The Enchanted Horse

In Persia the greatest feast of all the year was the Feast of the New Year, and the king had spent the whole day in the city of Shiraz watching the shows and wonders his people had prepared to honour it. The sun was going down, and he was just about to signal that the court could leave, when a man from India stepped out before the throne. With him he led a horse with rich harness. It looked exactly like a living horse, but it was made by hand.

The man bowed to the ground. “Sire,” he said, “I know I come very late, but none of the marvels you have seen today can match this horse, if you will only look at it.”

“I see nothing special,” said the king. “It is a clever copy of a real horse. Any good craftsman could make one.”

“Sire, I am not speaking of how he looks, but of what he can do,” the Indian replied. “When I sit on his back and wish to be somewhere, however far away, I am there in a few moments. That is what makes him a wonder, and if Your Highness allows it, you may test him yourself.”

The king loved anything unusual, and he had never heard of a horse like this. He told the Indian to mount and show what it could do. The man sprang into the saddle and asked where he should go. The king pointed to a great mountain that rose against the sky about three leagues from Shiraz. “Go to the foot of that mountain,” he said, “and bring me a leaf from the palm tree that grows there.”

Before the king had finished speaking, the Indian turned a little screw in the horse’s neck, just in front of the saddle. The horse shot up into the air like a flash of lightning and was soon too high for even the sharpest eyes to follow. A quarter of an hour later the Indian came flying back with a palm leaf in his hand. He landed the horse at the foot of the throne, got down, and laid the leaf before the king.

Now that the king had seen how fast the horse could fly, he wanted it more than anything. He was so sure the Indian would sell it that he already thought of it as his own. “I did not guess how valuable he was from the outside,” he said, “and I thank you for showing me my mistake. Name your price, and he is mine.”

“Sire,” said the Indian, “I was sure that a king as wise as you would value my horse once he saw what it could do. I even thought you might want it. I treasure it greatly, but I will give it to you on one condition. I did not make this horse. The man who made it gave it to me in exchange for my only daughter, and he made me swear never to part with it except for something of equal worth.”

“Ask for anything,” the king broke in. “My kingdom is large and full of fine cities. Choose any one you like, and you shall rule it for the rest of your life.”

The Indian did not think this nearly as generous as the king did. “Sire,” he said, “I thank you for such a royal offer, and I beg you not to be angry. But I can give up my horse only in exchange for the hand of your daughter, the princess.”

The courtiers burst out laughing. But the king’s son, Prince Firouz Shah, who would one day rule Persia, was furious at the man’s cheek. The king himself was tempted. He did not think it would cost him much to part with his daughter for such a wonderful toy, and while he hesitated, the prince spoke up.

“Sire,” he said, “you cannot possibly be wondering how to answer such an insulting bargain. Think of your own honour, and the honour of our ancestors.”

“My son,” said the king, “you speak nobly, but you do not understand what this horse is worth. If I refuse, this man will make the same offer to some other king, and I could not bear for anyone but me to own the Seventh Wonder of the World. I have not said I will accept. Perhaps he can be made to see reason. Meanwhile, I would like you to look at the horse closely and, if its owner agrees, try it out for yourself.”

The Indian heard this and thought the king was about to give in, so he happily agreed. He came forward to help the prince into the saddle and began to show him how to steer. But before he had finished, the young man turned the screw and was gone.

Everyone waited, expecting to see him come back at any moment, but there was no sign of him. At last the Indian grew frightened. He threw himself down before the throne. “Sire,” he said, “you saw that the prince was too impatient to let me explain how to bring the horse back to the place it started from. I beg you not to punish me for something that was not my fault.”

“Then why did you not call him back when you saw him going?” cried the king, half in fear and half in anger.

“Sire, he went so fast that I could not find my voice before he was out of hearing. But we must hope he will find a second screw. If he turns it, the horse will come back down to earth.”

“And if he does,” said the king, “what is to stop the horse from coming down in the middle of the sea, or smashing him on the rocks?”

“Do not be afraid, Your Highness. The horse can cross the sea, and it will carry its rider wherever he wishes.”

“Then your head will answer for it,” said the king. “If in three months my son has not come back safely, or at least sent word that he is alive, you will pay with your life.” And he had his guards seize the Indian and throw him into prison.

