The Prince scampered across the room, and threw his arms around the beautiful creature’s neck. All its bells jangled as the head swayed gracefully down; and the prince kissed it between the eyes. Great eyes they were, the colour of fire, so wonderfully bright, it seemed they must be really alive, only they did not move, but gazed continually with a set stare at the tapestry-hung wall, on which were figures of armed knights riding by to battle.
So Prince Fredolin mounted to the back of his rocking-horse, and all day long he rode and shouted to the figures of the armed knights, challenging them to fight, or leading them against the enemy.
At length, when it came to be bedtime, weary of so much glory, he was lifted down from the saddle and carried away to bed.
In his sleep Fredolin still felt his black rocking-horse swinging to and fro under him, and heard the melodious chime of its bells, and, in the land of dreams, saw a great country open before him, full of the sound of the battle-cry and the hunting-horn calling him to strange perils and triumphs.
In the middle of the night he grew softly awake, and his heart was full of love for his black rocking-horse. He crept gently out of bed: he would go and look at it where it was standing so grand and still in the next room, to make sure that it was all safe and not afraid of being by itself in the dark night. Parting the door-hangings he passed through into the wide hollow chamber beyond, all littered about with toys.
The moon was shining in through the window, making a square cistern of light upon the floor. And then, all at once, he saw that the rocking-horse had moved from the place where he had left it! It had crossed the room, and was standing close to the window, with its head toward the night, as though watching the movement of the clouds and the trees swaying in the wind.
The Prince could not understand how it had been moved so; he was a little bit afraid, and stealing timidly across, he took hold of the bridle to comfort himself with the jangle of its bells. As he came close, and looked up into the dark solemn face he saw that the eyes were full of tears, and reaching up felt one fall warm against his hand.
“Why do you weep, my Beautiful?” said the Prince.
The rocking-horse answered, “I weep because I am a prisoner, and not free; open the window, Master, and let me go!”
“But if I let you go I shall lose you,” said the Prince. “Cannot you be happy here with me?”
And the horse said, “Let me go, for my great brothers call me out of Rocking-Horse Land, and I hear my sweet mare whinnying to her foals: and they all cry, seeking me through the ups and hollows of my native fastnesses! Sweet Master, let me go this night, and I will return to you when it is day!”
Then Prince Fredolin said, “How shall I know that you will return to me: and what name shall I call you by?”
And the rocking-horse answered, “My name is Rollonde. Search among my mane till you find in it a white hair, draw it out and wind it upon one of your fingers; and so long as you have it wound about your finger, you are my master; and wherever I am I must go or return at your bidding.”
So the Prince drew down the rocking-horse’s head, and searched in the mane, till he had found there the white hair; and he wound it upon his finger and tied it. After that he kissed Rollonde between the eyes, saying, “Go then, Rollonde, since I love you, and would see you happy; only return to me when it is day!” And so saying he threw open the window to the stir of the night.
Then the rocking-horse lifted his dark head and neighed aloud for joy, and swaying forward with a mighty circling motion rose full into the air, and sprang out into the free world before him.
Fredolin watched how with plunge and curve he went over the bowed trees; and again he neighed into the darkness of the night, then swifter than wind disappeared in the distance: and faintly from far away came a sound of the neighing of many horses answering him.
Then the Prince closed the window and crept back to bed; and all night long he dreamed strange dreams of Rocking-Horse Land. There he saw smooth hills and valleys that rose and sank without a stone or a tree to disturb the steel-like polish of their surface; slippery as glass, and driven over by a strong wind: and over them, with a sound like the humming of bees, flew the rocking-horses. Up and down, up and down, with bright manes streaming like coloured fires, and feet motionless behind and before, went the swift pendulum of their flight. Their long bodies bowed and rose; their heads worked to carry impetus to their going; they cried, neighing to each other over hill and valley, “Which of us shall be first? which of us shall be first?” After them the mares with their tall foals came spinning to watch, crying also among themselves, “Ah! which shall be first?”
