[Illustration]
HANS ANDERSEN’S FAIRY TALES
HANS:ANDERSEN’S
FAIRY:TALES;WITH
ILLUSTRATIONS:BY
W:HEATH:ROBINSON
[Illustration]
NEW:YORK
HENRY:HOLT:&:CO.
1913
CONTENTS
[Illustration]
PAGE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vii
LIST OF COLOURED PLATES xi
THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER 2
TOMMELISE 52
THE SNOW QUEEN.
PART THE FIRST--WHICH TREATS OF THE MIRROR AND ITS
FRAGMENTS 69
PART THE SECOND--A LITTLE BOY AND A LITTLE GIRL 72
PART THE THIRD--THE ENCHANTED FLOWER-GARDEN 80
PART THE FOURTH--THE PRINCE AND THE PRINCESS 90
PART THE FIFTH--THE LITTLE ROBBER-MAIDEN 99
PART THE SIXTH--THE LAPLAND WOMAN AND THE FINLAND
WOMAN 107
PART THE SEVENTH--WHICH TREATS OF THE SNOW QUEEN’S
PALACE, AND OF WHAT CAME TO PASS THEREIN 112
ELFIN-MOUNT 121
THE LITTLE MERMAID 133
THE STORKS 165
THE NIGHTINGALE 173
THE WILD SWANS 190
THE REAL PRINCESS 214
THE RED SHOES 218
THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES 229
THE SWINEHERD 238
THE FLYING TRUNK 247
THE LEAPING MATCH 258
THE SHEPHERDESS AND THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER 263
THE UGLY DUCKLING 271
THE NAUGHTY BOY 286
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
The marsh king’s daughter 1
She understood the speech of birds 2
It was he who pulled her down 7
The Nile flood had retired 13
There was a little bird that beat its wings 27
Placed the golden circuit about his neck 35
Then she saw the storks 41
The swallow soared high into the air 51
‘Thou poor little thing,’ said the field-mouse 52
‘This is just the wife for my son,’ said the toad 56
Oh, how terrified was poor Tommelise 59
That was the greatest of pleasures 65
They carried the mirror from place to place 69
He chuckled with delight 71
She wore a large hat, with most beautiful flowers painted on it 79
Gerda knew every flower in the garden 87
Suddenly a large raven hopped upon the snow in front of her 94
Cabinet councillors were walking about barefooted 97
And the nearer they were to the door the prouder they looked 102
And flapped his black wings at the carriage till it was
out of sight 106
The little robber-maiden 109
The snow queen 112
She ran on as fast as she could 115
She entered the large, cold, empty hall 117
Tailpiece 119
The elfin king’s housekeeper 120
The mer-king must be invited first 124
They felt quite as if they were at home 127
I will have thee myself to wife 130
The little mermaid 132
She was on the whole a sensible sort of lady 137
The youngest was the most lovely 140
They ate from their hands 148
Many an evening she rose to the place 155
When the sun arose she awoke 159
Father stork 164
‘Stork! stork! long-legged stork!’ 168
And fetch one for each of the boys 170
‘Oh! how pretty that is!’ he would say 172
Among the branches dwelt a nightingale 177
They admired the city, the palace, and the garden 179
The kitchen-maid 181
The chief imperial nightingale bringer 184
He was quite as successful as the real nightingale 187
The wild swans 189
So Elise took off her clothes and stepped into the water 195
And met an old woman with a basket full of berries 198
Not a boat was to be seen 201
There was only just room for her and them 204
I must venture to the churchyard 209
Tailpiece 212
I have scarcely closed my eyes the whole night through 213
The old king himself went out to open it 215
And the pea was preserved in the cabinet of curiosities 216
Karen 217
And Karen was dressed very neatly 220
Karen and the old lady walked to church 222
He sat there nodding at her 224
Dance she must, over field and meadow 226
Two rogues calling themselves weavers made their appearance 228
‘Oh, it is excellent!’ replied the minister 231
As if in the act of holding something up 233
So now the emperor walked under his high canopy 234
The two rogues 235
Tailpiece 236
The emperor’s daughter 237
All cares and sorrows were forgotten by him who inhaled its
fragrance 239
And he wept like a child 241
‘Ach! du lieber Augustin’ 243
Up flew the trunk 246
The son lived merrily 248
He met a nurse 249
Will you tell us a story? asked the queen 252
‘But let it make us laugh,’ said the king 253
Their slippers flew about their ears 255
And thus the frog won the princess 257
The old councillor 259
‘Say nothing for the present,’ remarked the king 260
It may not be perfectly true 261
The shepherdess and the chimney-sweeper 262
Heading 263
Tailpiece 269
The poor duckling was scorned by all 270
He came to a large moor 275
And the cat said, ‘Can you purr?’ 280
And every one said, ‘The new one is the best’ 283
Beware of him, dear child! 285
THE END 289
LIST OF COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS
‘The bud opened into a full-blown flower, in the middle of
which lay a beautiful child’ _Frontispiece_
‘She stood at the door and begged for a piece of
barley-corn’ _Facing page_ 56
‘Yes! I will go with thee, said Tommelise, and she
seated herself on the bird’s back’ ” 64
‘The swing moves and the bubbles fly upward with
bright ever-changing colours’ ” 84
‘He did not come to woo her, he said, he had only
come to hear the wisdom of the princess’ ” 94
‘Round and round they went, such whirling and
twirling’ ” 126
‘She put the statue in her garden’ ” 134
‘With the rest of the children of air, soared high
above the rosy cloud’ ” 162
‘We will bring him two little ones, a brother and
a sister’ ” 170
‘Then began the nightingale to sing’ ” 176
‘The peasant’s wife sat on Sundays at the door of
her cottage reading her hymn-book’ ” 190
‘Princesses he found in plenty, but whether they
were real princesses it was impossible for him
to decide’ ” 214
‘She sat down one day and made out of some old
pieces of red cloth a pair of little shoes’ _Opposite page_ 218
‘The Swineherd scolded and the rain poured down’ ” 244
‘She sat the live-long day upon the roof of her
palace, expecting him’ ” 256
‘He jumped down from the old man’s lap and
danced around him on the floor’ ” 286
[Illustration: THE:MARSH:KING’S:DAUGHTER]
[Illustration: SHE UNDERSTOOD THE SPEECH OF BIRDS]
THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER
The storks tell their young ones ever so many fairy tales, all of them
from the fen and the moss. Generally the tales are suited to the
youngsters’ age and understanding. The baby birds are pleased if they
are told just ‘kribly, krably, plurry-murry!’ which they think
wonderful; but the older ones will have something with more sense in it,
or, at the least, a tale about themselves. Of the two oldest and longest
tales which have been told among the storks, one we all know--that about
Moses, who was placed by his mother in an ark on the waters of the Nile,
was found by the king’s daughter, and then was taught all learning, and
became a great man, and no one knows where he was buried. Everybody has
heard that tale.
