The King was very ill indeed and no one in all the court could find
out what was his ailment or how to cure it. He had been the kindest,
merriest king for miles about, always ready to help a poor subject or
to stop and play with the children as he drove his chariot through the
village. Now he never smiled and he seemed too weary to care what
happened in the kingdom; so everything went at sixes and sevens and no
one knew what to do about it.
"The King needs daintier food," said the Court Cook, so he served
broiled peacock on toast, and pomegranates and cream, and wild honey,
and cheese-cakes as light as feathers, and a sponge cake made with the
eggs of a bantam hen. But the King would eat none of them.
"The King needs medicine," said the Court Physician, so he searched
the countryside for growing things and he brewed rose-leaf tea, and he
made a potion of everlasting flowers mixed with rosemary, and he
distilled wild honeysuckle with dew gathered at sunrise, but the King
would drink none of these.
"Perhaps music would divert the King," suggested the Court Wise Man.
"It might make him forget whatever is troubling him." And as music was
the only remedy for the King's most sorrowful illness that had not
been tried, the Court Herald hastened through the streets, calling as
loudly as he could:
"Music for the King! Music for the King! Riches and honor for whoever
can play the prettiest tune and the one that will make his majesty
forget his sorrow."
Immediately the palace was filled with music, some of it very
beautiful and all of it played by very famous people. A sweet singer
came with his lute and sang to the King of all the princesses and
queens that had listened to his tunes. But at the end the King was
still weak and sorrowful. A harpist from a far country came and played
music that sounded like the mighty wind on high mountain tops and the
rushing flow of great mountain streams. But the King only thanked the
harpist and requested that he be paid for his pains and his journey
and go back to his home. Later, there came a trumpeter who gave great
battle calls on his trumpet, but the King covered his ears to shut out
the sound and looked more sad than ever because the sound of the
trumpet gave him a headache.
So it seemed as if not even music would make the King well, and no one
knew what to do.
Gladheart was the little boy who tended sheep in the valley. He was
the youngest of five brothers, and there was little room and less food
for them in their father's house. But Gladheart had been given his
name because he always smiled over a crust of bread, even when he was
a baby. Now that he was a little lad of ten with a great flock of ewes
and lambs to tend and drive through sun and storm, he had smiles and
kind words for all, and he played his fiddle all day long until its
sweet tunes filled the valley.
"I must go and play before the King," Gladheart said one day.
"They will only laugh at your small fiddle," said his brothers, but
the eldest said he would tend the sheep for a day, and Gladheart set
out for the palace.
"The King will have naught to do with a shepherd lad dressed in
goatskin and bearing an old fiddle," the guards at the door said. But
Gladheart touched the strings with the bow and such a blithe tune
came forth that the guards opened the door, and Gladheart went inside
to play before the King.
At first the sight of the King sitting so bent and sorrowful on the
throne with a face as frowning and sad as a storm frightened
Gladheart. But he took courage and stood as straight as he could in
front of the throne, and began to play on the fiddle a tune that he
had learned while he was in the fields with his sheep.
It was a lovable tune, like a dozen birds and a little wandering wind
and the voice of a rippling brook all joined with the sounds of the
little earth singers, the bees, the katydids, and the crickets. As the
King listened, his bent shoulders straightened and his face became
bright with smiles. He reached out his hands to Gladheart. "I heard
that tune once before when I was a boy," he said. "It makes me well to
hear it now. What is it about, lad?"
"It is about the spring, your majesty," said Gladheart. "It is the
song that I learned from the fields when winter was over. If your
majesty will come with me to my sheep pasture, you may hear it there
every day."
No one could understand why the King was suddenly so well or why he
went often to sit with Gladheart and the sheep, but they were all very
happy over it. And they gave Gladheart the riches and the honor that
they had promised whoever could heal their King.