There was a widow woman with one son, who had a nice farm of her own
close to a lake, and she took great pains in the cultivation of the
land, and her corn was the best in the whole country. But when nearly
ripe, and just fit for cutting, she found to her dismay that every
night it was trampled down and cruelly damaged; yet no one could tell
by what means it was done.
So she set her son to watch. And at midnight he heard a great noise and
a rushing of waves on the beach, and up out of the lake came a great
troop of horses, who began to graze the corn and trample it down madly
with their hoofs.
When he told all this to his mother she bade him watch the next night
also, but to take several of the men with him furnished with bridles,
and when the horses rose from the lake they were to fling the bridles
over as many as they could catch.
Now at midnight there was the same noise heard again, and the rush of
the waves, and in an instant all the field was filled with the fairy
horses, grazing the corn and trampling it down. The men pursued them,
but only succeeded in capturing one, and he was the noblest of the lot.
The rest all plunged back into the lake. However, the men brought home
the captured horse to the widow, and he was put in the stable and grew
big and strong, and never another horse came up out of the lake, nor
was the corn touched after that night of his capture. But when a year
had passed by the widow said it was a shame to keep so fine a horse
idle, and she bade the young man, her son, take him out to the hunt
that was held that day by all the great gentry of the country, for it
was Whitsuntide.
And, in truth, the horse carried him splendidly at the hunt, and every
one admired both the fine young rider and his steed. But as he was
returning home, when they came within sight of the lake from which the
fairy steed had risen, he began to plunge violently, and finally threw
his rider. And the young man’s foot being unfortunately caught in the
stirrup, he was dragged along till he was torn limb from limb, while
the horse still continued galloping on madly to the water, leaving some
fragment of the unhappy lad after him on the road, till they reached
the margin of the lake, when the horse shook off the last limb of the
dead youth from him, and plunging into the waves disappeared from sight.
The people reverently gathered up the remains of the dead, and erected
a monument of stones over the lad in a field by the edge of the lake;
and every one that passes by still lays a stone and says a prayer that
the spirit of the dead may rest in peace.
The phantom horses were never seen again, but the lake has an evil
reputation even to this day amongst the people; and no one would
venture a boat on it after sundown at Whitsuntide, or during the time
of the ripening of the corn, or when the harvest is ready for the
sickle, for strange sounds are heard at night, like the wild galloping
of a horse across the meadow, along with the cries as of a man in his
death agony.