fort. The grandson used this opportunity and forced his grandfather to fly. The old man fled and hid himself in a cave which was in the neighbourhood. After the enemy were dispersed, and when the people looked for the old man, they could not find him.
"Some time after the leader commanded them to be ready to go to war in a distant land. At the moment when the army was prepared to start, the grandfather appeared secretly to his grandson and said to him: 'For this long way ride a mare which has a colt, and when you come to an unknown land, kill the colt, and then go farther. God protect you! farewell!'
"The grandson obeyed the orders of his grandfather, rode a mare with a colt and went with the leader and his army to the war. They went for three days and then they came to a river, on the opposite side of which was a dense forest. The young man looked on all sides and was sure that he was in a perfectly unknown land. Then he secretly killed the colt. Crossing the river the army marched through the forest. After six days of travelling they came to a vast plain, where they found the enemy waiting for them. The fight was very severe, and at the end the leader and his army were defeated and forced to flee. The vanquished army did not know the way, but the mare of the young man went in the direction where her colt was lost and so led them to the river, from which they knew the way to their own country.[1] Everybody was astonished,
- ↑ The Serbs have a tale which bears out the story of the mares and the colts and which runs: "There was an emperor who came with his army to the end of the world, where begins the dark country in which was absolute darkness. He wished to proceed into it, but he did not know how he could return. At length he came to the conclusion that he would leave the colts behind and go farther into the darkness and trust to the mares to get them out again. When they proceeded into the dark country, they heard under the feet of their horses something making a noise like the crunching of small stones. They could not see what it was, but they heard a human voice which told them, 'Who takes some of these stones will repent, he who does not take will repent too.' Some of them thought, 'When I repent I will not take some'; the others thought, 'When I repent I shall take some.' When the mares took them back into the light they saw that the small stones were diamonds, and then they who had not taken repented because they had not taken, and they who had taken repented because they had not taken more" (Vuk S. Kazadžić, Lexicon Serbico-germano-latinum, s.v. Tama (Darkness) ).
