The young prince gazed at them for some time, admiring their beauty, and then he spoke to the golden horse, “Friend, I think we had better leave this place before the old man comes back again.”
“Very well,” answered the golden horse, “I am quite willing to go away, only you must take heed to what I am going to tell. Go and find linen cloth enough to spread over the stones at the mouth of the cave, for if the old man hears the ring of my hoofs he will be certain to kill you. Then you must take with you a little stone, a drop of water, and a pair of scissors, and the moment I tell you to throw them down you must obey me quickly, or you are lost.”
The prince did everything that the golden horse had ordered him, and then, taking up the golden hen with her chickens in a bag, he placed it under his arm, and mounted the horse and rode quickly out of the cave, leading with him, in a leash, the golden greyhound. But the moment they were in the open air the old man, although he was very far off, tending his goats on a distant mountain, heard the clang of the golden hoofs, and cried to his great goat, “They have run away. Let us follow them at once.”
In a wonderfully short time the old man on his great goat came so near the prince on his golden horse, that the latter shouted, “Throw now the little stone!”
The moment the prince had thrown it down, a high rocky mountain rose up between him and the old man, and before the goat had climbed over it, the golden horse had gained much ground. Very soon, however, the old man was so nearly catching them that the horse shouted, “Throw, now, the drop of water!” The prince obeyed instantly, and immediately saw a broad river flowing between him and his pursuer.
It took the old man on his goat so long to cross the river that the prince on his golden horse was far away before them; but for all that it was not very long before the horse heard the goat so near behind him that he shouted, “Throw the scissors.” The prince threw them, and the goat, running over them, injured one of his fore legs very badly. When the old man saw this, he exclaimed, “Now I see I cannot catch you, so you may keep what you have taken. But you will do wisely to listen to my counsel. People will be sure to kill you for the sake of your golden horse, so you had better buy at once a donkey, and take the hide to cover your horse. And do the same with your golden greyhound.”
Having said this, the old man turned and rode back to his cave; and the prince lost no time in attending to his advice, and covered with donkey-hide his golden horse and his golden hound.
After travelling a long time the prince came unawares to the kingdom of his father. There he heard that the king had had a ditch dug, three hundred yards wide and four hundred yards deep, and had proclaimed that whosoever should leap his horse over it, should have the princess, his daughter, for wife.
Almost a whole year had elapsed since the proclamation was issued, but as yet no one had dared to risk the leap. When the prince heard this, he said, “I will leap over it with my donkey and my dog!” and he leapt over it.
But the king was very angry when he heard that a poorly dressed man, on a donkey, had dared to leap over the great ditch which had frightened back his bravest knights; so he had the disguised prince thrown into one of his deepest dungeons, together with his donkey and his dog.