Now when the king met his lords in the morning, he always lamented and said, "Oh, if I only had my love with me." Ferdinand the Unfaithful, however, was always hostile to Ferdinand the Faithful. So once, when the king was complaining thus, he said, "You have the outrider, send him away to get her, and if he does not do it, his head must be struck off." Then the king sent for Ferdinand the Faithful, and told him that there was, in this place or in that place, a girl he loved, and that he was to bring her to him, and if he did not do it he should die. Ferdinand the Faithful went into the stable to his white horse, and complained and lamented, "Oh, what an unhappy man am I." Then someone behind him cried, "Ferdinand the Faithful, why do you weep?" He looked round but saw no one, and went on lamenting. "Oh, my dear little white horse, now must I leave you, now I must die." Then someone cried once more, "Ferdinand the Faithful, why do you weep?" Then for the first time he was aware that it was his little white horse who was putting that question. "Do you speak, my little white horse? Can you do that?" And again, he said, "I am to go to this place and to that, and am to bring the bride.
Can you tell me how I am to set about it?" Then answered the white horse, "Go to the king, and say if he will give you what you must have, you will get her for him. If he will give you a ship full of meat, and a ship full of bread, it will succeed. Great giants dwell on the lake, and if you take no meat with you for them, they will tear you to pieces, and there are the large birds which would pluck the eyes out of your head if you had no bread for them. Then the king made all the butchers in the land kill, and all the bakers bake, that the ships might be filled."When they were full, the little white horse said to Ferdinand the Faithful, "Now mount me, and go with me into the ship, and then when the giants come, say - peace, peace, my dear little giants, I have had thought of ye, something I have brought for ye. And when the birds come, you shall again say - peace, peace, my dear little birds, I have had thought of ye, something I have brought for ye. Then they will do nothing to you, and when you come to the castle, the giants will help you. Then go up to the castle, and take a couple of giants with you. There the princess lies sleeping. You must, however, not awaken her, but the giants must lift her up, and carry her in her bed to the ship." And now everything took place as the little white horse had said, and Ferdinand the Faithful gave the giants and the birds what he had brought with him for them, and that made the giants willing, and they carried the princess in her bed to the king. And when she came to the king, she said she could not live, she must have her writings, they had been left in her castle.
Then by the instigation of Ferdinand the Unfaithful, Ferdinand the Faithful was called, and the king told him he must fetch the writings from the castle, or he should die. Then he went once more into the stable, and bemoaned himself and said, "Oh, my dear little white horse, now I am to go away again, how am I to do it?" Then the little white horse said he was just to load the ships full again. So it happened again as it had happened before, and the giants and the birds were satisfied, and made gentle by the meat. When they came to the castle, the white horse told Ferdinand the Faithful that he must go in, and that on the table in the princess's bed-room lay the writings. And Ferdinand the Faithful went in, and fetched them. When they were on the lake, he let his pen fall into the water. Then said the white horse, "Now I cannot help you at all." But he remembered his flute, and began to play on it, and the fish came with the pen in its mouth, and gave it to him. So he took the writings to the castle, where the wedding was celebrated.
The queen, however, did not love the king because he had no nose, but she would have much liked to love Ferdinand the Faithful. Once, therefore, when all the lords of the court were together, the queen said she could do feats of magic, that she could cut off anyone's head and put it on again, and that one of them ought just to try it.
But none of them would be the first, so Ferdinand the Faithful, again at the instigation of Ferdinand the Unfaithful, undertook it and she hewed off his head, and put it on again for him, and it healed together directly, so that it looked as if he had a red thread round his throat. Then the king said to her, "My child, and where have you learnt that?" "Oh," she said, "I understand the art. Shall I just try it on you also." "Oh, yes," said he. So she cut off his head, but did not put it on again, and pretended that she could not get it on, and that it would not stay. Then the king was buried, but she married Ferdinand the Faithful.
He, however, always rode on his white horse, and once when he was seated on it, it told him that he was to go on to the heath which he knew, and gallop three times round it. And when he had done that, the white horse stood up on its hind legs, and was changed into a king's son.
In the days when wishing was still of some use, a king's son was bewitched by an old witch, and shut up in an iron stove in a forest.
There he passed many years, and no one could rescue him. Then a king's daughter came into the forest, who had lost herself, and could not find her father's kingdom again. After she had wandered about for nine days, she at length came to the iron stove.
