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Buzz’s Place

The King's Horse and the Condemned Prisoner
by Buzz Bloom - 2003

The king had a favorite horse that he loved very much. It was a beautiful and very smart stallion, and the king had taught it all kinds of tricks. The king would ride the horse almost every day, and frequently parade it and show off its tricks to his guards.

A prisoner who was scheduled to be executed soon saw the king with his horse through his cell window and decided to send the king a message. The message said, "Your Royal Highness, if you will spare my life, and let me spend an hour each day with your favorite horse for a year, I will teach your horse to sing."

The king was amused by the offer and granted the request. So, each day the prisoner would be taken from his cell to the horse's paddock, and he would sing to the horse "La-la-la-la" and would feed the horse sugar and carrots and oats, and the horse would neigh. And, all the guards would laugh at him for being so foolish.

One day, one of the guards, who had become somewhat friendly with the prisoner, asked him, "Why do you do such a foolish thing every day singing to the horse, and letting everyone laugh at you? You know you can't teach a horse to sing. The year will pass, the horse will not sing, and the king will execute you."

The prisoner replied, "A year is a long time. Anything can happen. In a year the king may die. Or I may die. Or the horse may die. Or ...
The horse may learn to sing. "


COPYRIGHT NOTICE
This document is copyright © 2003 by Buzz Bloom. All rights reserved.
It may be freely copied, reproduced, forwarded, and/or distributed in electronic form for personal and educational purposes provided you copy, reproduce, forward, and/or distribute it in its entirety. This means that all copies must include the following: the copy permission statement, this copyright notice, the Buzz's Place website title, and the full text of the document including the title, the author's name, and the date.

This document may not be distributed for profit or reproduced in printed form or in any edited form without the author's consent. A document may be distributed with a clearly distinct and separated appendix with notes and comments where the appendix has a clearly separate attribution of authorship.
You may contact the author using the comment space on the home page of the Buzz's Place website:
http://users.rcn.com/bbloom/

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