Meanwhile Prince Firouz Shah had soared happily into the sky. For an hour he climbed higher and higher, until he could no longer tell the mountains from the plains. Then he decided it was time to come down. He thought he only had to turn the screw the other way, but no matter how he twisted it, nothing happened. Now he remembered that he had never waited to learn how to land, and he understood how much danger he was in.

Luckily he kept calm. He ran his hands carefully over the horse’s neck until, to his great joy, he found a second peg, much smaller than the first, close to the right ear. When he turned it, the horse began to sink toward the ground, more slowly than it had risen. By now it was dark. He could not see where he was going, so he had to let the horse choose its own way, which made him uneasy. It was after midnight when he finally touched down, tired and faint, for he had eaten nothing since early morning.

As far as he could tell in the darkness, he had landed on the flat roof of a huge palace, with a marble railing running all the way round. In one corner was a small door leading to a staircase. Many people would have been afraid to go further, but not the prince. “I mean no harm,” he said to himself, “and whoever lives here will not hurt a man who carries no weapon.” Feeling for each step so that he would not fall, he crept down the stairs.

On a landing he found an open door with a dim light beyond it. He stopped to listen, but all he could hear was snoring. A lamp hung from the ceiling, and by its light he saw a row of guards asleep on the floor, each with a drawn sword beside him. He guessed that this room must guard the rooms of a queen or a princess. He stood still until his eyes grew used to the gloom, and then he noticed a bright light shining through a curtain in one corner.

He tiptoed across and drew the curtain aside. Beyond it was a splendid room full of sleeping women. They all lay on low couches, except one who slept on a raised sofa, and he knew she must be the princess. He crept closer and saw that she was more beautiful than anyone he had ever seen. But he knew that a single cry of surprise would wake the guards and mean his death. So he knelt quietly beside her, took hold of her sleeve and gently drew her arm toward him.

The princess opened her eyes and saw a handsome, finely dressed young man kneeling there. She was too astonished to speak. The prince bowed his head and spoke quickly before she could cry out. “Lady, you see before you a prince in trouble, the son of the King of Persia. Through an adventure so strange you will hardly believe it, I have come here to ask for your protection. Yesterday I was at my father’s court celebrating our greatest feast. Today I am in a land I do not know, and my life is in danger.”

The princess he had woken was the eldest daughter of the King of Bengal. She was staying in a palace her father had built for her a little way outside his capital, where she came to rest. She listened kindly and then said, “Prince, do not worry. Kindness to strangers is honoured in Bengal just as it is in Persia. Everyone here will protect you. I give you my word.”

Before he could thank her she went on, “I am very curious to know how you got here so fast, but you must be faint with hunger. My women will take you to a room where you can have supper and rest.” By now her women were all awake and had heard everything. At a sign from her they dressed quickly, picked up candles, and led the prince to a large, high room. Two of them made up his bed, and the others hurried to the kitchen and came back with all kinds of dishes. They showed him cupboards full of clothes and linen, and left him.

The princess could not get back to sleep. She had been greatly struck by the prince. When her women came back she asked eagerly whether he had everything he needed and what they thought of him. “Madam,” they said, “we cannot know what you think of him, but we think you would be lucky if your father let you marry someone so charming. There is no one at the court of Bengal to compare with him.” She was pleased, but she did not want to show it. “You are a lot of chatterboxes,” she said. “Go back to bed and let me sleep.”

The next morning her maids noticed that she took far more trouble than usual over how she looked, and had her hair done two or three times. “If the prince liked my looks when he found me half asleep,” she thought, “he will like them even more now.” She wore her finest diamonds, a necklace, bracelets and a jewelled belt, and over her shoulders went a robe of the richest cloth in all the Indies, which only the royal family were allowed to wear.

When she was ready she sent to ask whether the prince was awake and could receive her. Her messenger met him at his door, just as he was coming to ask whether he might pay his respects to her. “Her wish is my command,” he said, and went back in. Soon the princess arrived. She sat down and explained why she had come to his room instead of receiving him in her own. “The chief of my guards may walk into my rooms whenever he likes,” she said, “but he may not come here, so no one will disturb us. I cannot wait to hear how you came to us. Please begin.”

