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The hobbyhorse goes s l o, s l o, slow, went an old nursery rhyme. But in the imagination of children of the past even the simplest wooden steed could gallop like the wind, carrying them into thousands of adventures. In the Middle Ages, the hobbyhorse was one of the protagonists in children's games. Evidence of this can be found in the illuminated pages of certain manuscripts, such as Pluemen der Tugent (The Flower of Virtue) by the Tyrolean poet Hans Von Vintler, which illustrates a curious episode in which the main protagonist, Agesilaus I, the King of Sparta (who lived in the ninth century BC), is depicted playing with one of his sons, riding a reed as though it were a horse. Another example is the German manuscript containing The Seven Sages, conserved at the Universitätsbibliothek in Frankfurt, which depicts two women walking in a meadow with five children with long blond curls, one of which has hobbyhorse between his legs. In another miniature from a manuscript at the British Library, two putti are shown astride sticks with proud horses' heads, while, in a Bible at the library in Valenciennes, the illustrator gives us a hobbyhorse complete with harness and reins. In the imaginative Middle Ages, there were also adults who dedicated themselves seriously to this 'sportive' pastime; they were the jesters, people who had the task of entertaining others and, in order to achieve this not at all easy end, had to invent everything, truly everything imaginable. Another variation on the theme shows a little girl, perhaps a young jester but most certainly with a well-defined hobbyhorse, presumably made of wood, worn around the waist.