The prince did as he was told and as soon as the mare heard him calling to her in this way she was obliged to come out from the pack and take her real shape, and the prince mounted upon her back and rode her home.
When the witch saw him riding back to the house she ground her teeth with rage. As soon as she had sent him to the kitchen she went out to the black mare’s stall to beat it. “To the foxes! to the foxes! That was what I told you,” she cried.
“Mistress, I did hide among them as you bade me,” answered the mare, “but this lad is a friend of the foxes too, and they told him where I was.”
“Then to-morrow hide among the wolves,” said the old woman. “He will certainly never look for you there.”
The next day it was the same thing over again. The prince sat on the mare’s back so that she should not escape him. After while he went to sleep, and the mare slipped away from him, but this time it was into a wolf she changed herself.
When the prince awoke he was in despair, until he remembered that he had still one friend to help him. He gently rubbed the hairs the wolf had given him, and said,
“Kind gray wolf, if friend indeed,
Help me in my time of need.”
Immediately the wolf came galloping out of the wood and asked the prince what he could do for him.
The prince told him how he had been set to watch the black mare and had gone to sleep and lost her; “And now,” said he, “I fear there is nothing for me but to lose my head and have it set upon a post.”