went down, and as the last ray faded, she was changed to a hideous toad.
Her greenish mouth opened across half her face; her arms became thin and
slimy, and her hands grew broad and covered with webbing. Terror seized
the robbers at the sight. She stood among them, a hideous monster; then,
frog-like, hopped away, with bounds higher than she was herself, and
vanished in the thicket. The robbers knew it for an evil trick of Loge,
or secret magic art, and hurried away in affright.
* * * * *
The full moon was already rising, and soon shone forth in splendour, and
little Helga crept forth from the thicket in the skin of a wretched
toad. She stood by the bodies of the Christian priest and of the horse,
and she looked at them with eyes that seemed to weep. Her frog’s head
uttered a moan like a child beginning to cry. She threw herself now upon
one, now upon the other; she took water in her hand, which the webbed
skin had made larger and more hollow, and poured it over them. They were
dead, and would remain dead; she understood that. Wild animals would
soon come and devour their bodies; but that must not be! So she dug in
the earth as deep as she could. To open a grave for them was her wish,
but she had nothing to dig it with except a strong bough of a tree and
her weak hands; but on them there was webbing stretched between her
fingers. She tore it, and the blood flowed. These means would be of no
use, she could see. Then she took water and washed the dead man’s face,
covered it with fresh green leaves, fetched great boughs and laid them
over him, shook leaves between them, then took the heaviest stones she
was able to lift, laid them over the dead bodies, and filled up the
openings with moss. Then the mound seemed strong and protected, but this
arduous task had occupied the entire night--the sun now burst forth, and
little Helga stood in all her beauty, with bleeding hands, and, for the
first time, with tears on her flushed maiden cheeks.
In this transformation, it seemed as if the two natures struggled within
her. She trembled, and gazed around her as if she had awoke from a
frightful dream. Running to a slender beech, she held fast to it for
support, then climbed to the top of the tree, as lithely as a cat, and
clung fast to it. There she sat like a frightened squirrel, sat there
all through the long day in the deep solitude of the forest, where all
is still and death-like as they say. Yet a pair of butterflies fluttered
about at play or in quarrel; there were ant-hills close by with many
hundreds of busy little creatures that crowded backwards and forwards.
Countless gnats danced in the air, swarm upon swarm; hosts of buzzing
flies chased each other about; birds, dragon-flies, and other small
winged creatures filled the air. The earth-worm crept out from the moist
soil, the mole raised itself above the ground. In all else it was still
and death-like around, or what one calls death-like indeed! Nothing took
any notice of little Helga, except the jays, which flew screaming around
the top of the tree where she was sitting. They jumped along the
branches near her in daring inquisitiveness. One glance of her eye was
enough to chase them away again; but they could not quite make her out,
neither could she understand herself.
When evening was near, and the sun began to go down, her approaching
change called her to movement again. She let herself slide down from the
tree, and when the last ray of the sun disappeared, she sat there in
the toad’s shrunken form, with the webbed skin of her hands lacerated,
but her eyes now sparkled with a brilliancy of beauty which they had
scarcely possessed before, even in her beautiful human shape. They were
now the gentle eyes of a pious maiden that looked from behind the
reptile’s outward shape, and told of a deepened mind, of a true human
heart. The beautiful eyes swam with tears, heavy tears that relieved her
heart.
The cross of boughs bound together with a strip of bark, the last work
of him who now lay dead and buried, was still lying on the grave she had
made. Little Helga now took it, at some unprompted impulse, and planted
it amongst the stones, over him and the slain horse. The sadness of the
recollection brought tears to her eyes, and with the grief in her heart
she traced the same sign in the earth around the grave that so
honourably enclosed the dead. As with both hands she traced the sign of
the cross, the webbing fell off like a torn glove! She washed herself in
the water of the spring, and looked with astonishment at her fine white
hands. Again she made the sign of the cross in the air between herself
and the grave; her lips quivered, her tongue moved, and that Name, which
she had heard pronounced most frequently on her ride through the forest,
came audibly from her mouth--she said, ‘Jesus Christ!’
The toad’s skin fell off: she was a beautiful young maiden; but her head
drooped wearily, her limbs needed repose--she slept.