“Rollonde, Rollonde is first!” shouted the Prince, clapping his hands together as they reached the goal; and at that, all at once, he woke and saw it was broad day. Then he ran and threw open the window, and holding out the finger that carried the white hair, cried, “Rollonde, Rollonde, come back, Rollonde!”
Far away he heard an answering sound; and in another moment there came the great rocking-horse himself, dipping and dancing over the hills. He crossed the woods and cleared the palace-wall at a single bound, and floating in through the window, dropped down on to the floor by Prince Fredolin’s side, rocking himself gently to and fro as though panting from the strain of his long flight.
“Now are you happy?” asked the Prince as he caressed him.
“Ah! sweet Prince,” said Rollonde, “ah, kind Master!” And then he said no more, but became the stock still staring rocking-horse of the day before, with fixed eyes and rigid limbs, which could do nothing but rock up and down with a jangling of sweet bells so long as the Prince rode him.
That night Fredolin came again when all had become still in the palace; and now as before Rollonde had moved from his place and was standing with his head against the window waiting to be let out. “Ah, dear Master,” he said, so soon as he saw the Prince coming, “let me go this night also, and I will surely return before day.”
So again the Prince opened the window, and watched him disappear, and heard from far away the neighing of the horses in Rocking-Horse Land calling to him. And in the morning with the white hair round his finger he called “Rollonde, Rollonde!” and Rollonde neighed and came back to him, dipping and dancing over the hills.
Now this same thing happened every night; and every morning the horse kissed Fredolin, saying, “Ah! dear Prince and kind Master,” and became stock still once more.
So a year went by, till one morning Fredolin woke up to find it was his sixth birthday. And as six is to five, so were the presents he received on his sixth birthday for magnificence and multitude to the presents he had received the year before. His fairy godmother had sent him a bird, a real live bird; but when he pulled its tail it became a lizard, and when he pulled the lizard’s tail it became a mouse, and when he pulled the mouse’s tail it became a cat; then he did very much want to see if the cat would eat the mouse, and not being able to have them both together he got rather vexed with his fairy godmother. However, he pulled the cat’s tail and the cat became a dog, and the dog became a goat; and so it went on till he got to a cow; and he pulled the cow’s tail and it became a camel, and he pulled the camel’s tail and it became an elephant, and still not being contented, he pulled the elephant’s tail and it became a guinea-pig. Now a guinea-pig has got no tail to pull, so it remained a guinea-pig, while Prince Fredolin sat down and howled at this fairy godmother.
But the best of all his presents was the one given to him by the King his father. It was a most beautiful horse, for, said the King, “You are now old enough to learn to ride.”
So Fredolin was put upon his horse’s back, and from having ridden so long upon his rocking-horse he learned to ride perfectly in a single day, and was declared by all the courtiers to be the most perfect equestrian that was ever seen.
But these praises and the pleasure of riding about on a real horse so occupied his thoughts that that night he forgot altogether to go and set Rollonde free
, but fell fast asleep and dreamed of nothing but real horses and horsemen going to battle; and so it was the next night too.
But the night after that, just as he was falling asleep, he heard something sobbing by his bed, and a voice saying “Ah! dear Prince and kind Master, let me go, for my heart breaks for a sight of my native land.” And there stood his poor rocking-horse Rollonde, with tears falling out of his beautiful eyes on to the white coverlet.
Then the Prince, full of shame at having forgotten his old friend, sprang up and threw his arms round his neck saying, “Be of good cheer, Rollonde, for now surely I will let thee go!” and he ran to the window and opened it for the horse to go through. “Ah, dear Prince and kind Master!” said Rollonde. Then he lifted his head and neighed so that the whole palace shook, and swaying forward till his head almost touched the ground he sprang out and away into the night over the hills towards Rocking-Horse Land.
Then Prince Fredolin, standing by the window, thoughtfully unloosed the white hair from his finger, and let it float away into the darkness, out of sight of his eye or reach of his hand.