But the other story is not known at all even now; perhaps because it is
really a chimney-corner tale. It has been handed down by mother-stork to
mother-stork for hundreds of years, and each in turn has told it better,
till now we are telling it best of all.
The first pair of storks who knew it had their summer quarters on a
Viking’s log-house by the moor in Wendsyssel, which is in the county of
Hjörring, near Skagen in Jutland, if we want to be accurate. To this day
there is still an enormous great moss there. You can read all about it
in your geography book. The moss lies where was once the bottom of the
sea, before the great upheaval of the land; and now it stretches for
miles, surrounded on all sides by watery meadows and quivering bog, with
turf-moss cloudberries and stunted trees growing. A fog hangs over it
almost continually, and till about seventy years ago wolves were still
found there. It may certainly be called a wild moor, and you can imagine
what lack of paths and what abundance of swamp and sea was there
thousands of years ago. In that waste man saw ages back just what he
sees to-day. The reeds were just as high, with the same kind of long
leaves and purplish-brown, feathery flowers as they have now; the
birches stood with white bark and fine, loose-hung leaves just as they
now stand; and for the living creatures that came there, why, the fly
wore its gauze suit of just the same cut as now, and the colour of the
stork’s dress was white and black, with red stockings. On the other
hand, the men of that time wore different clothes from those we wear.
But whoever it was, poor peasant or free hunter, that trod on the
quagmire, it happened thousands of years ago just as it does to-day--in
he went and down he sank, down to the Marsh King, as they called him,
who reigned beneath in the great Moss Kingdom. He was called also the
Mire King, but we will call him by the stork’s name for him--Marsh King.
People know very little about how he governed, but perhaps that is just
as well.
Near to the moss, and right in the Liim Fjord, stood the Viking’s
log-house, with paved cellar and tower two storeys high. On the roof the
storks had built their nest. Mother-stork sat on her eggs, and was
positive they would turn out well.
One evening father-stork had been out for a long time, and when he came
home he seemed excited and flurried.
‘I’ve dreadful news for you!’ he said to mother-stork.
‘Don’t get excited,’ said she. ‘Remember I’m sitting on my eggs, and I
might be upset by it, and then the eggs would suffer.’
‘You must know it!’ he answered. ‘She has come here, our landlord’s
daughter in Egypt! She has ventured on the journey here, and she is
lost!’
‘Why, she is of fairy descent! Tell me all about it; you know I can’t
bear to wait at this time, when I’m sitting.’
‘Listen, mother. It’s as you told me. She has believed what the doctor
said, that the moor-flowers here could do her sick father good, and so
she has flown here in a feather-dress with the other winged princesses,
who have to come to the north every year to bathe and renew their youth.
She has come, and she is lost!’
‘You’re getting too long-winded!’ said mother-stork. ‘The eggs may be
chilled! I can’t bear to be excited!’
‘I have watched,’ said father-stork, ‘and in the evening, when I went
into the reeds, where the quagmire is able to bear me, there came three
swans. Something in the way they flew told me, “Watch; that isn’t a real
swan; it’s only swan feathers.” You know the feeling, mother, as well
as I do; you can tell if it is right.’
‘Yes, certainly,’ said she; ‘but tell me about the princess. I’m tired
of hearing about the swan’s feathers.’
‘Here, in the middle of the moor, you know,’ said father-stork, ‘is a
kind of lake; you can see a part of it if you stand up. There, by the
reeds and the green quagmire, lies a great elder-stump. The three swans
lighted on it, flapped their wings, and looked round them. Then one of
them threw off her swan’s plumage, and I saw it was our own princess, of
our house in Egypt. Then she sat down, and she had no other covering
than her own long, black hair. I heard her ask the two others to take
great care of her swan-skin while she plunged under the water to gather
a flower which she thought she saw. They nodded, and lifted up the loose
feather-dress. “I wonder what they mean to do with it,” said I to
myself; and no doubt she asked them the same. And she got an answer,
something she could see for herself. They flew aloft with her
feather-dress! “Sink down,” they cried; “you shall never fly in the
swan-skin again; never see Egypt again! Stay in the moss!” And so they
tore her feather-dress into a hundred pieces, till the feathers flew
about as if it was snowing, and off flew the two good-for-nothing
princesses.’
