The story of zoulvisia

beheld the king he rose up, and rubbed his head against him.
`Oh, my poor horse ! How much cleverer were you than I ! If I had acted like you I should never have lost Zouivisia; but we will seek her together, you and I.`
For a long while the king and his horse followed the course of the stream, but nowhere could he learn anything of Zoulvisia. At length, one evening, they both stopped to rest by a cottage not far from a great city, and as the king was lying outstretched on the grass, lazily watching his horse cropping the short turf, an old woman came out with a wooden bowl of fresh milk, which she offered him.
He drank it eagerly, for he was very thirsty, and then laying down the bowl, began to talk to the woman, who was delighted to have someone to listen to her conversation.
`You are in luck to have passed this way just now,` said she, `for in five days the king holds his wedding banquet. Ah ! but the bride is unwilling, for all her blue eyes and her golden hair ! And she keeps by her side a cup of poison, and declares that she will swallow it rather than become his wife. Yet he is a handsome man too, and a proper husband for hermore than she could have looked for, having come no one knows whither, and bought from a witch –`
The king started. Had he found her after all ? His heart beat violently, as if it would choke him; but he gasped out:
`Is her name Zoulvisia ?`
`Ay, so she says, though the old witchBut what ails you ?` she broke off, as the young man sprang to his feet and seized her wrists.
`Listen to me,` he said. `Can you keep a secret ?`
`Ay,` answered the old woman again, `if I am paid for it.`
`Oh, you shall be paid, never fearas much as your heart can desire ! Here is a handful of gold: you shall have as much again if you will do my bidding.` The old crone nodded her head.
`Then go and buy a dress such as ladies wear at court, and manage to get admitted into the palace, and into the presence of Zoulvisia. When there, show her this ring, and after that she will tell you what to do.`
So the old woman set off, and clothed herself in a garment of yellow silk, and wrapped a veil closely round her head. In this dress she walked boldly up the palace steps behind some merchants whom the king had sent for to bring presents for Zoulvisia.
At first the bride would have nothing to say to any of them; but on perceiving the ring, she suddenly grew as meek as a lamb. And thanking the merchants for their trouble, she sent them away, and remained alone with her visitor.
`Grandmother,` asked Zoulvisia, as soon as the door was safely shut, `where is the owner of this ring ?`
`In my cottage,` answered the old woman, `waiting for orders from you.`
`Tell him to remain there for three days; and now go to the king of this country, and say that you have succeeded in bringing me to reason. Then he will let me alone and will cease to watch me. On the third day from this I shall be wandering about the garden near the river, and there your guest will find me. The rest concerns myself only.`
The morning of the third day dawned, and with the first rays of the sun a bustle began in the palace; for that evening the king was to marry Zoulvisia. Tents were being erected of fine scarlet cloth, decked with wreaths of sweet-smelling white flowers, and in them the banquet was spread. When all was ready a procession was formed to fetch the bride, who had been wandering in the palace gardens since daylight, and crowds lined the way to see her pass. A glimpse of her dress of golden gauze might be caught, as she passed from one flowery thicket to another; then suddenly the multitude swayed, and shrank back, as a thunderbolt seemed to flash out of the sky to the place where Zoulvisia was standing. Ah ! but it was no thunderbolt, only the horse of fire ! And when the people looked again, it was bounding away with two persons on its back.
Zoulvisia and her husband both learnt how to keep happiness when they had got it; and that is a lesson that many men and women never learn at all. And besides, it is a lesson which nobody can teach, and that every boy and girl must learn for themselves.