“Good-bye, Rollonde,” he murmured softly, “brave Rollonde, my own good Rollonde! Go and be happy in your own land, since I, your Master, was forgetting to be kind to you.” And far away he heard the neighing of horses in Rocking-Horse Land.
Many years after, when Fredolin had become King in his father’s stead, the fifth birthday of the Prince his son came to be celebrated; and there on the morning of the day, among all the presents that covered the floor of the chamber, stood a beautiful foal rocking-horse, black, with deep burning eyes.
No one knew how it had come there, or whose present it was, till the King himself came to look at it. And when he saw it so like the old Rollonde he had loved as a boy, he smiled, and, stroking its dark mane, said softly in its ear, “Art thou, then, the son of Rollonde?” And the foal answered him, “Ah, dear Prince and kind Master!” but never a word more.
Then the King took the little Prince his son, and told him all the story of Rollonde as I have told it you here; and at the end he went and searched in the foal’s mane till he found one white hair, and, drawing it out, he wound it about the little Prince’s finger, bidding him guard it well and be ever a kind master to Rollonde’s son.
So here is my story of Rollonde come to a good ending.
1894
The Reluctant Dragon
KENNETH GRAHAME
Long ago—might have been hundreds of years ago—in a cottage halfway between this village and yonder shoulder of the Downs up there, a shepherd lived with his wife and their little son. Now the shepherd spent his days—and at certain times of the year his nights too—up on the wide ocean-bosom of the Downs, with only the sun and the stars and the sheep for company, and the friendly chattering world of men and women far out of sight and hearing. But his little son, when he wasn’t helping his father, and often when he was as well, spent much of his time buried in big volumes that he borrowed from the affable gentry and interested parsons of the country round about. And his parents were very fond of him, and rather proud of him too, though they didn’t let on in his hearing, so he was left to go his own way and read as much as he liked; and instead of frequently getting a cuff on the side of the head, as might very well have happened to him, he was treated more or less as an equal by his parents, who sensibly thought it a very fair division of labour that they should supply the practical knowledge, and he the book-learning. They knew that book-learning often came in useful at a pinch, in spite of what their neighbours said. What the Boy chiefly dabbled in was natural history and fairy tales, and he just took them as they came, in a sandwichy sort of way, without making any distinctions; and really his course of reading strikes one as rather sensible.
One evening the shepherd, who for some nights past had been disturbed and preoccupied, and off his usual mental balance, came home all of a tremble, and, sitting down at the table where his wife and son were peacefully employed, she with her seam, he in following out the adventures of the Giant with No Heart in His Body, exclaimed with much agitation:
“It’s all up with me, Maria! Never no more can I go up on them there Downs, was it ever so!”
“Now don’t you take on like that,” said his wife, who was a very sensible woman: “but tell us all about it first, whatever it is as has given you this shake-up, and then me and you and the son here, between us, we ought to be able to get to the bottom of it!”
“It began some nights ago,” said the shepherd. “You know that cave up there—I never liked it, somehow, and the sheep never liked it neither, and when sheep don’t like a thing there’s generally some reason for it. Well, for some time past there’s been faint noises coming from that cave—noises like heavy sighings, with grunts mixed up in them; and sometimes a snoring, far away down—real snoring, yet somehow not honest snoring, like you and me o’ nights, you know!”
“I know,” remarked the Boy, quietly.
“Of course I was terrible frightened,” the shepherd went on; “yet somehow I couldn’t keep away. So this very evening, before I come down, I took a cast round by the cave, quietly. And there—O Lord! there I saw him at last, as plain as I see you!”
“Saw who?” said his wife, beginning to share in her husband’s nervous terror.