So the prince told her everything from the beginning: the great New Year festival in Persia and its shows, and then the wooden horse. She said she had never imagined anything so wonderful. He told her how his father had longed to own the horse, how the Indian had asked for the hand of the prince’s own sister, how the courtiers had laughed while he raged, and how his father could not bring himself to refuse. He described how he had leapt into the saddle without waiting to learn how to fly it, how he had shot so high he thought he would bump his head on the sky, how at dusk he had found the second peg, and how after midnight he had come down on her roof and crept past her sleeping guards.

“The rest you know,” he said. “I can only thank you for your kindness. I have nothing to give you but my heart, and that, I must confess, has been yours since the moment I first saw you.”

The princess blushed. “Prince,” she said, when she could speak, “I followed every step of your adventure, and even though you are sitting right here, I trembled at the danger you were in up in the sky. I am glad that chance brought you to my house, for no other would have welcomed you more warmly. As for your heart, I am sure it was given long ago to some princess who deserves it, and I would not want you to be untrue to her.” He was about to say that there was no one else, but just then a servant came to say the meal was ready, and neither of them was sorry to be interrupted.

They ate in a beautiful hall while girls in rich clothes sang softly and played on stringed instruments. Afterward they sat in a little room hung with blue and gold that looked out on a garden full of flowers and strawberry trees quite unlike any in Persia. “I always believed Persia had the finest palaces and gardens in the world,” said the prince, “but now I see that wherever there is a great king, there are buildings worthy of him.”

“I have never seen a Persian palace, so I cannot compare,” said the princess, “but this one is very poor beside my father’s, as you will see when you visit him, as I hope you will soon.” She hoped that once her father met the prince, he would be so impressed that he would offer him her hand.

But the prince answered, “Nothing would please me more than to meet the King of Bengal. But I could not appear before so great a king without servants and attendants fit for my rank. He would think I was some wandering adventurer.”

“If that is all,” she said, “there are plenty of Persian merchants here, and my treasury is open to you. Take whatever you need.”

The prince understood why she was being so kind, and he was touched. But even though he loved her more every moment, he did not forget what he owed his father. “I cannot thank you enough,” he said, “and I would accept at once, but my father must be suffering terribly, believing he has lost me. While I am enjoying the company of the kindest princess in the world, he is surely in the deepest grief. It would be ungrateful, even wicked, to stay away one moment longer than I must. Who knows whether my absence might break his heart? But once I have done my duty, I will count the moments until I can come back to the King of Bengal, not as a wanderer but as a prince, to ask for your hand. My father has always told me I may choose my own wife, and once I describe your goodness to him, he will want this marriage as much as I do.”

The princess saw that he was right, but she was afraid that once he was gone he would forget her. So she agreed that he must see his father, and then begged him to stay just a day or two longer. He could hardly refuse. She arranged so many pleasures for him, dances and shows and hunting, which she loved as long as it was not dangerous, that two months passed almost without his noticing.

At last he told her firmly that he could not neglect his duty any longer. “Perhaps you think I am one of those lovers who forget as soon as they are out of sight,” he said. “You would be wrong. If I were not afraid of offending you, I would ask you to come with me, because I can only be happy with you. My father’s court will welcome you as you deserve, and if your own father loves you as much as you say, he will not refuse to let us marry.”

The princess did not answer, but her silence and her lowered eyes told him she was willing to go. Her only worry was that the prince did not really know how to fly the horse, and she was afraid they might end up lost as he had been. But he calmed her fears, and soon she thought only of how to leave without anyone in the palace suspecting. Early the next morning, while everyone slept, she slipped up to the roof, where the prince was waiting with the horse’s head turned toward Persia. He climbed into the saddle and helped her up behind him. When she was holding tightly to his belt, he turned the peg, and the horse rose swiftly into the sky.

The prince steered so well that in two and a half hours he saw the capital of Persia below him. He decided not to land in the great square he had flown from, or at the palace, but at one of his father’s country houses a little way outside the city. He showed the princess to a beautiful set of rooms and asked her to rest while he told his father they had arrived and prepared a proper welcome for her.

Then he rode into the city. All along the streets people cheered, for they had given up hope of ever seeing him again. At the palace he found his father surrounded by ministers, all dressed in mourning. When the king heard his son’s voice he was almost beside himself with surprise and joy. As soon as he was calmer, he asked to hear everything. The prince told him all about the Princess of Bengal, and did not hide that she loved him. “Sire,” he said, “I gave my royal word that you would not refuse us, and so she came back with me on the Indian’s horse. She is waiting in your country house to learn that I did not promise in vain.”

