Then the robber got back as well as he could to his captain, and said, “Oh dear! in that house there is a gruesome witch, and I felt her breath and her long nails in my face; and by the door there stands a man who stabbed me in the leg with a knife, and in the yard there lies a black spectre, who beat me with his wooden club; and above, upon the roof, there sits the justice, who cried, ‘bring that rogue here!’ And so I ran away from the place as fast as I could.”

From that time forward the robbers never returned to that house, and the four Bremen town musicians found themselves so well off where they were, that there they stayed.  And the person who last related this tale is still living, as you see.

A Very Queer Steed, and Some Strange Adventures.

TOLD AFTER ARIOSTO BY ELIZABETH ARMSTRONG.

An Italian poet named Ariosto, who lived before our grandfathers were born, has told some very funny stories, one of which I will tell you.  Not contented with mounting his heroes on ordinary horses, he gave one of them a splendid winged creature to ride; a fiery steed with eyes of flame, and the great pinions of an eagle.  This creature’s name was Hippogrif.  Let me tell you how Prince Roger caught the Hippogrif, and then you will want to know something about his queer journey.  I may as well tell you that Prince Roger belonged to the Saracens, and that he loved a lady of France named Bradamante, also that an old enchanter had captured both the prince and the lady and gotten them into his power.  They of course were planning a way of escape, and hoped to go off together, and be married, and live happily ever after, but this was not the intention of their captor.  The two prisoners, who were allowed a good deal of liberty, were standing together one day, when Bradamante said to Roger: 

“Look! there is the old man’s Hippogrif still standing quietly by us.  I have a mind to catch him and take a ride on him, for he is mine by right of conquest since I have overcome his master.”  So she went toward the winged steed and stretched out her hand to take him by the bridle; but the Hippogrif darted up into the air, and flew a hundred yards or so away before he settled again upon the ground.  Again and again she tried to catch him, but he always flew off before she could touch him, and then came down to earth a little distance away, where he waited for her to get near him again, just as you may see a butterfly flit from one cabbage-row to another, and always manage to keep a yard or two ahead of the boy who chases it.  At last, however, he alighted close by the side of Roger, whereupon the Prince cried to his lady:  “I will catch him and give him a ride to break him in for you;” and, seizing hold of the bridle in his left hand, he vaulted on to the back of the Hippogrif, who stood still without attempting to escape, as if to acknowledge that here he had found his proper master.  But the Prince was no sooner fairly in the saddle than his strange steed shot up fifty feet straight into the air, and, taking the bit between his teeth, with a dozen flaps of his mighty wings carried his unwilling rider far away over the mountains and out of sight of the unfortunate Bradamante.