“I will neither eat nor sleep till I have seen your face and heard the sound of your harp.” This was the message the king sent to the harper.
The messengers said it over and over until they knew it by heart, and when they reached the harper’s house they called:
“Hail, harper! Come out and listen, for we have something to tell you that will make you glad.”
But when the harper heard the king’s message he was sad, for he had a wife and a child and a little brown dog; and he was sorry to leave them and they were sorry to have him go.
“Stay with us,” they begged; but the harper said:
“I must go, for it would be discourtesy to disappoint the king; but as sure as holly berries are red and pine is green, I will come back by Christmas Day to eat my share of the Christmas pudding, and sing the Christmas songs by my own fireside.”
And when he had promised this he hung his harp upon his back and went away with the messengers to the king’s palace.
When he got there the king welcomed him with joy, and many things were done in his honor. He slept on a bed of softest down and ate from a plate of gold at the king’s own table; and when he sang everybody and everything, from the king himself to the mouse in the palace pantry, stood still to listen.
No matter what he was doing, however, feasting or resting, singing or listening to praises, he never forgot the promise that he had made to his wife and his child and his little brown dog, and when the day before Christmas came, he took his harp in his hand and went to tell the king good-by.
Now the king was loath to have the harper leave him, and he said to him: “I will give you a horse as white as milk, as glossy as satin, and as fleet as a deer, if you will stay to play and sing before my throne on Christmas Day.”