Once upon a time, during a great battle which was fought through the
night in a tempest of lightning and rain, a brave young grenadier came
upon one of the enemy lying sorely wounded on the field. Taking pity
upon his foeman, the soldier bound up his wounds and carried him from
the battle to the shelter of a little wood. Scarce had the wounded
youth opened his eyes, when amid a blinding flash of lightning and
a peal of tumbling thunder, a green chariot drawn by green dragons
rushed downward through the hurrying clouds and sank to earth at the
soldier’s side. Bidding the dragons be still, a tall, dark, and stately
man wearing a long green mantle descended from the chariot, took the
wounded lad in his arms, and thus addressed the grenadier:--
“Generous friend, to you I owe the life of my youngest son. I am the
Enchanter of the Green Glen. Take you this little green wand in memory
of the great debt I owe you. Whatsoever you strike once with it will
continue to grow larger till you cry ‘stop’; whatsoever you strike
twice with it will grow smaller till you bid the magic cease. Farewell,
brave soldier, and may good fortune walk forever by your side.”
Then, wrapping his wide green mantle about the body of his son, the
Wizard bade his scaly, yellow-eyed dragons be on their way, and
vanished on high in the tempest and the dark.
And now the wars were over and done, and the soldier found himself
mustered out and turned loose to earn his living in the world. Still
clad in his grenadier’s uniform, and wearing his blue greatcoat
buttoned close about him, he slung his knapsack to his shoulder,
fastened it to his belt in front by crossed straps of white leather,
put on his big shiny hat, and turned from the camp over the hills and
far away.
It was the early autumn of the year: great roaring gusts swept by
overhead, singing shrilly through the withered leaves still clinging to
the branches, apples lay red ripe in the frost-nipped grass, and the
country folk were gleaning in the stubble of the fields. On through the
villages went the soldier, hoping to find work for the winter among the
farms; he knocked at this door and at that, but ever in vain. Presently
the mighty summits of the Adamant Mountains, gleaming with new-fallen
snow, rose beyond the bare woods and the lonely fields. Following the
great royal road, the soldier tramped on into the very heart of the
mountain mass.
“Perhaps I shall meet with better luck in the kingdoms beyond the
peaks,” thought the grenadier, as he trudged along. How still it was!
Now the soldier could hear the roaring of the river in the gorge below
the road, now the cry of the eagles circling high above some desolate
crag.
At high noon on the third day, the soldier arrived at the brazen
column which marks the descent of the royal road to the kingdoms beyond
the hills. A biting wind, keen with the smell of snow, blew from the
surrounding peaks, and made the soldier very hungry indeed. Sheltering
himself against the giant column, he slipped his knapsack from his
shoulder, and looked within for the last of the bread and cheese which
a good wife of the mountain villages had given him the day before.
Alas, there was but the tiniest crust of bread to be found, and the
littlest crumb of cheese! Suddenly, as he fished about in the sack, the
grenadier discovered the little green wand. He had quite forgotten it.
A notion came into his head to try the magic, and he struck the bit of
bread one smart tap.
The moment he did so, the fragment of bread bounced a few inches into
the air, and fell back to the ground; soon it was the size of a loaf
of bread; a moment or two later the loaf had grown to the size of a
table; soon the mass of bread was the size of a small house. And it
was growing, growing, growing.
“Stop!” cried the soldier. The magic ceased. The soldier struck the
mountain of bread _twice_.
Again it leaped into the air, but this time it began to grow less. Like
to a candle end in the fire, it began to vanish before the soldier’s
eyes. Presently it was once more the size of a generous loaf, and thus
the soldier bade it remain. Next he enchanted the bit of cheese to an
ample size, and found himself provided with victuals fit for a king.
Later, when he had eaten his fill, he amused himself by enchanting a
pebble into a great rock. And that rock may be seen in the Adamant
Mountains _to this very day_!
At the end of a week’s journey the soldier reached the Golden Plain,
which lies between the Adamant Mountains and the sea.
Now at the time of the soldier’s arrival, the people of the Golden
Plain were being day by day swept to hunger and ruin by the devastation
wrought throughout their land by a hippodrac. Driven by hunger, so
some thought, from its stony lair in the forests of the sun, this
terrible creature had suddenly swooped down on the harvest fields a
month before, and had roamed the land till the precious grain had for
the most part been consumed or destroyed. Worse yet, the hippodrac was
even then breaking open the royal granaries, in which lay such grain as
the citizens had been able to store away.
