“‘Where are you going, pretty maiden, with your woolly white sheep?’ she asked.

“‘I am going up to the hills,’ said the shepherdess.  ’Now the sun has scorched up the fields down below we must take our sheep up to the cool hills, where the grass is still fresh and green.  Good-day, good-day, the sheep are going so fast I cannot wait.’  So on she tripped, singing and calling to her sheep, who came every now and then to rub their soft coats against her, as if they loved her.  The queen looked after her, and her face began to pucker up.

“‘Why am I not a shepherdess?’ she exclaimed, bursting into tears.  ’I hate being a queen!  I never sang as merrily as that little maiden in all my life.  I must and will be a shepherdess, and drive sheep up into the mountain, or I shall die!”

“And all that night the foolish queen sat at her window crying, and when the morning came she had made herself look quite old and ugly.  When the king came to see her he was dreadfully troubled, and begged her to tell him what was the matter now.

“‘I want to be a shepherdess, and drive sheep up into the mountains,’ sobbed the queen.  ’Why should the little shepherdess girls look always so happy and merry, while I am dying of dulness?’

“The king thought it was very unkind of her to say she was dying of dulness when he had taken so much trouble to get her all she wanted; but he knew it was no good talking to her while she was in such a temper.  So all he said was: 

“’How can I turn you into a shepherdess?  These shepherdesses stay out all night with their sheep on the hills, and live on water and a crust of bread.  How would you like that?’

“‘Of course I-should like it,’ said the queen, ’anything for a change.  Besides, nothing could be nicer than staying out of doors these lovely nights.  And as for food, you know very well that I am never hungry here, and that it doesn’t matter in the least to me what I eat!’

“‘Well,’ said the king, ’you shall go up to the hills, if you promise to take your ladies with you, and if you will let me send a tent to shelter you at night, and some servants to look after you.’

“‘As if that would give me any pleasure!’ said the queen, ’to be followed about and waited upon is just what I detest.  I will go alone; just like that pretty little shepherdess, if I go at all.’

“But the king declared that nothing would induce him to let her go alone.  So the queen set to work to cry, and she cried for two days and two nights without stopping, and at the end of that time the poor king was ready to let her go anywhere or do anything for the sake of a little peace.

“So she had her own way.  They found her a flock of the loveliest white sheep, all with blue ribbons round their necks, and blue rosettes on their little white tails; and the queen dressed herself up in a red silk petticoat and a cap embroidered in gold and silver, and then she set out by herself.