The Ebony Horse (in other translations, The Magic Horse or The Enchanted Horse) is a folk tale often associated with the Arabian Nights.
A Persian prince is given a mechanical horse by a Hindu craftsman as a present. The prince is delighted at the prospect of the flying machine and climbs it for a test drive. He manipulates the buttons on the horse's neck and flies away from his kingdom.
Although the tale was provided to Antoine Galland in the early 18th century by Syrian teller Hanna Diyab, its elements can be traced back to an Indian version contained in the Panchatantra.
Compare it to Danish literary fairy tale The Flying Trunk.
This tale contains examples of:
- Cool Horse: The titular Ebony Horse is a mechanical creation by a carpenter that allows the prince to fly.
- Girl in the Tower: In many variants of the tale, the prince learns that a beautiful princess is locked in a tall tower, and reaches her on the mechanical horse.
- God Guise: In some variants of the tale, the protagonist rides the flying horse to the princess's tower and introduces himself as a deity or other supernatural being.
- Mechanical Horse: The tale contains one of the earliest appearances of an artificial/mechanical horse in fiction.
- Public Execution: The king tries to execute the foreign prince for "defiling" his daughter (either by impregnating her, or sleeping in her room, at night).
- Ultimate Blacksmith: in some variants of the story, a carpenter and a blacksmith compete against each other and try to prove to the king they are masters of their craft. The carpenter creates the flying horse, while the blacksmith fashions a life-like mechanical fish that plays in the water.
