And he told me a strange story. He said that any horse, even the oldest and weakest animal, could be made as swift as Brunellus. You had only to mix into his oats an herb called satirion, chopped fine, and then grease his thighs with stag fat. Then you mount the horse, and before spurring him you turn his face eastward and you whisper into his ear, three times, the words: “Nicander, Melchior, and Merchizard.” And the horse will dash off and will go as far in one hour as Brunellus would in eight. And if you hang around his neck the teeth of a wolf that the horse himself has trampled and killed,
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