“You are a sort of shepherd, Olaf. But you’ve got human beings to look after instead of animals. I want you to be so good a king that I shall be proud that you were my baby. That’s why you have to work so hard.”
“I do try, mother. But I wish I was a proper out-of-doors shepherd. And please, mother, must I always wear my crown? It is so heavy, and it bites my forehead.”
“Yes, darling. I am afraid you must. Your crown is to remind you that you are a king and not your own master. Now go to sleep and dream that you are a shepherd and have to shiver out of doors in all the cold and wet. You’d soon be glad to wake up in your own bed.”
But Olaf the Fair was not to be persuaded.
“I’d love to be out in the rain!” he exclaimed. “I hate indoors, and I’d like to be dressed in a dead sheep.”
Days, weeks, months passed away, and Olaf the Fair and Olaf the Dark still continued to think of one another. More and more did the little king weary of the long lessons which kept him indoors and of all the solemn attendants who surrounded him. More and more did he pine to be free and wander at will over the hillside. Above all he yearned to go out into the night and feel the darkness. When he looked up at the sad, solemn moon, he would thrill with a strange, unaccountable excitement. The moon! She flooded the earth with a queer, transforming light that drew him out of all sleepiness and made his soul shiver till his body became too excited to lie still. Passionately he envied the shepherd-boy out there in the darkness, playing his flute beneath the pine trees. One night the longing grew too strong, and, as he tossed on his golden bed, it flashed into his memory that the bars of the window in the great hall were wide enough apart to allow his body to squeeze through them. (This was long before even kings had glass in their windows.)
He sat upright. The leaves of the trees just outside rustled mysteriously and tiny twigs tapped against the bars, beckoning him out of bed. Yes, his mind was made up. He was going to escape and run out into the strange silvery light that the moon was making. With hammering heart he slid from his high bed and tiptoed towards the door. There was a low growl, and the mastiff raised his huge head. Oh, heavens, if he were to bark, or follow, he would surely arouse the man who slept just outside across the door! But, fortunately, Olaf remembered the bone he was to give his dog next morning, and in a moment busy sounds of scrunching and gulping filled the room.
One danger passed. But now Olaf must step across the body of the man who, with a dagger in his mouth, guarded his royal master’s door. Supposing the man were awake. Then the adventure would become impossible and Olaf would have to return to the dreariness of trying to go to sleep. Trembling, he turned the handle and pulled the door towards him. Regular breathing reassured him. The man was fast asleep. Softly as snow falls on snow, the boy stepped across the huge form and hastened on swift feet down the long, empty corridor. Shafts of moonlight gleamed through the round windows and shone on the armour stacked against the wall. How strange the palace seemed in this light!
A little scared, Olaf slipped down the wide, shallow steps of the huge staircase. Now he was in the great hall. The night wind blew in and the tapestries trembled on the walls. Olaf shivered with something that was more than cold. High up in the sky a pale moon raced through white trailing clouds. She looked as if she were being pursued.