‘Oh, how dreadful!’ said mother-stork. ‘I can’t bear to hear it. But,
tell me, what else happened?’
‘Our princess moaned and wept. Her tears fell on the elder-stump, and it
was quite moved, for it was the Marsh King himself, who lives in the
quagmire. I saw the stump turn itself, so it wasn’t only a trunk, for it
put out long, muddy boughs like arms. Then the unhappy girl was
frightened, and sprang aside into the quivering marsh, which will not
bear me, much less her. In at once she sank, and down with her went the
elder-stump--it was he who pulled her down. Then a few big black
bubbles, and no trace of her left. She is engulfed in the marsh, and
will never return to Egypt with her flower. You couldn’t have borne to
see it, mother!’
‘You shouldn’t have told me anything of the sort just now; it may affect
the eggs. The princess can take good care of herself. She’ll get help
easily enough. Had it been you or I, there would have been an end of
us.’
‘However, I’ll go day by day to see about it,’ said father-stork; and so
he did.
The days and months went by. He saw at last one day that right from the
bottom of the marsh a green stalk pushed up till it reached the surface
of the water. Out of it grew a leaf, that grew wider and wider, and
close to it a bud put out. Then one morning, as the stork was flying
over it, it opened, with the sun’s warmth, into a full-blown flower, in
the middle of which lay a beautiful child, a little girl, as if she were
fresh from the bath. So like was the child to the princess from Egypt,
that at first the stork believed it to be herself turned a child again.
But when he thought it over, he decided that it was more likely to be
the child of the princess and the Marsh King, and that was why she was
lying in a water lily.
‘She mustn’t be left lying there,’ thought father-stork, ‘and there are
too many already in my nest. But I have it! The Viking’s wife has no
children, and she has often wished for a little one. Yes, I get the name
for bringing the babies; I will do it in sober truth for once! I’ll fly
to the Viking’s wife with the child. They’ll be delighted!’
So the stork took the little girl, flew to the log-house, made a hole
with his beak in the window, with panes made of bladder, laid the child
on the bosom of the Viking’s wife, and flew away
[Illustration: IT WAS HE WHO PULLED HER DOWN]
to mother-stork to tell her all about it. Her young ones heard it too,
for they were now old enough.
‘Listen; the princess is not dead. She has sent her little one up, and
the child has a home found for her.’
‘Yes, so I said from the first,’ said mother-stork. ‘Now think a little
about your own children. It’s almost time for our journey. I begin to
feel a tingling under my wings. The cuckoo and the nightingale are off
already, and I hear the quails chattering about it, and saying that we
shall soon have a favourable wind. Our young ones are quite fit for
training, I’m sure.’
Glad indeed was the Viking’s wife when she woke in the morning to find
the beautiful little child near her side. She kissed and fondled it, but
it screamed with passion, and threw out its arms and legs, and seemed
utterly miserable. At last it cried itself to sleep, and there it lay,
one of the prettiest babies you could set eyes on.
The Viking’s wife was so happy, so gay, so well, that she could not but
hope that her husband and his men would return as suddenly as the little
one had come, and so she and all her household busied themselves to get
everything into order. The long coloured tapestries, which she and her
maidens had woven with figures of their gods--Odin, Thor, Freya, as they
were called--were hung up; the slaves were set to polish the old shields
used for decoration; cushions were arranged on the benches, and dry wood
placed on the hearth in the middle of the hall, so that the fire could
be lit in a moment. The Viking’s wife took her share in the work, so
that by the evening she was very tired, and slept soundly.
When she woke towards daybreak she was terribly frightened. The little
child had vanished! She sprang up, lighted a brand, and looked
everywhere around. There, just at the foot of the bed where she had
lain, was, not a baby, but a great ugly toad! In utter disgust at it she
took a heavy stick to kill it, but the creature looked at her with such
wonderfully sad eyes that she could not destroy it. Once more she gazed
round; the toad uttered a faint, mournful croak. She started, and sprang
from the bedside to the window, and opened it. At that moment the sun
rose, and cast its rays upon the bed and upon the great toad. All at
once it seemed that the creature’s wide mouth shrank, and became small
and rosy; the limbs filled out into the most charming shape. It was her
own beautiful babe that lay there, not the hideous reptile!
‘What is this?’ cried the dame. ‘Was it an ill dream? Yes, there is my
own sweet elfin child lying there!’ She kissed it, and pressed it to her
heart; but it fought and bit like a wild kitten!
The Viking, however, did not come that day, nor the next; for though he
was on his way, the wind was against him as it blew to the south for the
storks. Fair wind for one is foul for the other.
In those two days and nights the Viking’s wife saw clearly how it was
with her little child. And dreadful indeed was the spell that lay on it.