Her slumber was short; at midnight she awoke. The dead horse was
standing before her, shining, and full of life, that gleamed in light
from its eyes and from its wounded neck. Close by she saw the murdered
Christian priest, ‘more beautiful than Baldur!’ as the Viking’s wife
would have said; and he appeared surrounded with a glory of fire.
There was an earnest look in his large, gentle eyes, just and searching,
so penetrating a gaze that it seemed to shine into the inmost recesses
of her heart. Little Helga trembled before it, and her memory was
awakened with a power as if it was the Day of Judgment. Every kind
action that had been done for her, every kindly word that had been
spoken to her, seemed endued with life; she understood that it was mercy
which had taken care of her during her days of trial, in which the child
of spirit and clay works and strives. She owned that she had only
followed the bent of her own desire, and had done nothing on her own
part. Everything had been given to her, everything had been allowed, so
to speak. She bowed herself humbly, ashamed before Him who alone can
read the hidden things of the heart; and in that instant there seemed to
come to her a fiery touch of purifying flame--the flame of the Holy
Spirit.
‘Thou daughter of the mire,’ said the Christian priest, ‘from the mire,
from the earth thou art sprung; from earth thou shalt again arise. The
fire within thee returns in personality to its source; the ray is not
from the sun, but from God. No soul shall perish, but far distant is the
time when life shall be merged in eternity. I come from the land of the
dead; so shalt thou at some time travel through the deep valley to the
shining hill-country, where grace and fulness dwell. I may not lead thee
to Hadde for Christian baptism. First thou must burst the water-shield
over the deep moorland, and draw up the living root that gave thee life
and cradled thee. Thou must do thy work before the consecration may come
to thee.’
And he lifted her on to the horse, handed her a golden censer, like
that which she had seen in the Viking’s castle, from which there came a
sweet, strong fragrance. The open wound on the forehead of the slain
shone like a radiant diadem. He took the cross from the grave, raised it
on high; and now they went off through the air, over the rustling
forest, then over the mounds where the warriors were buried, sitting on
their dead steeds; and these majestic forms arose, and rode out to the
tops of the hills. A broad golden hoop with a gold knob gleamed on their
foreheads in the moonlight, and their cloaks fluttered in the wind. The
dragon that sits and broods over treasure raised its head, and looked
after them. Dwarfs peered forth from the hills, and the furrows swarmed
with red, blue, and green lights, like a cluster of sparks in a burnt
piece of paper.
Away over wood and heath, stream and pool, they flew to the moor, and
floated over that in great circles. The Christian priest raised the
cross on high; it shone like gold, and from his lips came the
eucharistic chant. Little Helga sang with him, as a child joins in the
song of its mother. She swung the censer, and there came a fragrance as
if from an altar, so powerful, so subtly operating, that the rushes and
reeds of the moor put forth their flowers. All the germs sprang up from
the deep soil; everything that had life arose. A veil of water-lilies
spread itself like an embroidered carpet of flowers, and on it lay a
sleeping woman, young and beautiful. Little Helga thought she saw
herself mirrored in the still water; but it was her mother that she saw,
the Marsh King’s wife, the princess from the waters of the Nile.
The dead Christian priest bade the sleeper be lifted on to the horse;
but that sank under the burden as if its body was only a winding-sheet
flying in the breeze; but the sign of the cross made the airy phantom
strong, and all three rode to the firm ground.
A cock crowed in the Viking’s stronghold. The phantoms rose up in the
mist, and were dispersed in the wind, but mother and daughter stood
there together.
‘Is that myself that I see in the deep water?’ said the mother.
‘Is that myself that I see in the bright shield?’ exclaimed the
daughter; and they came close together, breast to breast in each other’s
arms. The mother’s heart beat strongest, and she understood it all.
‘My child! My own heart’s flower! My lotus from the deep waters!’
And she embraced her child, and wept over her; and the tears were as a
baptism of new life and affection for little Helga.
‘I came hither in a swan’s skin, and I took it off,’ said the mother. ‘I
sank through the quivering swamp, deep into the mire of the bog, that
enclosed me as with a wall. But soon I found a fresher current about me;
a power seemed to draw me ever deeper and deeper. I felt a pressure of
sleep on my eyelids; I slept, I dreamt--I seemed to lie again in the
pyramids of Egypt; but there still stood before me the moving
elder-stump, which had frightened me on the surface of the moor. I
looked at the crevices in the bark, and they shone forth in colours and
became hieroglyphics--it was the case of a mummy which I was looking at.
