A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

Fidel finds the white mare among the horses in an absent master’s stable. It speaks, asks him to free it and supplies water that makes his hands and head shine. He dislikes the changed hands, which are restored, while hiding the luminous head. What he imagines as six months in service proves to be six years. The mare warns that after the seventh year he too will be enchanted, like the stable’s existing occupants, and identifies the master as a devil. It then carries him away. Its own previous human identity is not revealed.

The pursuer appears as something terrifying in the clouds. Striking the ground, the mare calls for successive fog, stone hail and a river in which he drowns. Afterward it sends Fidel to work as a royal gardener, promising that his tasks will accomplish themselves and telling him to offer the finest daily flower to the youngest princess. Her eventual marriage to him and his valuable golden hair belong to the subsequent human story. The mare returns when the king’s poor mount has left Fidel stuck in mud on his way to war. It supplies a splendid horse, lance and sword and explains how he can enter the besieged city. He obtains peace, treasury keys and documents, then returns to the old mount, concealing the feat from his brothers-in-law.

The complete tale ends after magical waters, exposed deception and Fidel’s recognition as king; it does not narrate the white mare becoming human or remaining as his final riding horse. Webster’s attached alternative expressly removes the mare, substitutes an old woman as helper and adds the repayment of a dead man’s debts. That alternative should not be used to identify this mare as the grateful dead person. The separate old woman and reviving lizards in the selected tale’s later water episode likewise receive no stated transformation into the mare.

SpeechEnchanted stable occupantReveals altered timeCreates pursuit barriersReturns with military equipment
01

Origins & earliest records

Webster’s Basque Legends, London second edition, 1879, prints Ezkabi-Fidel under the narrator name Laurentine. The English witness identifies one collected version and an explicitly separate variant.

02

Records & interpretation

Complete Ezkabi-Fidel, pp. 111–120 supplies the mare’s first escape, later return and final narrative limits. Following variant, p. 120 explicitly says there is no white mare; it is comparison evidence rather than a hidden explanation of her identity.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Basque Legends: Ezkabi-Fidel

    Wentworth Webster, collector and translator; narrator Laurentine · 1879

    Second edition, pp. 111–120, including complete ending and the alternative without a mare. Individual identity before enchantment is not supplied.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Primary collected translationWebster 1879, complete Ezkabi-FidelResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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