Page:The folk-tales of the Magyars.djvu/147

at the sun." "Well, Doghead lives there," said the mare, "and that is his royal castle." Prince Mirkó rode close under the window and shouted loudly: "Doghead! are you at home? Come out, because I have to reckon with you." Doghead himself was not at home, but his daughter was there—such a beautiful royal princess, whose like one could not find in the whole world. As she sat in the window doing some needlework, and heard the high shrill voice, she looked through the window in a great rage, and gave him such a look with her beautiful flashing black eyes, that Prince Mirkó and his mare at once turned into a stone statue. However, she began to think that perhaps the young gentleman might be some prince who had come to see her; so she repented that she had transformed him into a stone statue so quickly; and ran down to him, took out a golden rod, and began to walk round the stone statue, and tapped its sides with her gold rod, and lo! the stone crust began to crack, and fell off, and all at once Prince Mirkó and his mare stood alive in front of her. Then the princess asked; "Who are you? and what is your business?" And Mirkó told her that he was a prince, and had come to see the Princess of Doghead. The princess slightly scolded him for shouting for her father so roughly through the window, but at the same time fell in love with Prince Mirkó on the spot, and asked him to come into her diamond castle, which was six stories high, and received him well. However, while feasting, Prince Mirkó during the conversation confessed what his true errand was, viz., to fight Doghead; but the princess advised him to desist from this, because there was no man in the whole world who could match her father. But when she found that Mirkó could not be dissuaded, she took pity on him, and, fearing that lest he should be vanquished, let him into the secret how to conquer her father. "Go down," she said, "into the seventh cellar of the castle; there you will find a cask which is not sealed. In that cask is kept my father's strength. I hand you here a silver bottle, which you