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Troll on his return would certainly kill him, and then continued, " Lay the saddle on me, put on the armotir, and take the whip of thorn, the stone, and the water-flask and the pot of ointment, and then wo will set out." When the youth mounted the horse, it set off at a rapid rate. After riding some time, the horse said " I think I hear a noise ; look round, can you sec anything ?" " A great many arc coming after us, certainly a score at least," answered the youth. " Ah ! that ia the Troll," said the horse, he is coming with all his companions." They travelled for a time until their pursuers were gaining on them. " Throw now the thorn whip over your shoul- der," said the horse, " but throw it far away from me." The youth did so, and at the same moment there sprang up a large thick wood of briars. The youth now rode on a long way, while the Troll had to go home to fetch something wherewith to hew a road through the wood. After some time the horse again said, " Look back, can you see anything now ?" " Yes, a whole multitude of people" said the youth, "like a church congregation." "That is the Troll, now he has got more with him, throw out now the large stone, but throw it far from me." When the youth had done what the horse desired, there arose a large stone mountain behind them. So the Troll was obliged to go home after something with which to bore through the mountain : and while he was thus employed, the youth rode on a considerable way. But now tho horse bade him again look back ; he then saw a multitude like a whole army, they were so bright, that they glittered in the sun. " Well that is tho Troll with all hia friends," said the horse. " Now throw the water-bottle behind you, but take good care to spill none on me." The youth did so, but notwithstanding his caution he hap- pened to spill a drop on the horse's loins. Immediately there arose a vast lake, and the spilling of a few drops caused the horse to stand far out in the water; never! ] . he at last swam to the shore. When tho Trolls came to the water, they lay down to drink it all up, and they gulped and gulped it down till they burst. (Folk-lore de- mons' experience great difficulty in crossing water.) " Now we are quit of them," said the horse.}}
In Laura von Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Märchen, Vol. II, p. 57, we find a similar incident. In the story of Fata Morgana, a prince, who carries off a bottle filled with her perspiration, but imprudently wakes her by kissing her, is pursued by her with two lions. Ho throws three pomegranates behind him: the first produces a river of blood, the second a thorny mountain, the third a volcano. This he does by the advice of his horse, who is really Fata Morgana's brother transformed by magic: see also Vol. I, p. 343; cp. also the 79th tale in Grimm's Kinder und Hausmärchen (sixteenth edition in one volume) Die Wassernixe.
In Orient und Occident, Vol. II, p. 113, Dr. Reinhold Köhler, in his remarks on the West Highland Stories collected by J. F. Campbell, compares the story of Agni- śikha with the second story in Campbell's collection, entitled: " The Battle of the Birds." In this a king's son wishes to marry the youngest daughter of a giant. Tho giant sets him three tasks to do; to clean out a stable, to thatch it with feathers, and to fetch eggs from a magpie's nest in the top of a tree more than five hundred feet high. All these tasks he accomplishes by the help of the young lady herself. In the last task she makes a ladder of her fingers for him to ascend the tree by, but in so doing she loses her little finger. The giant requires the prince to choose his wife from among three sisters similarly dressed. He recognizes her by the loss of the little finger. When bed-time came, the giant's daughter told the prince that they must fly, or the giant would kill him. They mounted on the gray filly in the stable. But before start-
