Then Taliesin bade Elphin wager the King that he had a horse both better and swifter than the King's horses. The King accepted the challenge, and fixed day and time and place for the wager to be tried, and promised him his freedom if he should win the race. The King went thither with all his people and four and twenty of the swiftest horses he possessed. The course was marked out and the horses placed for running. Then came Taliesin with four and twenty twigs of holly, which he had burnt black, and he bade the youth who was to ride his master's horse to place them in his belt. Then he ordered him to let all the King's horses get before him, and, as he should overtake one horse after another, to strike the horse with a holly twig over the crupper, and then let that twig fall, and then to take another twig, and do the same to every one of the horses as he should overtake them.
Moreover, he bade the horseman to watch carefully where his own horse should stumble, and to throw down his cap on the spot. All this was done, and, behold! each horse that was struck with the holly twig began to lag behind, and the horse of Elphin easily won the race. When all was over, Taliesin brought his master to the spot where his horse had stumbled, and ordered workmen to dig a hole there; and when they had dug deep enough they found a cauldron full of gold. Then said Taliesin: "Elphin, take thou this as a reward for having taken me out of the weir and reared me from that time until now."
So Elphin went home a rich man to his father, and the work of Taliesin was accomplished.
From the Welsh Romance of Taliesin. Thirteenth century.
Olger the Dane
I. How Olger became Champion of France
Long ago, in the days when Denmark and England were almost like one country, the palace of the King of the Danes was dark and gloomy, and the sound of weeping and wailing rose within its walls; for the fair young queen, whom all the people loved, had died in giving birth to a son. When she was dead, they took the babe from her arms, and, having called him Olger, they carried him away to the royal nursery, and laid him on a quilted bed of down, and left him there alone. But ere long a sound of rustling was heard in the silent room, and there assembled round the bed six beautiful fairies, who smiled and kissed their hands to him; and the babe smiled back in return.
Then the Fairy Glorian took the child in her arms, and kissed him, and said: "My gift to you is that you shall be the strongest and bravest knight of all your time."
"And mine," said the Fairy Palestine, "is that you shall always have battles to fight."