That burst, and out of it stepped a lord a thousand years old, a mummy
form, black as pitch, shining black like a wood-snail or the slimy black
mud--the Marsh King, or the mummy of the pyramid, I did not know which.
He flung his arms about me, and I felt that I should die. When I first
returned to life again, and my
[Illustration: PLACED THE GOLDEN CIRCUIT ABOUT HIS NECK]
breast became warm, there was a little bird which beat its wings, and
twittered and sang. It flew up from my breast towards the dark, heavy
roof, but a long green band still fastened it to me. I heard and
understood its longing notes: “Liberty! sunshine! to my father!” Then I
thought of my father in the sun-lit land of my home, my life, my
affection! and I loosed the band and let him flutter away--home to his
father. Since that hour I have not dreamed; I slept a long and heavy
sleep till the moment when the sounds and fragrance arose and raised
me.’
That green band from the mother’s heart to the bird’s wings, whither had
it passed now? where was it lying cast away? Only the stork had seen it.
The band was that green stalk; the knot was that shining flower which
served as a cradle for the child who now had grown in beauty, and again
reposed near the mother’s heart.
And whilst they stood there in close embrace, the father-stork flew in
circles about them, made speed to his nest, fetched from thence the
feather-dresses kept for so many years and threw one over each of them;
and they flew, and raised themselves from the earth like two white
swans.
‘Let us talk,’ said father-stork, ‘now that we can understand each
other’s speech, although the beak is cut differently on one bird and on
the other! It is the most lucky thing possible that you came to-night.
In the morning we should have been off, mother, and I, and the young
ones! We are flying to the South! Yes, look at me! I am an old friend
from the land of the Nile, and that is the mother; she has more in her
heart than in her chatter. She always believed that the princess was
only taking care of herself. I and the young ones have brought the
swan-skins here. Well, how glad I am! And what a fortunate thing it is
that I am here still! At daybreak we shall set off, a large party of
storks. We fly in front; you can fly behind, and then you will not
mistake the way. I and the young ones will then be able to keep an eye
upon you!’
‘And the lotus flower, that I ought to bring,’ said the Egyptian
princess, ‘it flies in swan’s plumage by my side! I have the flower of
my heart with me; thus it has released itself. Homeward! homeward!’
But Helga said that she could not leave the land of Denmark till she had
once more seen her foster-mother, the kind wife of the Viking. In
Helga’s thoughts came up every beautiful remembrance, every affectionate
word, every tear which her foster-mother had shed, and it almost seemed
at that instant as if she clung closest to that mother.
‘Yes, we will go to the Viking’s house,’ said the stork-father. ‘There I
expect mother and the young ones. How they will open their eyes and
chatter about it! Yes, mother doesn’t say so very much; what she does is
short and pithy, and so she thinks the best! I will sound the rattle
directly, so that she will hear we are coming.’
And so father-stork chattered his beak, and flew with the swans to the
Viking’s stronghold.
Every one there was lying deep in slumber. The Viking’s wife had not
gone to rest till late that night; she was still in fear for little
Helga, who had disappeared three days ago with the Christian priest. She
must have helped him to escape, for it was her horse that was missing
from the stable. By what power had all this been brought about? The
Viking’s wife thought about the wonderful works which she had heard were
performed by the White Christ, and by those who believed in Him and
followed Him. Her changing thoughts shaped themselves into a dream. It
appeared to her that she was still sitting on her bed, awake, and
meditating, and that darkness shrouded everything outside. A storm
arose; she heard the rolling of the sea in the west and the east, from
the North Sea and the waters of the Cattegat. That huge serpent which
encircles the earth in the depths of the ocean shook convulsively; it
was Ragnarök, the twilight of the gods, as the heathen called the last
hour, when everything should pass away, even the high gods themselves.
The trumpet sounded, and the gods rode forth over the rainbow, arrayed
in steel, to take part in the last contest. Before them flew the winged
warrior-maidens, and behind them in array marched the forms of dead
warriors. The whole sky was illuminated by the northern lights, but the
darkness again prevailed. It was an appalling hour.
