When the fighting was over, the king observed his handkerchief tied round the leg of the strange warrior, and by this he easily knew him. They received him with great joy, and carried him with them up to the royal palace, and the princess, who saw them from her window, was so delighted no one could tell. "There comes my beloved also," said she. He then took the pot of ointment and rubbed his leg, and afterward all the wounded, so that they were all well again in a moment.
After this the king gave him the princess to wife. On the day of his marriage he went down into the stable to see the horse, and found him dull, hanging his ears and refusing to eat. When the young king--for he was now king, having obtained the half of the realm--spoke to him and asked him what he wanted, the horse said, "I have now helped thee forward in the world, and I will live no longer: thou must take thy sword, and cut my head off." "No, that I will not do," said the young king: "thou shalt have whatever thou wilt, and always live without working." "If thou wilt not do as I say," answered the horse, "I shall find a way of killing thee."
The king was then obliged to slay him; but when he raised the sword to give the stroke he was so distressed that he turned his face away; but no sooner had he struck his head off than there stood before him a handsome prince in the place of the horse.
"Whence in the name of Heaven didst thou come?" asked the king. "It was I who was the horse," answered the prince. "Formerly I was king of the country whose sovereign you slew yesterday; it was he who cast over me a horse's semblance, and sold me to the Troll. As he is killed, I shall recover my kingdom, and you and I shall be neighboring kings; but we will never go to war with each other."
Neither did they; they were friends as long as they lived, and the one came often to visit the other.
ROGER ASCHAM
(1515-1568)
his noted scholar owes his place in English literature to his pure, vigorous English prose. John Tindal and Sir Thomas More, his predecessors, had perhaps equaled him in the flexible and simple use of his native tongue, but they had not surpassed him. The usage of the time was still to write works of importance in Latin, and Ascham was master of a good Ciceronian Latin style. It is to his credit that he urged on his countrymen the writing of English, and set them an example of its vigorous use.