By day it was as beautiful as an angel of light, but it had a bad, evil
disposition. By night, on the other hand, it was a hideous toad, quiet,
sad, with sorrowful eyes. It had two natures, which changed with its
outward form. And so it was that the baby, brought by the stork, had by
daylight its mother’s own rightful shape, but its father’s temper; while
again, night made the kinship with him evident in the bodily form, in
which, however, dwelt the mother’s mind and heart. Who could loose the
spell cast by the power of witchcraft? The Viking’s wife was worn and
distressed about it, and her heart was heavy for the unhappy being, of
whose condition she did not think that she dared tell her husband if he
came home then, for he would certainly follow the custom and practice of
the time, and expose the poor child on the high-road for any one that
liked to take away. The good dame had not the heart to do this: her
husband should see the child only by daylight.
One morning the wings of storks were heard above the roof. More than a
hundred pairs of the birds had rested themselves for the night after
their heavy exercise, and they now flew up, preparatory to starting
southwards.
‘All ready, and the wives and children?’ was their cry.
‘Oh, I’m so light,’ said the young storks. ‘My bones feel all
kribly-krably, as if I was filled with live frogs! How splendid it is to
have to go abroad!’
‘Keep up in the flight,’ said father and mother, ‘and don’t chatter so
much; it tires the chest.’
And they flew.
At the same moment a horn sounded over the moor. The Viking had landed
with all his men, returning laden with booty from the coasts of Gaul,
where the people, like those of Britain, used to chant in their terror:
‘From the rage of the Northmen, Lord, deliver us!’ Guess what stir and
festival now came to the Viking’s stronghold near the moor! A barrel of
mead was brought into hall; a huge fire was lighted; horses were
slaughtered; everything went duly. The heathen priest sprinkled the
slaves with warm blood, to begin their new life; the fire crackled; the
smoke curled under the roof; the soot fell down from the beams--but they
were used to that. Guests were invited, and received valuable gifts.
Plots and treachery were forgotten; they drank deep and threw the picked
bones in each other’s faces in good-humoured horse-play. The bard--a
kind of musician, but a warrior as well, who went with them, saw their
exploits, and sang about them--gave them a song in which they heard all
their warrior-deeds and feats of prowess. Each verse ended with the
refrain:
‘Wealth, kindred, life cannot endure,
But the warrior’s glory standeth sure.’
And they all clashed upon their shields, and beat upon the table with
knives and fists, and made great clamour.
The Viking’s wife sat on the cross-bench in the open banqueting-hall.
She wore a robe of silk, with bracelets of gold and beads of amber. She
had put on her dress of state, and the bard sang of her, and told of the
golden treasure she had brought to her wealthy lord, while he was
delighted with the beautiful child, for he could see it by day in all
its loveliness. He was well pleased with the baby’s wildness, and said
she would become a right warrior-maid, and fight as his champion. She
did not even blink her eyes when a skilful hand cut her eyelashes with a
sharp sword as a rough joke.
The barrel of mead was drained, and a second brought in, and all got
well drunk, for they were folk who loved to drink their fill. They had a
proverb: ‘The kine know when to go to stall from pasture, but the fool
never knows when he has had enough.’ They knew it well enough, but know
and do are different things. They had another proverb, too: ‘The dearest
friend grows wearisome when he outstays his welcome.’ But on they
stayed. Meat and mead are good: it was glorious!--and the slaves slept
in the warm ashes, and dipped their fingers in the fat and licked them.
Oh, it was a great time!
Once again that year the Viking went on a raid, though the autumn gales
were rising. He led his men to the coast of Britain--‘just over the
water,’ he said; and his wife remained with the little girl. And truth
to tell, the foster-mother soon grew fonder of the unhappy toad with the
gentle eyes and deep sigh than of the beautiful child that fought and
bit all about her.
The raw, dank autumn mist, ‘Mouthless,’ which devours the leaves lay
over forest and moor; ‘Bird Featherless,’ as they called the snow, flew
closely all around; winter was nigh at hand. The sparrows took the
storks’ nests for themselves, and criticised the ways of the late owners
during their absence. And where were mother-and father-stork and their
young ones all the time? Down in the land of Egypt, where the sun shone
warm, as it does on a fine summer’s day with us. Tamarinds and acacias
bloomed round them; the crescent of Mahomet gleamed bright from the
cupolas of the mosques; pairs and pairs of storks sat on the slender
turrets, and rested after their long journey. Great flocks of them had
built nest by nest on the huge pillars and broken arches of temples and
forgotten cities. The date-palm raised its foliage on high, as if to
keep off the glare of the sun. Grey-white pyramids stood out against the
clear sky across the desert, where the ostrich raced at speed, and the
lion crouched with great, wise eyes, and saw the marble sphinx that lay
half-buried in the sand. The Nile flood had retired; the whole bed of
the river was swarming with frogs, and to the stork family that was
quite the best thing to be seen in the country. The young ones thought
their eyes must be playing them tricks, it all seemed so wonderful.
‘We always have it just like this in our warm country,’ said
mother-stork; and the young ones felt their appetites grow.
‘Will there be anything more to see?’ said they. ‘Shall we go much
farther into the country?’
[Illustration: THE NILE FLOOD HAD RETIRED]
‘There is nothing better to see,’ said mother-stork. ‘At that green
border is only a wild wood, where the trees crowd one upon another, and
are entangled together with thorny creepers. Only an elephant with his
clumsy legs can make a way there. The snakes are too large for us, and
the lizards too lively. If you try to go into the desert you get your
eyes full of sand in fair weather, and if there is much wind, you find
yourself buried under a sand-heap. No, this is the best place. Here are
frogs and locusts. I shall stop here, and you must stay with me.’ And
they stayed.
