king wrote a note, sealed it and handed it to Bellerophon. “I have a vital mission for you. Please deliver this to the king of the kingdom to the west.”

  Bellerophon put on his armour, his sword and his charming smile, and headed off on his royal mission.

  He arrived at the palace and presented the note to the western king, who offered Bellerophon refreshments, then opened the note just as Bellerophon was dipping his bread in oil and taking his first bite.

  The note said: “My brother king, the messenger who brings this note is such an impressive hero that he is a danger to all kings. Please do me a favour and kill him.”

  The western king looked up at Bellerophon, who smiled and said something charming and polite about the food.

  The western king read the note again and realised he’d made a mistake, offering the messenger a meal before reading the message. Bellerophon was now the king’s guest, he had eaten the king’s food at the king’s table. So by the laws of hospitality, the king couldn’t kill him. Guest-killing was a terrible crime, punished by the gods.

  But the western king wanted to do this favour for his neighbour, because he understood how inconvenient heroes could be. He had to find a way to cause Bellerophon’s death, without actually killing Bellerophon himself.

  “Your own king thinks a great deal of you,” said the western king.

  Bellerophon smiled. “Oh, you know how it is, when you’re a hero.”

  The king said, “You must be a wonderful slayer of monsters.”

  Bellerophon shrugged modestly. “I’ve killed a few monsters. Or is it a few dozen? Or perhaps a few hundred! I lose count.”

  “So you find monster-killing easy? That’s interesting, because I have a nasty monster in my kingdom…”

  “I’ve eaten your bread,” said Bellerophon. “So if you want me to do you a favour, just ask.”

  “Then I ask you to slay our local monster, the chimera.”

  “A monster I haven’t heard of! I like a challenge. Tell me more.”

  The western king smiled. “The chimera has a lion’s body, with a lion’s head and teeth at the front. It also has a goat’s head on its back, with sword-sharp horns. And instead of a tail, it has a serpent’s body, head and fangs.

  “It has three heads, but four ways of killing. It can bite as a lion, it can gore as a goat, it can poison as a snake and it can breathe fire at you, from any of its three mouths, as you run away.”

  “I won’t run away,” said Bellerophon confidently. “I will kill this chimera for you.”

  But Bellerophon wasn’t a stupid hero. He didn’t jump straight into a fight; he did his research first. So he watched the chimera for a day and a night, to work out the best way to defeat it.
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  He noticed that the chimera could watch in front and behind at the same time, and that the three heads took turns sleeping. It would be impossible to sneak up on his target. This would not be an easy monster to kill.

  However, as he spied on the monster, he realised that the chimera’s three heads never looked up. The chimera watched the ground but not the sky. It could be taken by surprise with an attack from the air.

  But how could he attack from the air?

  Then Bellerophon remembered a story he’d once heard about a fabulous flying horse who’d helped a hero defeat a sea monster and save a princess.

  So he chatted charmingly with a few dryads, the spirits of trees, and with a few naiads, the spirits of water, and learnt the location of Pegasus’s favourite pool.

  Bellerophon visited his weapons-maker to order sharp-tipped arrows and a heavy-tipped spear, and visited his saddler to order a strong bridle, decorated with jewels and gold.

  Then he hid by the pool, with the golden bridle in his hand. He waited patiently for days, until one morning the magnificent black horse swooped down from the sky, gliding to earth on his gleaming wings.

  Pegasus landed lightly on his hooves and trotted to the water. When the horse lowered his head to drink, Bellerophon leapt on him and flung the bridle over his nose and neck.

  Pegasus had a bossy hero on his back, again.

  He was forced to fly straight towards a monster, again.

  Bellerophon and Pegasus dived out of the clouds towards the chimera, who was looking forwards and backwards and to the sides, but not looking up at the sky.

  So the attack was a complete surprise.

  Bellerophon fired three arrows in quick succession, hitting the lion, the goat and the snake. But he wasn’t used to firing from a swooping horse, so he hit their necks not their heads, and he only wounded them.

  The hero kept attacking with more arrows, forcing Pegasus to fly closer to the chimera.

  Now the chimera fought back: biting, goring, striking and breathing fire.

  But the teeth, the horns, the poison and the flames didn’t hurt Bellerophon, high up on Pegasus’s back. They hurt Pegasus. The horse’s head was further forward, his legs were lower down, his wings were the widest target. So the horse was cut and bruised and burnt every time Bellerophon forced him towards the vicious heads of the chimera.

  The hero ordered the winged horse to go nearer and nearer the fire and the fangs. Just as Pegasus was sure he was about to be roasted and eaten, Bellerophon jabbed his heavy-tipped spear at the lion’s mouth.

  He pushed the spear right down the lion’s throat. The lion roared, the lion breathed fire, and the lion’s own flames melted the tip of the spear.

  The specially designed spearhead was made of lead, which liquefied in the heat, so a river of molten lead flowed down the lion’s throat, into the belly shared by all three heads.

  The hot metal choked them all.

  The three heads coughed and roared and bleated and hissed and coughed again. The chimera fell silent and fell to the ground.

  Bellerophon leapt off Pegasus’s back and hacked off the three heads, to prove the monster was dead.

  Pegasus didn’t want to carry more severed heads. He shook his own head, to dislodge the golden bridle, then he took off right over Bellerophon’s head, and flew far away from Greece, to somewhere he hoped there would be no heroes to boss him about.

  But there are heroes and heroines everywhere.

  So if you’re in training to be a heroine or a hero, and if you ever need a flying horse to defeat a monster, I might be able to tell you where Pegasus drinks his water now. But you’d have to promise to ask him politely to join you on your quest, rather than simply leap on his back and kick him in the ribs, like those olden-day heroes.