The prince was about to kneel, but his father held him and embraced him again. “My son,” he said, “I gladly agree to your marriage. I will go myself to thank her for all she has done for you, and bring her back with me, and the wedding shall be held today.”

The king ordered the people to put away their mourning clothes and called for drums, trumpets and cymbals. He also ordered the Indian brought from prison. When the man stood before him between the guards, the king said, “I kept you locked up so that if my son was lost, your life would pay for it. He has come home. Take your horse and go, and never come back.”

The Indian left in a hurry. Outside, he asked the man who had freed him where the prince had been all this time. He was told the whole story, and that the Princess of Bengal was at that very moment waiting at the country house for the king. At once the Indian thought of a way to take revenge for being thrown in prison.

He went straight to the country house and told the doorkeeper that the king and the prince had sent him to bring the princess to the palace on the flying horse. The doorkeeper knew him by sight. He knew the man had been in prison for nearly three months, and seeing him free, he believed him and led him to the princess. When she heard that he came from the prince, she gladly did as he asked.

The Indian, delighted that his trick had worked, mounted the horse, helped the princess up behind him and turned the peg. At that very moment the prince was riding out from the palace toward the country house, with his father and the whole court behind him. The Indian knew it, and on purpose he flew right over the city so that his revenge would be all the sweeter. When the king saw the horse and its riders overhead, he stopped in horror and shouted curses, but the Indian only laughed, for no one could follow him.

The king was angry and ashamed, but the prince’s grief was far worse as he watched the woman he loved carried away. He was speechless with sorrow and blamed himself for not guarding her better, and in a moment she was out of sight. What could he do? Go back to the palace and give way to despair? His love and his courage would not let him. He rode on to the country house.

When the doorkeeper saw the prince he realised what a terrible mistake he had made, and threw himself at his master’s feet, begging forgiveness. “Get up,” said the prince. “This is my fault, not yours. Find me the robe of a dervish, but do not tell anyone it is for me.” There was a house of dervishes nearby whose head was the doorkeeper’s friend, and with a quickly invented story he soon had a dervish’s robe. The prince put it on in place of his own clothes. He hid a box of pearls and diamonds he had meant as a gift for the princess, and at nightfall he left the house. He did not know where he was going, but he swore he would not come back without her.

Meanwhile the Indian had flown on until, after some hours, he came down in a wood near the capital of Kashmir. He was hungry, and thought the princess must be too, so he left her in a shady spot beside a clear stream and went to find food. As soon as she was alone she thought of running away and hiding, but she had eaten almost nothing since leaving Bengal and was too weak to go far. When the Indian came back with meat, she ate hungrily, and soon felt brave enough to answer his rude remarks with spirit. When he began to threaten her, she jumped up and screamed for help.

By good luck, a band of horsemen heard her and rode up to see what was wrong. Their leader was the Sultan of Kashmir, returning from hunting. He asked the Indian who he was and who the lady was. The Indian rudely said she was his wife and it was nobody else’s business. The princess, who did not know who her rescuer was, cried out, “My lord, whoever you are, do not believe this liar! He is a wicked magician who has just stolen me away from the Prince of Persia, whom I am to marry, and brought me here on this enchanted horse.” Tears stopped her from saying more, but the Sultan believed her. He had the Indian put to death on the spot.

But the princess had escaped one danger only to fall into another. The Sultan gave her a horse and took her to his palace. He gave her beautiful rooms with servants to wait on her and guards at her door, and told her to rest and tell him her story the next day. She fell asleep believing that once he heard it, he would feel sorry for her and send her back to the prince.

She was soon proved wrong. The Sultan had decided that before the sun set again she would be his wife, and at dawn he had it announced all over the city with drums, trumpets and cymbals. The noise woke the princess, but she did not imagine it had anything to do with her until the Sultan came to ask how she was and told her the music was for their wedding, and that she should get ready.

The princess was so frightened that she fainted. Her servants and the Sultan himself tried to bring her round, and for a long time they could not. When at last she came to, she made up her mind that rather than break her promise to the Prince of Persia, she would pretend to be mad. She began to say silly, senseless things and to make strange wild movements, while the Sultan watched in sorrow and surprise. When she did not get better, he left her with her women and told them to take great care of her.