The old ones sat in their nest on the slender minaret and rested
themselves, while yet they were busy preening their feathers and rubbing
their beaks on their red-stockinged legs. They would raise their necks,
bow gravely, and hold up their heads with their high foreheads, fine,
smooth feathers, and brown eyes glancing sharply. The young hen-storks
walked gravely about among the coarse reeds, stealing glances at the
other young storks, and devouring a frog at every third step, or else a
small snake, which they found so good for their health, and so tasty.
The young males began to quarrel, beat each other with their wings,
pecked, yes, stabbed till the blood flowed! And so one and another got
betrothed, for that was the whole purpose of life. They built nests, and
from that sprang new quarrels, for in hot countries tempers are so
quick! Nevertheless, it was all delightful, especially to the old ones.
Everything that one’s own youngsters do becomes them. Every day there
was sunshine; every day was so much taken up with eating that there was
hardly time to think of amusement.
But inside the rich palace of their Egyptian landlord, as they called
him, joy was unknown. Rich and mighty lord, there he lay on a couch, his
limbs rigid, stretched out like a mummy, in the midst of the great hall
with its many-coloured walls; it looked just as if he was lying in a
tulip. His kinsmen and servants stood around him; he was not dead; you
could not call him alive; he existed. The healing moss-flower from the
northern land, which should have been searched for and gathered by her
who loved him most dearly, would never be brought. His young and
beautiful daughter, who flew in swan’s-plumage over sea and land, far
towards the north, would never return. ‘She is dead and gone!’ the two
swan-maidens had told him on their return. They had invented a whole
history of it. Said they:--
‘We all three flew high in the air: a hunter saw us and shot an arrow;
it struck our friend, and singing her farewell, like a dying swan, she
slowly sank, in the midst of a forest lake. There we buried her, near
the shore of the lake, under a fragrant weeping-birch. But we took our
revenge! We bound fire under the wings of a swallow which had built
under the hunter’s thatched roof! The thatch caught; the house blazed
up! He was burned in it, and the light shone over the lake as far as the
drooping birch tree under which she is buried. She will never come back
to the land of Egypt.’
And so they both wept; and the father-stork, when he heard it, chattered
with his beak till it rattled again.
‘Lies and make-up!’ said he. ‘I have a great mind to drive my beak into
their hearts.’
‘And break it off!’ said mother-stork. ‘And what good would that do?
Think first of yourself and your own family; everything else is of no
consequence!’
‘However, I will seat myself on the edge of the open court in the
morning, when all the learned doctors are met to talk about the illness.
Perhaps they will come a little nearer the truth.’
And the learned doctors came together, and talked and talked all about,
so that the stork could not make head or tail of it--nor did anything
come of it for the sickness, or for the daughter in the moor; but,
nevertheless, we shall be glad to hear something about it, for we are
obliged to listen to a great deal.
But now it will be a very good thing to learn what had gone before this
meeting, in order to understand the story better, for at least we know
as much as father-stork.
‘Love brings life! The highest love supports the highest life! Only
through love will he be able to secure the preservation of his life!’
was what they said; and very wisely and well said it was, according to
the learned.
‘That’s a pretty thought!’ said father-stork.
‘I don’t rightly understand it!’ said mother-stork, ‘and it isn’t my
fault, but the expressions! However, be that as it may, I’ve something
else to think about!’
Then the learned men had spoken of love for one thing to another, of the
difference there is between the affection of lovers and that of parent
and child; of the love of plant and sunbeam, where the rays of the sun
touch the bud and the young shoot thus comes forth--all this was
expounded at such great length and in so learned a way that it was
impossible for father-stork to follow it, much less to repeat it. He was
quite thoughtful about it, and half closed his eyes and stood on one leg
a whole day afterwards; such learning was too heavy for him to bear.
However, he understood one thing. He had heard both the common folk and
those of the highest rank say the same thing from the bottom of their
hearts--that it was a great misfortune for thousands of people, for the
country at large, that this man should be ill and not recover; it would
be a joy and blessing if he were restored to health. ‘But where does
the flower of health grow for him?’ that was what they had all inquired.
They sought it from the scrolls of wisdom, from the twinkling stars, and
from the winds; they had asked in all byways where they might find it,
and at last the learned and wise announced, as we have said: ‘Love
brings forth life, the life of a father,’ and so they said more than
they themselves understood. They repeated it, and wrote it as a
prescription: ‘Love brings forth life’; but how was the thing to be done
from this prescription? There lay the difficulty. At length they came to
an agreement about it; the help must come from the princess, who was
attached to her father with her whole soul and heart. And then they
decided how it was to be brought about (all this was more than a year
and a day before): she must go by night, at the new moon, to the marble
sphinx near the desert, must clear away the sand from the door with her
feet, and then go through the long passage that led into the middle of
one of the great pyramids, where in his mummy-case lay one of the mighty
kings of old, surrounded by splendour and magnificence. Here she was to
hold her ear to the lips of the dead, and then it would be revealed to
her how she was to gain life and health for her father.
All this she had done, and had learned in vision that, from the deep
marsh in the land of Denmark, a spot most clearly indicated, she might
bring home the marsh-flower, which there in the depth of the water had
touched her breast. Then he would be healed. So she flew in swan’s
plumage from the land of Egypt to the moor.