  The Golden Horse

  Gambian folktale

  Galonchi owned a pretty gold-coloured horse, with shiny golden flanks and a pale golden mane and tail. His wife owned a pretty pair of gold earrings, bright hoops hanging from her small dark ears.

  That was all they had, apart from each other, because they never had any money.

  One day Galonchi said, “We’ll have to sell the horse or sell the earrings, or even both, so we can eat this month.”

  His wife said, “But if we sell everything we own and buy food with the money, then when the food runs out, we won’t have anything left to sell.”

  Galonchi nodded. “So we need to sell the horse and the earrings for enough money to buy food and also to buy another horse and more earrings.” He sat and he thought. He looked at the sunlight shining on his horse’s flanks, and at the sunlight shining on his wife’s earrings.

  Then he smiled. “We need to make them more valuable than an ordinary horse or ordinary earrings. We can do that by putting them together.”

  His wife laughed. “A horse, wearing earrings? That won’t sell!”

  Galonchi grinned. “Give me one of your earrings.” He dipped the gold earring in the last of the salt in his pouch, then he placed it on the palm of his hand and offered it to the horse.

  The horse flicked her ears in surprise, but she licked the earring, liked the salt and swallowed the golden circle.

  “Hey!” said his wife. “That was my earring! Now it’s gone!”

  “No, it hasn’t,” said Galonchi. “It hasn’t gone forever. It will reappear eventually. Now let’s visit the chief.”

  They walked to the nearest village, leading the pretty golden horse, and they told the gatekeeper they had something wonderful to show the chief. While they waited to see him, Galonchi fed his wife’s other earring to the horse.

  They were admitted to the chief’s compound and led into the centre of his big courtyard. The chief was sitting with his family in the shade of a wide tree. “So, Galonchi, what do you have to show me?”

  “A magic horse, sir!”

  “What does she do? Does she fly, does she speak, does she fight dragons?”

  “Wait and see,” said Galonchi.

  The chief and his family watched the horse. Soon the whole village had heard about the magic horse, so they all crowded round the edge of the courtyard to wait and watch too.

  Was the horse going to sing, or dance, or breathe fire, or add up sums, or write in the dust with her hooves?

  The horse just lifted her tail and – plop plop squelch – dropped a big heap of steaming horse dung onto the ground.

  The chief laughed. “That’s not magic. My own horses can do that!”

  “Ah,” said Galonchi, “but can they do this?”

  He poked at the pile of smelly dung with a stick. And there, in the middle of the dung, was a gleam of gold.

  “This is the Horse of the Golden Dung,” he announced. “She is made of gold, so every pile of dung will contain a little gift of gold for her owner.”

  “Oooh!” said the chief. “I want that horse. I want to be her owner. Will you sell her to me?”

  “But my wife and I love this little horse…”

  The chief said, “I’ll give you anything.”

  Galonchi frowned, then nodded. “If you give me the price of one hundred ordinary horses, I will sell you the Horse of the Golden Dung.”

  “Perhaps this is a trick,” said the wife sitting by the chief’s right hand. “Perhaps Galonchi dropped in the gold when he stirred the mess with that stick.”

  “You are wise, my first wife,” said the chief. “But I’m not easily fooled. Put Galonchi and his wife as my guests over there.” He pointed to the east side of the courtyard. “Put the horse as far from them as possible over there.” He pointed to the west side of the courtyard. “And we’ll see what’s in the next pile of dung.”

  So Galonchi and his wife sat happily on one side of the courtyard, eating the chief’s stew, while the horse stood happily on the other side, eating the chief’s hay. And everyone waited.

  Then the horse lifted her pretty golden tail and – plop plop squelch – she dropped another pile of warm dung, ont
o the toes of the chief, who was standing right behind her.

  The chief poked the dung with a stick and there, in the middle of the steaming brown pile, was the gleam of gold.

  “This is the Horse of the Golden Dung,” he cried. “And she will be mine!”

  He handed Galonchi a heavy bag of silver coins, enough to buy one hundred ordinary horses. (“Or,” Galonchi whispered to his wife, “fifty horses and fifty pairs of earrings.”)

  They said goodbye to the pretty golden horse, left the courtyard and started walking away from the village.

  The chief stood behind the horse with a great big smile, waiting eagerly for the next steaming pile of dung to land – plop plop squelch – on his toes.

  Galonchi said to his wife, “Shall we head for the next village ruled by a gullible chief, and buy another horse and another pair of earrings on the way?”

  “No,” said his wife. “Let’s buy an elephant. That will make an even bigger PLOP PLOP SQUELCH…”

  Riddling for the Foal

  Russian folktale

  Once there was a poor farmer, whose only horse, a fine mare, gave birth to a beautiful foal. But the mare was at the edge of the farmer’s one small field when she gave birth, and the long-legged foal wobbled off his land and fell asleep under his neighbour’s cart.

  His neighbour, a rich farmer, laughed. “Look, my cart has given birth to a foal! How lucky for me. I will keep the foal, and sell it when it is grown.”

  The poor farmer said, “Don’t be daft. My mare gave birth to that foal, so the foal is mine.”

  “The foal is on my land, under my cart, and I’m keeping it,” said the rich farmer. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

  The poor farmer trudged back to his cottage, where his young daughter asked, “How’s the mare? Has she foaled yet?”

  The poor farmer told her the foal had been born and was healthy, but he also told her how their neighbour had claimed the foal as his own.

  His daughter laughed. “He claims that his cart gave birth to the foal? What nonsense! Any sensible judge will rule for you and give us back our foal. You must ask the tsar to give you justice.”

  So the poor farmer went to the young tsar’s palace, just a mile up the road, and asked for justice.