As the day went on she seemed to get worse, and by night she was almost raving. This went on day after day, until the Sultan called all his court doctors to discuss her illness. They said there were so many kinds of madness that they could not judge without seeing her, so the Sultan had them brought to her room one at a time. The princess had expected this. She feared an examination might expose her pretence. So whenever a doctor came near she flew into such a rage that none of them dared touch her. A few who claimed they could tell what was wrong just by looking gave her medicines, which she swallowed while keeping up her pretence.

When the court doctors failed, the Sultan sent for the doctors of the city, and then for the most famous doctors from other towns, and none of them could help. At last he sent messengers to the neighbouring kingdoms with a full description of her illness, offering to pay the journey of any doctor who would come, and a large reward to the one who cured her. Many came from far away, but none could solve the problem that kept the performance going: she was being held for a marriage she had refused.

All this time Prince Firouz Shah had been wandering sadly from place to place. At last he came to a large city in India where everyone was talking about the Princess of Bengal, who had lost her mind on the very day she was to marry the Sultan of Kashmir. That was enough. He set off for Kashmir, and at the first inn in the capital he asked for every detail of the story. When he was sure he had found the princess at last, he began to plan how to rescue her.

First he bought a doctor’s gown. With that and the long beard he had grown on his travels, nobody would doubt that he was a physician. Then he went to the palace and asked to see the chief steward. He apologised for daring to think he could succeed where so many had failed, but said he knew of remedies that had never let him down. The steward made him welcome and said the Sultan would be glad to see him, and that if he succeeded his reward would be splendid.

The Sultan wasted no words. He only said that the mere sight of a doctor sent the princess into a fury. Then he took the prince up to a room under the roof, where there was a small opening through which he could watch her without being seen. The prince looked down and saw the princess lying on a sofa with tears in her eyes, softly singing a sad song about the cruel fate that had parted her, perhaps forever, from the one she loved.

The prince’s heart raced. He needed no more proof that her madness was pretended, and that she was doing it out of love for him. He crept away and told the Sultan that he could see signs that her illness was curable, but that he must see her and speak to her alone. The Sultan agreed at once.

As soon as the princess saw his doctor’s gown, she leapt up in a rage and shouted insults at him. The prince paid no attention. He came close enough to whisper so that only she could hear. “Look at me, princess. I am not a doctor. I am the Prince of Persia, and I have come to set you free.”

At the sound of his voice she grew calm, and her face lit up with the kind of joy that only comes when the thing we want most and expect least suddenly happens. For a while she was too happy to speak, and the prince used the time to tell her everything: his despair as he watched her vanish, his vow to follow her across the world, and his delight at finding her at last. Then he asked how she had come there, so that he could plan her escape. In a few words she told him how she had been forced to pretend to be mad to escape a marriage the Sultan had never even asked her about, and that she would rather die than be forced to marry him and break her word to the prince she loved.

He asked whether she knew what had happened to the enchanted horse after the Indian’s death. She had heard nothing about it, but she did not think the Sultan would have forgotten it after she had told him how precious it was. The prince agreed, and together they worked out a plan for her escape. The first step was that she should dress with care and be polite to the Sultan when he came to see her the next morning.

The Sultan was overjoyed when he heard how the visit had gone, and he thought even more of the doctor the next day, when the princess behaved so sensibly that he was sure she would soon be completely well. He told her how glad he was, urged her to trust the clever doctor, and left without waiting for an answer. The prince left the room with him and humbly asked how the princess had come to Kashmir, so far from her father’s kingdom, and alone.

The Sultan thought this a reasonable question and told him the same story the princess had told, adding that he had had the enchanted horse put in his treasury as a curiosity, although he had no idea how it worked.

“Sire,” said the false doctor, “that is the clue I needed to finish her cure. On her journey here on the enchanted horse, some of its magic passed into her, and only certain perfumes whose secret I know can drive it out. If Your Highness agrees, and would like to give your court and your people one of the most amazing sights they have ever seen, have the horse brought out into the great square in front of the palace, and leave the rest to me. I promise that within a few moments, in front of the whole crowd, you will see the princess as healthy in mind and body as she has ever been. To make it even more splendid, she should be richly dressed and wear the finest jewels of the crown.”

