helmet, but Mambrino was a giant and his helmet was too
large for Rinaldo, so Malagigi took it down into the laboratory of the
inferno and altered it to fit."

"And do the audience see all that done on the stage?"

"Most of it; and what they do not see they imagine. Fusberta, Rinaldo's
sword, formerly belonged to another giant, Atlante. Malagigi always
intended it for Rinaldo, but he was a wise magician and knew that people
do not value things unless they pay for them, so he would not let him
have it till he had earned it by killing Atlante."

"It's rather like what you told me last year about Orlando's dream and
his going to the river-bank where Carlo Magno and that other giant,
Almonte, were fighting, and his killing Almonte and his taking his sword
and horse and armour."

"I did not say that Orlando had a dream; it was Carlo Magno who had the
dream about a young man whom he did not know, and I told you that
afterwards, when Orlando came and helped him to fight Almonte, Carlo
Magno recognised him as the young man in his dream."

"Sorry, Buffo; my mistake. But it is rather like it, isn't it?"

"About his taking the giant's sword it is rather like it, but that is not
a bad thing in the teatrino, the people must not be puzzled by too much
variety."

Then he told me about Baiardo, Rinaldo's horse, who formerly belonged to
Amadigi di Gaula, to whom he was given by Berliante, another magician,
who found him in the desert. After the death of Amadigi, Berliante chose
but seven devils, put them inside Baiardo and turned him loose in the
forest, saying: "This horse can only be dominated by a man as strong as
Amadigi." After this, several things happened, of which I only remember
that Baiardo kicked all the sense out of Isolier, a Spanish cavalier who
was trying to tame him with his sword, not knowing the right way to do
it, and a nameless Englishman was involved in a duel. At last Rinaldo
came and, after working hard at Baiardo for an hour, struck him a blow
between the eyes with his mailed fist and thus tamed him. Then Rinaldo
mounted him and boasted of his triumph, shouting in his humorous way:
"Now Baiardo is carrying eight devils."

"And so you see Rinaldo getting Baiardo is not at all like Orlando
getting his horse Vegliantino; besides, Baiardo is red, the colour of
fire, and Vegliantino is white all over, without one black hair."

"Why do you call Orlando's horse Vegliantino? Last year he was
Brigliadoro