The World’s Wit and Humor: An Encyclopedia in 15 Volumes. 1906.
Erich Raspe (17361794)A Horse Tied to a Steeple
I
“You will be rewarded, my son, for this in time.”
I went on. Night and darkness overtook me. No village was to be seen. The country was covered with snow, and I was unacquainted with the road.
Tired out, I alighted, and fastened my horse to something like the pointed stump of a tree which appeared above the snow. For the sake of safety I placed my pistols under my arm, and laid down on the snow, where I slept so soundly that I did not open my eyes till full daylight. It is not easy to conceive my astonishment at finding myself in the midst of a village, lying in a churchyard. Nor was my horse to be seen; but I heard him soon after neigh somewhere above me. On looking upward, I beheld him hanging by his bridle to the weathercock of the steeple. Matters were now quite plain to me. The village had been covered with snow overnight; a sudden change in the weather had taken place; I had sunk down to the churchyard while asleep at the same rate as the snow had melted away; and what in the dark I had taken to be a stump of a little tree appearing above the snow, to which I had tied my horse, proved to have been the cross or weathercock of the steeple!
Without long consideration, I took one of my pistols, shot the bridle in two, brought down the horse, and proceeded on my journey.