How Antar Obtained His Horse Abjer

Arabian Poetry, by W. A. Clouston, [1881], at sacred-texts.com

HOW ANTAR OBTAINED HIS HORSE ABJER.

At daybreak Antar stole out of the Prince's tent, and mounting his horse, wandered into the desert, where he chanced to meet forty Absian horsemen, led by Ghegadh the son of Nasshib, bent on a marauding enterprise. Antar joins them, and the Absians proceed to the land of Cahtan, where they saw "a great quantity of cattle, with some high raised tents and lofty pavilions; many horses running about and camels grazing; and the people unsuspicious of a reverse of fortune." Antar, while his companions

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were engaged in plundering the tents, drove away the cattle, and had proceeded some distance, when he discovered a knight, "mounted on a dark-coloured colt, beautiful and compact; and it was of a race much prized by the Arabs: his hoofs were as flat as the beaten coin; when he neighed he seemed as if about to speak; and his ears like quills: his sire was Wasil, and his dam Hemama." Perceiving the beauty and speed of the horse, Antar eagerly longed for it, and pursued the rider till sunset, when the strange knight stopped, and Antar, coming up to him, made overtures for the purchase of the beautiful steed. The knight, however, would only part with it in exchange for the cattle taken from his tribe, to which Antar very readily agreed; and thus he became possessed of Abjer, the famous horse on which he performed so many wonderful exploits.