You see, father-stork and mother-stork were aware of all this, and now
we know the story more fully than before. We remember that the Marsh
King dragged her down to him; we know that for those at home she is
dead and gone; only the wisest of them all said still, with
mother-stork: ‘She takes good care of herself!’ and they were obliged to
wait, for that was all they knew about it.
‘I believe I can steal the swans’ plumage from the two good-for-nothing
princesses!’ said father-stork, ‘then they will not be able to go to the
moor to work mischief. I will hide the swans’ skins themselves till they
are wanted.’
‘Where will you hide them?’ asked mother-stork.
‘In our nest on the moor!’ said he. ‘I and the youngest of our brood can
be helped along with them, and if they are troublesome to us, there are
plenty of places on the way where we can hide them till next time of
moving. One swan’s dress would be enough for her, but two are better; it
is well to have plenty of luggage in a northern climate!’
‘You will get no thanks for it!’ said mother-stork. ‘However, you are
the master. I have nothing to say, except when I am sitting.’
* * * * *
In the Viking’s stronghold near the moor, whither the storks flew at the
spring, the little girl had received her name. They had called her
Helga, but that was far too sweet for such a disposition as the one
possessed by this most beautiful child. Month after month it became more
evident, and as years went by--whilst the storks pursued the same
journey, in autumn towards the Nile, in spring towards the moor--the
little child became a grown girl, and before people thought of it, she
was in her sixteenth year, and the most beautiful of maidens. But the
fruit was a beautiful shell, the kernel hard and rough. She was wilder
than most people even in that hard gloomy age.
It was a delight to her to splash with her white hands in the hot blood
of the horse which had been slaughtered as a sacrifice; in her wildness
she bit off the neck of the black cock which should have been slain by
the heathen priest; and she said in sober earnest to her
foster-father:--
‘If thine enemy came and tied a rope to the beams of the roof, and
lifted it over thy chamber, whilst thou wast asleep, I should not wake
thee, even if I could! I would not hear it, my blood still so hums in my
ears where thou didst slap me years ago! Thou! I remember!
But the Viking did not believe what she said; he was, like the others,
infatuated with her beauty; and he did not know how disposition and
appearance changed in little Helga. She would sit without a saddle, as
if she had grown to the horse, when it galloped at full speed; and she
would not leap off, even when it fought with other vicious horses. In
all her clothes she would often cast herself from the bank into the
strong current of the fjord and swim to meet the Viking when his boat
was steering towards the land. She cut off the longest lock from her
beautiful long hair, and made it into a string for her bow. ‘Self-made
is well made!’ she said.
The Viking’s wife, according to the age and custom, was strong in will
and in disposition, but towards the daughter she seemed a mild, anxious
woman, for she knew that the dreadful child was bewitched.
When her mother stood on the balcony, or walked out into the courtyard,
it seemed as if Helga took an evil delight in placing herself on the
edge of the well, extending her arms and legs, and then leaping plump
into the narrow, deep hole, where she, with her frog-nature, dived, and
rose again, crawled out, just as if she was a cat, and came, dripping
with water, into the lofty hall, so that the green leaves which were
scattered on the floor floated about in the watery stream.
But there was one bond that restrained little Helga, and that was the
dusk of the evening. Then she became quiet and pensive, and would allow
herself to be called and led. She seemed to be drawn by some internal
feeling to her mother, and when the sun went down and the transformation
without and within her took place, she sat there quiet and melancholy,
shrunken together into the figure of a toad. Her body, indeed, was now
far larger than that creature’s, but it was only so much the more
disgusting. She looked like a miserable dwarf with frog’s head, and web
between the fingers. There was something of the deepest melancholy in
the expression of her eyes; she had no voice but a hollow moan, just
like a child that sobs in its dreams. The Viking’s wife could then take
her on her knees: she forgot the ugly form, and looked only at the
sorrowful eyes, and more than once she said:--
‘I could wish almost that thou wast always my dumb frog-child! Thou art
more frightful to look at when thy beauty returns to thee.’
And she wrote runes against witchcraft and disease, and cast them over
the wretched girl, but she saw no change.
‘Now that she is a full-grown woman, and so like the Egyptian mother,’
said father-stork, ‘one could not believe that she was once so little
that she lay in a water-lily. We have never seen her mother since! She
did not take care of herself, as you and the learned men thought. Year
out, year in, I have flown now in all directions over the moor, but she
has never made any sign. Yes, let me tell you that every year when I
have come up here some days ahead of you, to mend the nest and put one
thing and another straight, I have flown for a whole night, like an owl
or a bat, to and fro over the open water, but it was no use! Nor have
the two swan-dresses been any use which the young ones and I dragged
hither from the land of the Nile. Toilsome work it was, and it took us
three journeys to do it. They have now lain for many years at the bottom
of the nest, and if such a disaster as a fire should happen at any time,
and the log-house be burnt, they would be lost!’
