` Alas , good mother , ' answered the Queen , ' I am unhappy because I have no children . ' ` Is that what vexes you ? ' said the old woman . ` Listen to me . I am a nun from the Spinning Convent , -LRB- 10 -RRB- and my mother when she died left me this apple . Whoever eats this apple shall have a child . ' -LRB- 10 -RRB- Convent Gnothi . The Queen gave money to the old woman , and bought the apple from her . Then she peeled it , ate it , and threw the rind out of the window , and it so happened that a mare that was running loose in the court below ate up the rind . After a time the Queen had a little boy , and the mare also had a male foal . The boy and the foal grew up together and loved each other like brothers . In course of time the King died , and so did the Queen , and their son , who was now nineteen years old , was left alone . One day , when he and his horse were talking together , the Horse said to him , ` Listen to me , for I love you and wish for your good and that of the country . If you go on every year sending twelve youths and twelve maidens to the King of the Beasts , your country will very soon be ruined . Mount upon my back : I will take you to a woman who can direct you how to kill the Seven-headed Serpent . ' Then the youth mounted his horse , who carried him far away to a mountain which was hollow , for in its side was a great underground cavern . In the cavern sat an old woman spinning . This was the cloister of the nuns , and the old woman was the Abbess . They all spent their time in spinning , and that is why the convent has this name . All round the walls of the cavern there were beds cut out of the solid rock , upon which the nuns slept , and in the middle a light was burning .
It was the duty of the XXXXX to watch the light in turns , that it might never go out , and if anyone of them let it go out the others put her to death .
Horse Serpent beds convent money mountain name nuns rock time