“Why, him, I’m a telling you!” said the shepherd. “He was sticking halfway out of the cave, and seemed to be enjoying of the cool of the evening in a poetical sort of way. He was as big as four cart-horses, and all covered with shiny scales—deep-blue scales at the top of him, shading off to a tender sort o’ green below. As he breathed, there was that sort of flicker over his nostrils that you see over our chalk roads on a baking windless day in summer. He had his chin on his paws, and I should say he was meditating about things. Oh, yes, a peaceable sort o’ beast enough, and not ramping or carrying on or doing anything but what was quite right and proper. I admit all that. And yet, what am I to do? Scales, you know, and claws, and a tail for certain, though I didn’t see that end of him—I ain’t used to ’em, and I don’t hold with ’em, and that’s a fact!”
The Boy, who had apparently been absorbed in his book during his father’s recital, now closed the volume, yawned, clasped his hands behind his head, and said sleepily:
“It’s all right, father. Don’t you worry. It’s only a dragon.”
“Only a dragon?” cried his father. “What do you mean, sitting there, you and your dragons? Only a dragon indeed! And what do you know about it?”
“ ’Cos it is, and ’cos I do know,” replied the Boy, quietly. “Look here, father, you know we’ve each of us got our line. You know about sheep, and weather, and things; I know about dragons. I always said, you know, that that cave up there was a dragon-cave. I always said it must have belonged to a dragon some time, and ought to belong to a dragon now, if rules count for anything. Well, now you tell me it has got a dragon, and so that’s all right. I’m not half as much surprised as when you told me it hadn’t got a dragon. Rules always come right if you wait quietly. Now, please, just leave this all to me. And I’ll stroll up to-morrow morning—no, in the morning I can’t, I’ve got a whole heap of things to do—well, perhaps in the evening, if I’m quite free, I’ll go up and have a talk to him, and you’ll find it’ll be all right. Only, please, don’t you go worrying round there without me. You don’t understand ’em a bit, and they’re very sensitive, you know!”
“He’s quite right, father,” said the sensible mother. “As he says, dragons is his line and not ours. He’s wonderful knowing about book-beasts, as every one allows. And to tell the truth, I’m not half happy in my own mind, thinking of that poor animal lying alone up there, without a bit o’ hot supper or anyone to change the news with; and maybe we’ll be able to do something for him; and if he ain’t quite respectable our Boy’ll find it out quick enough. He’s got a pleasant sort o’ way with him that makes everybody tell him everything.”
Next day, after he’d had his tea, t
he Boy strolled up the chalky track that led to the summit of the Downs; and there, sure enough, he found the dragon, stretched lazily on the sward in front of his cave. The view from that point was a magnificent one. To the right and left, the bare and willowy leagues of Downs; in front, the vale, with its clustered homesteads, its threads of white roads running through orchards and well-tilled acreage, and, far away, a hint of grey old cities on the horizon. A cool breeze played over the surface of the grass and the silver shoulder of a large moon was showing above distant junipers. No wonder the dragon seemed in a peaceful and contented mood; indeed, as the Boy approached he could hear the beast purring with a happy regularity. “Well, we live and learn!” he said to himself. “None of my books ever told me that dragons purred!”
“Hullo, dragon!” said the Boy, quietly, when he had got up to him.
The dragon, on hearing the approaching footsteps, made the beginning of a courteous effort to rise. But when he saw it was a Boy, he set his eyebrows severely.
“Now don’t you hit me,” he said; “or bung stones, or squirt water, or anything. I won’t have it, I tell you!”
“Not goin’ to hit you,” said the Boy, wearily, dropping on the grass beside the beast: “and don’t, for goodness’ sake, keep on saying ‘Don’t’; I hear so much of it, and it’s monotonous, and makes me tired. I’ve simply looked in to ask you how you were and all that sort of thing; but if I’m in the way I can easily clear out. I’ve lots of friends, and no one can say I’m in the habit of shoving myself in where I’m not wanted!”
“No, no, don’t go off in a huff,” said the dragon, hastily; “fact is, I’m as happy up here as the day’s long; never without an occupation, dear fellow, never without an occupation! And yet, between ourselves, it is a trifle dull at times.”
The Boy bit off a stalk of grass and chewed it. “Going to make a long stay here?” he asked, politely.
The Victorian Fairy Tale Book (Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library) Page 41