This terrible creature, I must tell you, was a kind of fearsome winged
horse. It was larger than any earthly animal, black as midnight in
color, and armored over the chest and head with a sheath of dragon’s
scales. Add to this a pair of giant wings, black and lustrous as
a raven’s, a wicked horse-like head with huge jaws, hoofs of blue
steel, and an appetite like a devouring flame, and you will see that
the people of the Golden Plain had true cause for alarm. Black wings
outspread, blue hoofs plunging, roaring from the fiery pits of its
violet nostrils, the hippodrac was master in the land.
In the hope of ridding themselves of the monster, the people of the
Golden Plain offered a huge treasure to whosoever might conquer the
invader. In true soldier fashion the grenadier resolved to fight the
hippodrac, and win fame and fortune at a blow.
Now the Lord Chancellor of the realm, who ruled the land during the
minority of the Princess Mirabel, had no intention whatever of paying
the promised reward. Not only had this wicked man stolen so much money
from the royal treasury that scarce was a penny left, but also was he
miserly, cruel, and avaricious. Torn between fear of the hippodrac
and fear of having to empty his own money-bags of the stolen gold in
order to pay the reward, the Chancellor wandered back and forth all day
through the castle halls. Thus far, however, no one had ever returned
to claim the treasure.
After talking with some who had seen the hippodrac, the soldier
retired to a little inn to make his plans. Sitting alone in a great
settle by the fire, he watched the flames grow ruddier as the afternoon
sun sank below the western hills. Presently it was night, a night
quiet, cool, and bright with great winter stars.
The grenadier made his way unobserved out of the royal city, and soon
arrived in the midst of the ruined and trampled fields. Here the grain
had been gathered, bound in sheaves, and left to perish when the
harvesters fled; here the uncut stalks had withered in the ground; here
stood a house from which everyone had run for his life. Presently the
soldier beheld, standing apart on a lonely hill, the crumbling towers
of the ruined castle which served as the hippodrac’s den.
A late, wasted, half-moon began to rise. The soldier made his way up
the slope, and peered through the doorless portal into the moonlit ruin.
At the end of the great entrance-hall of the castle, its monstrous
head resting on the lowest step of the winding stair which led to the
roofless banqueting-hall above, lay the monster. The rays of the waning
moon, slanting through the broken tracery of a great window, fell on
its vast bulk; a rumbling breathing alone disturbed the starry silence
of the night.
“I must make my way down those stairs,” said the grenadier to himself,
and crept off to seek a way to the banqueting hall above. Finally he
managed to find a little stairway in a ruined turret. Creeping along
softly, ever so softly, over the floor of the banqueting hall, he
reached the head of the great stair and looked down its curving steps
to the monster asleep below. Then, step by step by step, the grenadier
approached the hippodrac.
Suddenly the soldier’s foot dislodged a piece of clattering stone. The
hippodrac awoke with a scream, but the soldier struck it _two_ swift
taps with the little green wand.
The instant he did so, the hippodrac uttered a cry of fright and rage
which waked the good folk of the city in their beds, and bounced, wings
beating wildly, in the air. The grenadier took refuge at the head of
the balustrade. Smaller and smaller grew the furious and bewildered
beast. Now it had shrunk to the size of a pony, now it had dwindled to
the size of a dog, now it was scarce larger than a kitten.
“Stop!” cried the grenadier. Wild with fright, the tiny monster took
wing, and fluttered like a terrified bird into a corner of the ruins.
And there, beating about and flapping its wings madly, the grenadier
caught it in his high hat, and shook it into his knapsack. This done,
he walked swiftly back to the inn, and went to bed.
Now one of the Lord Chancellor’s rascals had been on watch for his
return, and when the grenadier returned with the light of victory in
his eyes, this spy ran to inform his rogue of a master. Suspecting
magic of some kind, the wicked Chancellor made his way to the inn, and
stole the green wand while the soldier slept.
[Illustration: _Suddenly the soldier’s foot dislodged a piece of
clattering stone, and the hippodrac awoke_]
Early the next morning, the soldier sent word to the counselors of
court that he had mastered the hippodrac, and waited their good
pleasure to prove the truth of his word. Within a very short time a
royal messenger appeared, summoning him before the assembled court at
the tenth hour.
And now the soldier, carrying the tiny hippodrac in his knapsack, was
led to the judgment hall of the royal palace. The Princess Mirabel sat
on the throne of the realm, whilst the Lord Chancellor stood by her
side, a smile of triumph on his wicked lips. But the soldier had eyes
only for the young Princess, who was as fair as the first wild rose of
the year. As for the Princess, it must be confessed that she thought
the stalwart young grenadier with the black hair and the blue eyes
quite the most pleasant person she had ever seen.
Simply and modestly the grenadier told the story of his capture of the
hippodrac. Leaning forward a little, the Princess listened eagerly.
