The Red Horse

The Red Horse

One night I was walking home alone through the woods.  I didn’t like being out there so late but I had been visiting friends in a nearby town and had stayed longer than I had planned.  It was a very dark night and I could barely see the trees on either side of the path. As I came around a curve in the road, I noticed a light off to the left.  I looked in the direction of the light and saw a narrow path leading into the woods.  The path seemed to be illuminated by moonlight even though there was no moon. I had lived in those woods all my life and did not remember ever seeing that path before. I’m not really sure why I decided to follow the path instead of heading home, but I did.

The path twisted through the woods and led me to a large open meadow where I found the source of the light.  A large walled fortress built of stone that seemed to radiate a silvery white light from within stood ahead of me. The luminous wall had no gate or windows but I noticed a simple wooden ladder leading up the side of the wall. I wondered why someone would build such a formidable barrier and then place a ladder on the side. They seemed to be asking for intruders so I thought it was only right to oblige them by climbing the ladder to the top of the wall. When I reached the top I saw that the wall surrounded a large grassy field with a grove of trees in the center. I noticed several large dark shapes moving around in the trees.  When I looked closer I saw that the shapes were horses. I love horses so I climbed down into the field and walked toward them. 

Suddenly a voice from somewhere behind me said "Help me get out of here. I don't belong here!"

I turned around but nobody was there. “Who said that?”  I asked.

“I did!” the voice spoke again. At that point I began wondering if my hearing was going bad because the voice had seemed to come from a beautiful dark red horse.

“You can talk?”  I asked, believing I had gone insane.

“Well, you can hear me talking can’t you?”  The horse replied impatiently.  “We don’t have time for this now.  You have to help me get out of here.  I’m a prisoner!”

"How can I help you?" I asked.

"Get on my back!" she said.

“But how will that…”

The horse didn’t let me finish asking how I could possibly help her by getting on her back.  She reared up on her hind legs and demanded “Get on my back now!”

“Okay, okay!  Just don’t stomp me to death!” I climbed on her back and asked "How will we get out? There is no gate."

The horse snorted "I have no need for a gate!" and jumped easily over the wall.

I had never ridden bareback in my life but I but I grasped the horse’s silky mane and somehow managed to stay on her back as she galloped madly down the path. When we finally stopped on a hill at the edge of the woods the sun was just beginning to rise.

"Thank you so much for rescuing me! You must be careful from now on," the horse said.  “The queen will be very angry at you!"

"What queen?!" I asked, wondering what I had gotten myself into.

"The Queen of the White Fortress.  She was the one who was holding me prisoner. She is a very powerful witch and she was keeping me inside her fortress with magic.  She placed a curse on me that couldn’t be broken until a stranger was willing to climb on my back" said the horse.

Maybe it was a trick of the rising sun but suddenly the horse's dark red color turned to that of fire and her mane and tail seemed to be made of pure flame. She turned and galloped off, seeming to disappear into the sunrise.

I don’t scare easily but the thought of an angry queen who also happened to be a witch terrified me.  I ran all the way to my house, looking over my shoulder occasionally to see if I was being followed by a wild old hag on a broomstick.  Once inside my house, I locked all the doors and windows, jumped into bed, and pulled the covers over my head.  By that time I was more tired than scared, so I fell asleep and slept most of the day.

When I awoke, I thought that the events of the previous night had been a dream.  The stiffness and soreness I felt in every muscle of my body must have been the result of thrashing around in my sleep and not from taking a wild horseback ride through the woods.  Just to be sure, I walked down the road to the place where I had seen the path to the fortress.  Not only was there no path there, but the underbrush was so thick and tangled that nothing larger than a rabbit could get through it.  “I hope I don’t have too many more dreams like that” I thought as I walked back to my house.

That night I was sitting in my living room reading when I heard a sound from my front porch. It was another moonless night but there was a soft glow coming through my window.  I went to the door, opened it a crack, and peered out with one eye.  There on my front porch, in the moonlight that wasn’t there, stood the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life.  She had long silvery blonde hair and eyes the color of blue spruce trees.  She was dressed in a shimmering white gown and had flowers and vines braided into her hair.

“Open the door,” she said.  “I mean you no harm.”

I opened the door.  “Are you…?” I began, preparing myself to be either struck dead or turned into a toad.

“The Queen of the White Fortress.  Yes. Some call me that.  And you are the one who helped the red one escape.”

“Yes, I’m sorry.  I don’t have much money but maybe I can help care for your horses as payment for her.”

The queen laughed.  “You can help care for my horses if you wish but it isn’t necessary.  I came to thank you!  The red one was under a spell but it was not of my making.  We were both held prisoner for years by a sorcerer much more powerful than I.  It was true that the red one couldn’t leave until a stranger rode on her back, but as long as she was inside the fortress I was also a prisoner there.  I have used my magic to illuminate the fortress and open up that path every night for years, but people seldom travel on that road at night.  No one who did see the path ever followed it, at least not until last night.  I was as happy to see the red one leave as she was to go.  You are in no danger from me but you must be careful of the red one if you meet her again. You were safe with her tonight because she needed you, but she is a trickster and she is very dangerous. You must never ride her again no matter what she says!"

I opened my mouth to say something but the light suddenly vanished and the queen vanished with it.  I went back into the house wondering if I would ever see the red horse again and who had really tricked me, the horse, the queen, or both.