‘And our good nest would be lost also!’ said mother-stork. ‘You think
too little of that, and too much of the feather-dress, and your
moss-princess! You had better take it to her and stay in the bog! You
are a useless father to your own family; I have said that ever since I
sat on an egg for the first time! I only hope that we or our young ones
may not get an arrow in the wing from that mad Viking girl! She does not
know what she is doing. We have lived here a little longer than she, she
should remember! We never forget our obligations; we pay our taxes
yearly, a feather, an egg, and a young one, as is right. Do you think,
when she is outside, I feel inclined to go down there, as in the old
days, and as I do in Egypt, where I am half a companion with them,
without their forgetting me, and peep into tub and pot? No, I sit up
here worrying myself about her--the hussy!--and about you too! You ought
to have let her lie in the water-lily, and there would have been an end
of her!’
‘You are kinder than your words!’ said father-stork. ‘I know you better
than you know yourself.’
And so he gave a jump, two heavy strokes of his wings, stretched his
legs behind him, and off he flew. He sailed away, without moving his
wings. At a good distance off he gave a powerful stroke; the sun shone
on his white feathers; he stretched his neck and head forward! That was
speed and flight!
‘But he is still the handsomest of them all!’ said the mother-stork,
‘only I don’t tell him that.’
* * * * *
Early that autumn the Viking came home with spoil and captives. Among
these was a young Christian priest, one of those men who preached
against the idols of the northern countries. Often at that period did
the talk in the hall and in the bower of the women refer to the new
faith, which had made its way into all the countries of the south, and
by the holy Anskarius had been brought even to Haddeby on the Schlei.
Helga herself had heard of the faith in the White Christ, who out of
love to men had given Himself to save them; but for her, as they say, it
had gone in at one ear and out at the other. She seemed to have only a
perception of that word ‘love’ when she crouched in that closed room in
her miserable frog-form. But the Viking’s wife had listened to it, and
felt herself wonderfully affected by the story and traditions of the Son
of the only true God. The men, on coming home from their expedition, had
told of the splendid temples of costly hewn stone, erected for Him whose
message was love; and they brought home with them a pair of heavy golden
vessels, elaborately pierced, and with a fragrant odour about them, for
they were censers, which the Christian priests used to swing before the
altar where no blood was ever shed, but wine and consecrated bread
changed into His body and blood who had given Himself for generations
yet unborn.
In the deep paved cellar of the log house the young captive Christian
priest was confined, his feet and hands securely bound. The Viking’s
wife said that he was ‘as fair as Baldur,’ and she was touched by his
distress; but young Helga wished that a rope should be drawn through his
legs, and that he should be tied to the tails of wild oxen.
‘Then I would set the dogs loose. Halloo! away over bog and fen, out to
the moor! That would be jolly to see! jollier still to be able to follow
him on his course!’
But the Viking did not choose that he should be put to death that way,
but, as a denier and opposer of the high gods, he should be offered the
next morning on the blood-stone in the grove--the first time that a
human sacrifice had been offered there.
Young Helga asked that she might sprinkle the images of the gods and the
people with his blood. She sharpened her gleaming knife, and when one of
the great, ferocious dogs, of which there were a good many in the
court-yard, ran across her feet, she drove the knife into its side.
‘That is to test it,’ said she; and the Viking’s wife looked sadly at
the wild, ill-tempered girl, and, when the night came, and the beautiful
bodily form of her daughter was changed for the beauty of soul, she
spoke glowing words of sorrow to her from her own afflicted spirit.
The hideous toad with the goblin’s body stood before her, and fixed its
brown, sorrowful eyes on her; listening and seeming to understand with
the intelligence of a human being.
‘Never, even to my husband, has a word fallen from my tongue about the
twofold nature I endure in thee,’ said the Viking’s wife. ‘There is more
pity in my heart for thee than I could have believed! Great is the love
of a mother; but affection never comes into thy mind! Thy heart is like
the cold clod! Whence didst thou then come into my house?’
At that the hideous form trembled and shook. It seemed as if the word
touched some connexion between body and soul; great tears came into its
eyes.
‘Thy bitter trial will come some time!’ said the Viking’s wife; ‘and
terrible will it be for me! Better hadst thou been abandoned on the
highway as a child, and the night-frost had lulled thee into death!’ And
the Viking’s wife wept bitter tears, and, wrathful and sad, passed
behind the loose curtains which hung over the beam and divided the room.
The shrunken toad sat alone in the corner. There was silence, but after
a short interval there came from her breast a half-smothered sigh. It
was as if, painfully, a soul awoke to life in a corner of her heart. She
took one step forward, listened, took another step, and then with her
awkward hands she seized the heavy bar that was placed before the door.
Gently she put it back, and quietly she drew out the peg that was stuck
in over the latch. She took the lighted lamp that stood in front of the
rooms; it seemed as if a strong will gave her power. She drew the iron
pin out of the bolted shutter, and moved gently towards the prisoner. He
was asleep. She touched him with her cold, damp hand, and when he awoke
and saw that hideous form, he shuddered, as if at an evil vision. She
drew her knife, severed his bonds, and made signs to him to follow her.
He called upon the holy Name, made the sign of the cross, and as the
figure stood unchanged, he repeated the words of the Bible:--
‘“The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive: the Lord will deliver
him in time of trouble.” Who art thou? Whence is this reptile shape that
yet is so full of deeds of compassion?’
The toad-figure beckoned and guided him behind sheltering curtains by a
solitary way out to the stable, pointed at a horse; he mounted it, and
she seated herself before him and held on by the mane of the animal. The
prisoner understood her, and they rode away at a quick trot, by a path
he would never have discovered, out to the open heath.