And close by the frightened Viking’s wife little Helga sat on the floor
in the hideous form of a toad, trembling and nestling herself up against
her foster-mother, who took her on her lap and affectionately held her
fast, although she seemed more hideous than a toad. The air was full of
the sound of sword-strokes and the blows of maces, of arrows whizzing,
as if a furious hail-storm was raging above them. The hour had come when
earth and heaven should fail, the stars should fall, and everything be
burned up in the fire of Surtr; but the dreamer knew that a new earth
and heaven would come, and the corn wave where the sea now rolled over
the barren sand bottom; that the God who cannot be named rules, and up
to Him rose Baldur, the gentle and kind, loosed from the realm of death.
He came--the Viking’s wife saw him, and knew his face. It was the
captive Christian priest.
‘White Christ!’ she cried aloud; and as she mentioned that Name she
pressed a kiss on the hideous forehead of her frog-child; the toad’s
skin fell off, and little Helga stood there in all her beauty, gentle
as she had never been before, and with beaming eyes. She kissed her
foster-mother’s hands, blessed her for all her care and affection with
which she had surrounded her in the days of her distress and trial;
thanked her for the thoughts to which she had given birth in her;
thanked her for mentioning the Name which she repeated, ‘White Christ!’
and then little Helga rose up as a noble swan, her wings expanded
themselves wide, wide, with a rustling as when a flock of birds of
passage flies away!
With that the Viking’s wife awoke, and still heard outside the same
strong sound of wings. She knew that it was time for the storks to
depart, and no doubt that was what she heard. Still, she wished to see
them once before their journey, and to bid them farewell. She stood up,
went out on to the balcony, and there she saw on the ridge of the
out-house rows of storks, and round the courtyard and over the lofty
trees crowds of others were flying in great circles. But straight in
front of her, on the edge of the well, where little Helga had so often
sat and frightened her with her wildness, two swans now sat and looked
at her with intelligent eyes. Her dream came to her mind; it still quite
filled her as if it had been reality. She thought of little Helga in the
form of a swan, she thought of the Christian priest, and she felt a
strange joy in her heart.
The swans beat their wings, and bent their necks, as if they wished so
to salute her; and the Viking’s wife stretched out her arms towards them
as if she understood, and smiled at them through her tears.
Then, with a noise of wings and chattering, all the storks arose to
start on their journey to the south.
‘We cannot wait for the swans!’ said mother-stork. ‘If they wish to come
with us they may; but we can’t wait here till the plovers start! It is
a very good thing to travel in family parties; not like the chaffinches
and ruffs, where the males fly by themselves and the females by
themselves; that is certainly not proper! And what are those swans
flapping their wings for?’
‘Every one flies in his own way!’ said father-stork. ‘The swans go in
slanting line, the cranes in a triangle, and the plovers in a wavy,
snake-like line.’
‘Don’t mention serpents when we are flying up here!’ said mother-stork;
‘it only excites the appetites of our young ones when they can’t be
satisfied.’
* * * * *
‘Are those the high mountains down there which I have heard of?’ asked
Helga in the swan’s skin.
‘Those are thunder-clouds which drive below us,’ said the mother.
‘What are those white clouds which lift themselves so high?’ asked
Helga.
‘Those are the everlasting snow-clad hills which you see,’ said the
mother; and they flew over the Alps, down towards the blue
Mediterranean.
* * * * *
‘Land of Africa! Coast of Egypt!’ jubilantly sang the daughter of the
Nile in her swan form, when, high in the air, she descried her native
land, like a yellowish white, undulating streak.
And as the birds saw it, they hastened their flight.
‘I smell the mud of the Nile and the wet frogs!’ said mother-stork. ‘It
quite excites me! Yes, now you shall taste them; now you shall see the
adjutant bird, the ibis,
[Illustration: THEN SHE SAW THE STORKS]
and the cranes! They all belong to our family, but they are not nearly
so handsome as we are. They stick themselves up, especially the ibis; he
is now quite pampered by the Egyptians--they make a mummy of him, and
stuff him with aromatic herbs. I would rather be stuffed with live
frogs, and so would you, and so you shall be. It is better to have
something inside you while you live than to be in state when you are
dead! That is my opinion, and that is always right!’
