The áczKúPadishah came home, and the first thing he asked was whether they had provided the horse with everything. “He wouldn’t let us come near him,” said the two elder sisters; “it was our youngest sister here who took care of him.”
No sooner had the Padishah heard this than he gave his youngest daughter to the horse to wife, but his two other daughters he gave to the sons of his Chief Mufti and his Grand Vizier, and they celebrated the three marriages at a great banquet, which lasted forty days. Then the youngest daughter turned into the stable, but the two eldest dwelt in a splendid palace. In the daytime the youngest sister had only a horse for a husband and a stable for a dwelling; but in the night-time the stable became a garden of roses, the horse-husband a handsome hero, and they lived in a world of their own. Nobody knew of it but they two. They passed the day together as best they could, but eventide was the time of their impatient desires.
One day the Padishah held a tournament in the palace. Many gallant warriors entered the lists, but none strove so valiantly as the husbands of the Sultan’s elder daughters.
“Only look now!” said the two elder daughters to their sister who dwelt in the stable, “only look now! how our husbands overthrow all the other warriors with their lances; our two lords are not so much lords as lions! Where is this horse-husband of thine, prythee?”
On hearing this from his wife, the horse-husband shivered all over, turned into a man, threw himself on horseback, told his wife not to betray him on any account, and in an instant appeared within the lists. He overthrew every one with his lance, unhorsed his two brothers-in-law, and re-appeared in the stable again as if he had never left it.
The next day, when the sports began again, the two elder sisters mocked as before, but then the unknown hero appeared again, conquered and vanished. On the third day the horse-husband said to his wife: “If ever I should come to grief or thou shouldst need my help, take these three wisps of hair, burn them, and it will help thee wherever thou art.” With that he hastened to the games again and triumphed over his brothers-in-law. Every one was amazed at his skill, the two elder sisters likewise, and again they said to their younger sister: “Look how these heroes excel in prowess! They are very different to thy dirty horse-husband!”