Page:Popular tales from the Norse (1912).djvu/531

 Rh "I'm going after a flock of sheep," he said, "but if I stay too long, and you think I can't get along with the flock by myself, just jump over and help me; do you hear?"

"Well, don't stay too long," said his wife, "for my heart is set on seeing those sheep."

There she stood and waited a while, but then she thought perhaps her husband couldn't keep the flock well together, and so down she jumped after him.

And so Little Peter was rid of them all, and the farm and fields came to him as heir, and horses and cattle too; and, besides, he had money in his pocket to buy milch kine to tether in his byre.

TATTERHOOD.

on a time there was a king and a queen who had no children, and that gave the queen much grief; she scarce had one happy hour. She was always bewailing and bemoaning herself, and saying how dull and lonesome it was in the palace.

"If we had children there'd be life enough," she said.

Wherever she went in all her realm she found God's blessing in children, even in the vilest hut; and wherever she came she heard the Goodies scolding the bairns, and saying how they had done that and that wrong. All this the queen heard, and thought it would be so nice to do as other women did. At last the king and queen took into their palace a stranger lassie to rear up, that they might