The Sultan agreed to everything. The next morning he had the enchanted horse taken from the treasury and set in the great square. Word spread through the city that something extraordinary was about to happen, and so many people crowded in that the guards had to keep order and clear a way for the horse. When everything was ready, the Sultan took his seat on a high platform among his nobles and officers. Then the Princess of Bengal came out of the palace with the ladies the Sultan had given her. She walked slowly to the horse, and with their help she climbed onto its back.

As soon as she was in the saddle, with her feet in the stirrups and the reins in her hand, the doctor set large pans of burning coals all around the horse and threw a sweet-smelling perfume into each one. Then he folded his hands across his chest and, with his eyes lowered, walked three times around the horse, murmuring strange words. Thick smoke rose from the pans until the horse and the princess were almost hidden. That was the moment he had been waiting for.

He sprang up behind the princess, leaned forward and turned the peg. As the horse shot into the air, he called out loudly enough for everyone to hear: “Sultan of Kashmir, next time you want to marry a princess who has come to you for protection, ask for her consent first!”

And so the Prince of Persia rescued the Princess of Bengal and carried her home. This time they landed in front of the king’s own palace. The wedding was put off only long enough to make it as splendid as possible, and as soon as the celebrations were over, an ambassador was sent to the King of Bengal to tell him everything that had happened and ask him to approve the marriage, which he gladly did.

Where this story comes from

“The Enchanted Horse” comes from Andrew Lang’s The Arabian Nights Entertainments (1898), translated for Lang’s edition from the French version of Antoine Galland, who had dropped the poetry. The preface admits that the stories were also shortened here and there. This adaptation follows that French-to-English publication route; its settings in Persia, Bengal and Kashmir do not by themselves establish a single place of origin.

The flying horse is a machine, worked by pegs, brought to the Persian court by an owner from India. He explicitly says that someone else made it. This page tells the whole of Lang’s tale: the New Year feast, the prince’s flight to Bengal, the Indian’s revenge, the princess’s clever pretence in Kashmir and the rescue in the palace square. The adaptation omits the guards’ skin-colour descriptions and substitutes food for wine in the wood. It also removes the source’s misleading certainty about a pulse revealing feigned illness and medicines doing no harm. The princess’s disguise and the false doctor’s ritual are plot devices, not medical explanations.

Read the original: Andrew Lang, The Arabian Nights Entertainments (Project Gutenberg #128, The Enchanted Horse)

For older readers: includes women offered in marriage without consent, abduction, threatened execution and a killing. The princess feigns illness to resist a forced marriage.

Who gets to decide?

The first proposed bargain exchanges a daughter for a horse. Later, the Sultan treats rescuing the Princess of Bengal as permission to marry her. Both decisions concern a woman who has not been asked. The prince’s final call for consent answers the Sultan directly, but it also casts light on the earlier bargain at his own father’s court. His initial objection speaks of family honour; the ending names the princess’s choice.

The horse’s power stays the same, while knowledge of its controls changes hands. The prince’s first flight is dangerous because he leaves before learning them. The Sultan can possess the horse without knowing how to use it, and the prince exploits that ignorance in the final performance. The princess’s pretence buys time; their private planning then turns a public demonstration into an escape. Her resistance protects her right to refuse, whether or not she has promised herself to anyone else.

Compare three public displays

For the palm-leaf demonstration, the flight over Persia and the smoky “cure,” record what the crowd sees and what only the rider knows. Which display proves a real ability, which advertises revenge, and which conceals a shared escape plan? Then name the person whose consent is missing from each proposed marriage.

Talk about it

• Why did the prince take off before the Indian had finished explaining the horse?
• The king locked up the Indian although the accident was not really his fault. Was that fair? Why?
• If you landed on a strange palace roof at midnight, what would you do first?
• How did the princess protect herself in Kashmir, and how did the prince use the Sultan’s own wish for a show to rescue her?

Related stories

• Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp — another Arabian Nights hero whose magic object carries him into great danger
• Prince Camaralzaman and Princess Badoura — an Arabian Nights prince and princess from distant lands brought together by magic
• The Firebird, the Horse of Power, and Princess Vasilisa — a Russian prince helped by a wonderful horse on a long journey