"Then may God go with you," replied the emperor. "He alone knows whether you will have better luck than your brothers."
So the monarch's youngest son also bade him farewell and set off for the frontiers of the empire. On the bridge stood a dragon still larger and more horrible, with jaws even more yawning and frightful. The creature now had seven heads instead of three.
Petru stopped when he beheld this monster. "Get out of the way!" he shouted. The dragon did not stir. Petru called a second and a third time, then rushed forward with uplifted sword. Instantly the sky darkened so that he saw nothing but fire—fire on the right, fire on the left, fire before him, fire behind him. The dragon was spitting fire from every one of its seven heads. The horse began to neigh and rear, so that our hero could not strike with his sword.
"Hold! This won't do!" said Petru, dismounting and seizing the horse's bridle with his left hand, while he held his sword in the right.
That plan would not do either. The hero saw nothing but fire and smoke.
"I'll go home—to get a better horse," said Petru, and he mounted his steed, and went away to come back again.
When he reached the place his nurse, old Birscha, was waiting for him at the court-yard gate.
"Ah, my son Petru! I knew you would be obliged to come back again, because you didn't set out right."
"How ought I to have gone?" asked Petru, half angrily, half sadly.
"You see, my dear Petru," the old nurse began, "you can't reach the fountain of the Fairy Aurora unless you ride the horse which your father the emperor rode in his youth; go, ask where and whose that horse is, then mount it and depart."