He forgot her hideous form, for the favour and mercy of the Lord were
acting through this hobgoblin. He offered up pious prayers, and began to
sing holy songs; and she trembled; was it the power of the prayers and
hymns that acted upon her? or was it the coldness of the morning which
was so quickly coming? What was it that she felt? She raised herself up
in the breeze, and wished to stop the horse and spring off; but the
Christian priest held her fast with all his strength, and sang aloud a
Psalm, as if that would have power to loose the spell that held her in
that hideous frog shape, and the horse galloped forward yet more wildly.
The heaven became red; the first ray of the sun shot through the cloud,
and with that clear spring of light came the change of form--she was the
beautiful young girl with the demoniac, evil temper! In his arms he held
a peerless maiden, and in utter terror he sprang from the horse and
stopped it, for he thought he was encountering a new and deadly
witchcraft. But young Helga at the same time leapt to the ground; the
short child’s frock reached only to her knees; she drew the sharp knife
from her belt, and rushed at the startled man.
‘Let me get at you!’ she cried; ‘let me get at you, and you shall feel
the knife. Yes, you are as pale as hay! Slave! Beardless boy!’
She pressed him hard; they were engaged in a severe conflict, but it was
as if an unseen power gave strength to the Christian. He held her fast,
and the old oak tree hard by came to his help, for its roots, half
loosened from the earth, caught her feet as they slipped under them. A
spring gushed forth quite close to them; he sprinkled her with the fresh
water on breast and face, and charged the unclean spirit to come out of
her, signing her with the cross, according to the Christian rite. But
the water of baptism had no power there, where the spring of faith had
not yet arisen within.
Yet herein also was he strong; more than a man’s strength against the
rival power of evil lay in his act, and as if it overwhelmed her, she
dropped her arms, looked with a surprised glance and pale cheeks at him,
who seemed a powerful sorcerer, strong in wizardry and secret lore. They
were dark runes which he spoke, mystic signs which he was making in the
air! She would not have blinked if he had swung an axe or a sharp knife
before her eyes, but she did when he made the sign of the cross on her
forehead and breast; she now sat like a tame bird, her head bowed down
on her bosom.
Gently he told her of the work of love she had done for him in the
night, that she had come in the hideous skin of a frog, and had loosed
his bonds, and brought him out to light and life. He said that she also
was bound--bound in a closer bondage than he had been, but she, too,
with him should come to light and life. He would bring her to Haddeby,
to the holy Anskarius. There, in the Christian city, the enchantment
would be broken. But he would not dare to carry her in front of him on
the horse, although she herself was willing to sit there.
‘You must sit behind me on the horse, not in front of me! Thy
witch-beauty has a power that is from the evil one. I dread it--and yet
there is victory for me in Christ!’
He bent his knees and prayed gently and earnestly. It was as if the
silent glades of the forest were consecrated thereby into a holy church.
The birds began tosing as if they belonged to a new brotherhood; the
mint poured forth its fragrance as if it would take the place of
incense. The priest proclaimed aloud the words of Holy Writ:--
‘“The Dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that
sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into
the way of peace!”’
And he spoke about the longing of the whole Creation, and whilst he
spoke the horse, which had carried them in its wild race, stood quiet,
and shook the great brambles, so that the ripe, juicy berries fell on
little Helga’s hand, offering themselves for her refreshment.
[Illustration: THERE WAS A LITTLE BIRD THAT BEAT ITS WINGS]
Patiently she let herself be lifted on to the back of the horse, and sat
there like one walks in his sleep, who is not awake, but yet is not
moving in his dream. The Christian fastened two boughs together with a
strip of bark to form a cross, and held it aloft in his hands. So they
rode through the forest, which became denser as the way grew deeper, or
rather, there was no way at all. Sloes grew across the path; one was
obliged to ride around them. The spring did not become a running brook,
but a standing bog, and one had to ride around that. There was strength
and refreshment in the fresh forest air; there was not less power in the
word of gentleness which sounded in faith and Christian love, in the
heartfelt desire to bring the possessed to light and life.
They say that the drops of rain can hollow the hard stone, the billows
of the sea can in time wear smooth the broken, sharp-edged pieces of
rock. The dew of Grace, which had descended upon little Helga, pierced
the hardness and rounded the ruggedness of her nature, although it was
not yet evident, and she was not yet aware of it herself. But what does
the germ in the earth know of the refreshing moisture and the warm rays
of the sun, while yet it is hiding within itself plant and flower?
As a mother’s song for her child imperceptibly fastens itself into its
mind, and it babbles single words after her, without understanding them,
although they afterwards collect themselves in its thoughts, and become
clear in the course of time, so in her the Word worked which is able to
create.
They rode out of the forest, away over the heath, again through pathless
forest, and towards evening they met some robbers.
‘Where have you stolen that fair maiden?’ they shouted; they stopped the
horse, and snatched the two riders from it, for they were strong men.
The priest had no other weapon than the knife which he had taken from
little Helga to defend himself with; one of the robbers swung his axe,
but the young Christian avoided it, and lightly sprang aside, or he
would have been struck; but the edge of the axe sank deep into the
horse’s neck, so that the blood streamed out, and the animal fell to the
earth. Then little Helga started, as if awakened out of a long, deep
meditation, and threw herself down on the expiring animal. The Christian
priest placed himself before her in order to defend her, but one of the
robbers dashed a ponderous iron mace against his forehead, crushing it.
The blood and brains spurted around, and he fell dead to the earth.