The fairy Aurora

No! I don't know how or what it was, but it seemed to Petru as though somebody had got into the middle of the earth to overturn it. What happened was something awful, and may Heaven preserve any one from it!

"You see!" said the bay angrily, "why couldn't you keep quiet?"

Petru saw that he saw nothing more, began to feel that he felt nothing more, and understood that he could understand nothing more, so he made no reply, but girded his sword tighter and prepared to fight. "Now the Welwa can come," he cried, "I will die or throw the bridle over its head." He had scarcely uttered the words when something whose like he had never beheld before approached him. A dense fog surrounded Petru, a fog so dense that he could not even see himself in it.

"What's this?" cried the champion, somewhat startled, when he began to feel that he was aching all over. But he was still more alarmed when he perceived that he could not hear his own voice through the mist. So he began to strike about him with his sword to the right and left, before and behind, in every direction, and with all the strength he had—as a man does when he sees that matters are growing serious. So he fought on during a day and a night, without seeing any thing except thick darkness, or hearing any thing except his own perspiration trickling down his horse's flanks. For some time he had even felt as if he were no longer alive, but had died long before. Suddenly the fog began to scatter. At dawn on the second day it disappeared entirely, and when the sun rose in the sky Petru's eyes again saw the light. He felt as if he had been born anew.

The Welwa? it seemed to have vanished from the earth.

"Get your breath now, for the battle will begin again presently," said the bay.

"What was that?" asked Petru.

"The Welwa," replied the horse, "the Welwa changed into fog. Get your breath, it is coming again."

The bay had hardly spoken and Petru had hardly had time to breathe, when he saw approaching from one side something,—but what it was he did not know.