‘Now the storks are come!’ they said in the rich house on the bank of
the Nile, where, in the open hall on soft cushions covered with a
leopard’s skin, the royal master lay outstretched, neither living nor
dead, hoping for the lotus flower from the deep marsh in the north.
Kinsmen and servants stood around him.
And into the hall flew two beautiful white swans, which had come with
the storks! They threw off their dazzling feather-dress, and there stood
two beautiful women, as much alike as two drops of dew! They bent down
over the pale, withered old man; they put back their long hair, and when
little Helga stooped over her grandfather, the colour returned to his
cheeks, his eyes sparkled, and life came into his stiffened limbs. The
old man raised himself healthy and vigorous; daughter and granddaughter
held him in their arms as if they were giving him a morning salutation
in their joy after a long, heavy dream.
* * * * *
And there was joy over all the house and in the storks’ nest, but there
it was chiefly over the good food, and the swarming hosts of frogs; and
whilst the learned men made haste to note down in brief the history of
the two princesses and the flower of health, which was such a great
event and a blessing for house and country, the parent storks related it
in their fashion to their own family, but not till they had all
satisfied their hunger, or else they would have had something else to do
than to listen to stories.
‘Now you will become somebody!’ whispered mother-stork; ‘that is
certain!’
‘Well! what should I become?’ said father-stork; ‘and what have I done?
A mere nothing!’
‘You have done more than all the others! But for you and the young ones
the two princesses would never have seen Egypt again, and made the old
man well. You will become somebody! You will certainly receive a
Doctor’s degree, and our young ones will bear it afterwards, and their
young ones will have it in turn. You look already like an Egyptian
doctor--in my eyes!’
The wise and learned expounded the fundamental idea, as they called it,
that ran through the whole history: ‘Love brings forth life!’--they gave
that explanation in different ways--‘the warm sunbeam was the Egyptian
princess, she descended to the Marsh King, and in their meeting the
flower sprang forth----’
‘I can’t repeat the words quite right,’ said father-stork, who had heard
it from the roof, and was expected to tell them all about it in his
nest. ‘What they said was so involved, it was so clever, that they
immediately received honours and gifts. Even the head cook obtained a
high mark of distinction--that was for the soup!’
‘And what did you receive?’ inquired mother-stork; ‘they ought not to
forget the most important, and that is yourself. The learned have only
chattered about it all, but your turn will come!’
Late that night, while peaceful slumber enwrapped the now prosperous
house, there was one who was still awake; and that was not the
father-stork, though he stood on one leg in the nest and slept like a
sentinel. No, little Helga was awake. She leaned out over the balcony
and gazed at the clear sky, with the great, bright stars, larger and
purer in their lustre than she had seen them in the north, and yet the
same. She thought of the Viking’s wife by the moor, of her
foster-mother’s gentle eyes, and the tears she had shed over her poor
toad-child, who now stood in the light and splendour of the stars by the
waters of the Nile in the soft air of spring. She thought of the love in
that heathen woman’s breast, that love which she had shown to a
miserable creature who, in human form, was an evil brute, and in the
form of an animal, loathsome to look at and to touch. She looked at the
shining stars, and called to mind the splendour on the forehead of the
dead man, when they flew away over forest and moor; tones resounded in
her recollection, words she had heard pronounced when they rode away,
and she sat as if paralysed--words about the great Author of Love, the
highest Love, embracing all generations.
Yes, how much had been given, gained, obtained! Little Helga’s thoughts
were occupied, night and day, with all her good fortune, and she stood
in contemplation of it like a child which turns quickly from the giver
to all the beautiful presents that have been given; so she rose up in
her increasing happiness, which could come and would come. She was
indeed borne in mysterious ways to even higher joy and happiness, and in
this she lost herself one day so entirely that she thought no more of
the Giver. It was the strength of youthful courage that inspired her
bold venture. Her eyes shone, but suddenly she was called back by a
great clamour in the courtyard beneath. There she saw two powerful
ostriches running hurriedly about in narrow circles. She had never
before seen that creature, so great a bird, so clumsy and heavy. Its
wings looked as if they were clipped, the bird itself as if it had been
injured, and she inquired what had been done to it, and for the first
time heard the tradition which the Egyptians relate about the ostrich.