“And your proof of this--?” questioned the Lord Chancellor.
“Is here,” replied the grenadier, and opening his knapsack, he took
from it the hippodrac and placed it on the carpet just before the
throne. As the soldier had taken the precaution to clip the monster’s
wings, the tiny thing could do naught but dance with rage on its little
blue hoofs, and lash out madly right and left in a frenzy of fear.
A murmur of astonishment rose from the assembly. There was a great
craning of necks. All present looked at the Lord Chancellor to hear
what he might say.
“That little thing, the great hippodrac?” said the Lord Chancellor,
evilly. “Pooh! ’T is a juggler’s kitten, rather. I shall give no reward
for this.”
“You dare?” cried the grenadier fiercely. “Wait!” And he reached in his
pocket for the little green wand, but, alas, the little green wand was
gone.
“Pooh!” said the Chancellor again, watching, with contented eyes, the
poor grenadier madly thrusting his hands into every pocket, “You see he
cannot do as he pretends. The fellow is an impostor. Ho, guards! Take
this rogue and his dancing kitten off to prison.”
“But it looks like the hippodrac,” protested the Princess.
“No! Not a bit of it, not a bit of it!” roared the Chancellor. And
he quickly silenced all those who were fain to see justice done, by
threatening to send any objector to the royal diamond-mines in the
Adamant Mountains.
Left to himself in a lonely cell of the royal prison, the poor
grenadier awaited the day of his departure for the mines. Finding the
time hang heavy on his hands, he amused himself by trying to tame
the tiny hippodrac. To his surprise and pleasure, the fierce little
creature made a swift response. Soon it was eating crumbs from his
hand. In a fortnight it could spell out words and letters by tapping
the floor with its right foreleg! And day by day, its clipped wings
grew once more to full size.
“Oh, if you could only get me my green wand again!” said the soldier
one morning.
At these words, the hippodrac beat an excited tattoo on the table, and
before the soldier could seize it, spread its little gleaming wings,
and fled through the barred window out into the world.
All day long the soldier waited its return. “It has flown away
forever,” he thought, as twilight fell. A moment later, however, he
heard a whir of tiny wings, and the hippodrac returned, the little
green wand in its jaws. You may well believe that the soldier was
overjoyed! That very night he found means to send a petition to the
Princess, asking to be brought before her that he might at last prove
the truth of his story.
Now the Chancellor, knowing that his wicked scheme had succeeded,
and never dreaming of the possibility of the grenadier’s escape, had
gone a-hunting: so the Princess took matters into her own hands, and
next morning summoned the grenadier before the court. Alas! Just as
the grenadier reached the throne, the Chancellor, hastily summoned by
another of his rascally spies, came striding angrily into the judgment
hall.
“What means this?” he roared. “How came that fellow to be out of
prison? Ho, guards, take him back at once!”
“No!” said the little Princess bravely. “I believe in him, and he shall
have justice in my realm!”
“Do you dare defy me?” cried the Chancellor. “Guards, do your duty! I
am Regent here.”
A handful of soldiers strode toward the grenadier. With a smile on his
lips and in his eyes, the grenadier struck the hippodrac _one_ smart
tap with the magic wand.
The creature bounced, and instantly began to increase in size; suddenly
it snorted fiercely and reared on its hind legs; once again it screamed
even such a scream as it had uttered when the grenadier enchanted it
in the ruined castle. People began to fly pell-mell in every direction.
Only Mirabel, who was a lass of spirit, stood her ground.
When the hippodrac had reached its full size, the soldier cried “Stop!”
Then, for a moment, the monster and the man gazed directly into each
other’s eyes. The soldier still smiled.
_The hippodrac had understood._
Uttering now the angriest cry of all, the creature darted forward, and
seized the Lord Chancellor by the scruff of his ugly neck. Then opening
wide its giant wings, it leaped up on all four legs, and flying down
the vast hall, crashed through a great window and out into the freedom
of the cloudless sky. So terrified was it by its experiences, that it
flew back to its lair in the forests of the sun, and never bothered
anybody any more.
On the way home, while flying at a great height, it got bored with
carrying the Lord Chancellor and let him drop. No one has since heard
of this personage. No one ever will.
When the excitement subsided, the citizens hailed the grenadier as
the preserver of their country and offered him the treasure which the
Chancellor had stolen away. But the grenadier had already found a
treasure much more to his liking--the Princess Mirabel. The handsome
young couple were married with great pomp and ceremony on New Year’s
day.
And thus the brave grenadier became a king, and with Mirabel by his
side, ruled over the Golden Plain for many a long and happy year.