“Mother says I am the servant of my subjects,” said the king. “And oh, I’ve got such an awful lot of them! I’d far rather be the master of sheep, as you are.”
“I’m not their master,” replied the shepherd. “I’m no better than their slave. Father says so. Besides, they’re really yours. They’ve all got little crowns stamped on their backs.”
“Have they? That’s funny! Why, my sceptre’s the shape of a shepherd’s crook.”
As they talked, Olaf the Dark felt the crown beginning to eat into his forehead. Heavier and heavier it grew until his brows ached and his head drooped. Meanwhile, in Olaf the Fair’s hand the staff which had seemed so light grew heavier and heavier. Surely it must be made of lead, he thought, and at last with a sigh he changed it into his other arm. At the same moment, with a groan, the shepherd tore the crown from his head.
“Phew! it is a weight! How can you wear it all day?” he said, pushing it back through the bars.
“Phew! it is a weight,” said the king, poking the staff through the bars. “I can’t think how you can carry it all day.”
“Funny,” they both said, and they laughed quite loud; the king, feeling proud of his head that could carry so heavy a weight, and the shepherd feeling proud of his right arm, grown strong from carrying so heavy a staff.
“The dawn breaks,” he said. “I must return to my sheep.”
“Come again,” cried the king. “Come again and talk to me.”
So once in every year the little shepherd returned to the palace walls and through the bars the boys talked long and eagerly. The king always told the shepherd how stuffy it was within, and the shepherd always told the king how cold it was outside, and during the rest of the year, whenever the king’s discontentment grew, he remembered the weeping boy who had tried so hard to get in. And whenever the shepherd wearied of his lot, he remembered the boy who wept because he could not get out.