then, one evening, a mighty forest bird said to it: ‘Brother, shall we
fly to the river in the morning, if God will, and drink?’ And the
ostrich replied: ‘I will.’ When day broke they flew off, at first high
up towards the sun--the eye of God--ever higher and higher, the ostrich
far before all the others; it flew in its pride towards the light; it
relied on its own strength, and not on the Giver; it did not say, ‘If
God will!’ Then the avenging angel drew back the veil from the burning
flame, and in that instant the bird’s wings were burnt; it sank
miserably to the earth. Its descendants are no longer able to raise
themselves; they fly in terror, rush about in circles in that narrow
space. It is a reminder to us men, in all our thoughts, in all our
actions, to say: ‘If God will!’
And Helga thoughtfully bowed her head, looked at the hurrying ostrich,
saw its fear, saw its silly delight at the sight of its own great shadow
on the white sunlit wall. And deep seriousness fixed itself into her
mind and thoughts. So rich a life, so full of prosperity, was given, was
obtained--what would happen? What was yet to come? The best thing: ‘If
God will!’
* * * * *
In the early spring, when the storks again started for the north, little
Helga took her gold bracelet, scratched her name on it, beckoned to the
stork-father, placed the golden circlet about his neck, and asked him to
bear it to the Viking’s wife, by which she would understand that her
foster-daughter was alive, and that she was happy, and thought of her.
‘That is heavy to carry!’ thought the father-stork when it was placed
around his neck; ‘but one does not throw gold and honour on the
high-road. They will find it true up there that the stork brings
fortune!’
‘You lay gold, and I lay eggs!’ said the mother-stork; ‘but you only lay
once, and I lay every year! But it vexes me that neither of us is
appreciated.’
‘But we are quite aware of it ourselves, mother!’ said father-stork.
‘But you can’t hang that on you,’ said mother-stork. ‘It neither gives
us fair wind nor food.’
And so they flew.
The little nightingale, that sang in the tamarind-bush, also wished to
start for the north immediately. Little Helga had often heard him up
there near the moor; she wished to give him a message, for she
understood the speech of birds when she flew in the swan’s skin, and she
had often since that time used it with the stork and the swallow. The
nightingale would understand her, and she asked him to fly to the
beech-forest on the peninsula of Jutland, where she had erected the
grave of stones and boughs; there she asked him to bid all the small
birds to protect the grave, and always to sing their songs around it.
And the nightingale flew--and time flew also.
* * * * *
The eagle stood on the pyramid in the autumn, and saw a magnificent
array of richly laden camels, with armed men in costly clothing, on
snorting Arabian steeds, shining as white as silver, and with red
quivering nostrils, their heavy thick manes hanging down about their
slender legs. Rich visitors, a royal prince from the land of Arabia,
beautiful as a prince ought to be, came to that noble house, where the
storks’ nest now stood empty, its former occupants now far away in the
northern land, but soon to return. And they came exactly on that day
which was most filled with joy and mirth. There was a grand wedding, and
little Helga was the bride arrayed in silk and jewels; the bridegroom
was the young prince from the land of Arabia; and the two sat highest at
the table between the mother and grandfather. But she did not look at
the bridegroom’s brown, manly cheek, where his black beard curled; she
did not look at his dark, fiery eyes, which were fastened upon her; she
looked outwards and upwards towards the twinkling, sparkling stars,
which beamed down from heaven.
Then there was a rustling sound of strong wing-strokes outside in the
air--the storks had returned; and the old couple, however tired they
might be with the journey, and however much they needed rest, still flew
on to the railing of the verandah immediately they were aware whose
festivity it was. They had already heard, at the frontier of the
country, that little Helga had allowed them to be painted on the wall
because they belonged to her history.
‘That is very nicely borne in mind,’ said father-stork.
‘It is very little!’ said the stork-mother; ‘she could not have done
less.’
And when Helga saw them, she got up and went out into the verandah to
them to pat them on the back. The old storks curtsied with their necks,
and the youngest of their young ones looked on, and felt themselves
honoured.
And Helga looked up to the bright stars which shone clearer and clearer;
and between them and her a form seemed to move still purer than the air,
and seen through it, that hovered quite near her--it was the dead
Christian priest; so he came on the day of her festivity, came from the
Kingdom of Heaven.
‘The splendour and glory which are there surpass everything that earth
knows!’ he said.
And little Helga prayed gently and from her heart, as she had never
prayed before, that she only for one single minute might dare to look
within, might only cast one single glance into the Kingdom of Heaven, to
the Father of all.
And he raised her into the splendour and glory, in one current of sounds
and thoughts; it was not only round about her that it shone and sounded,
but within her. No words are able to describe it.
‘Now we must return; you are wanted!’ he said.
‘Only one glance more!’ she entreated; ‘only one short minute!’
‘We must go back to the earth; all the guests have gone away.’
‘Only one glance! the last----’
* * * * *
And little Helga stood outside in the verandah; but all the torches
outside were extinguished, all the lights in the wedding chamber were
gone, the storks were gone, no guests to be seen, no bridegroom;
everything seemed to be blown away in three short minutes.
Then Helga was filled with terror, and she went through the great, empty
hall, into the next room. Strange soldiers were sleeping there. She
opened a side door that led into her apartment, and when she expected to
stand there, she found herself outside in the garden; but it was not
like this before--the heaven was red and shining, it was towards
daybreak.
Only three minutes in Heaven, and a whole night had passed on the earth!
* * * * *
Then she saw the storks; she cried to them, speaking their language, and
father-stork turned his head, listened, and drew near her.
‘You are speaking our language!’ said he; ‘what do you want? Why do you
come here, you strange woman?’
‘It is I! it is Helga! Don’t you know me? Three minutes ago we were
talking together, yonder in the verandah.’
‘That is a mistake!’ said the stork; ‘you must have dreamt it!’
‘No, no!’ she said, and reminded him of the Viking’s stronghold and the
moor, and of the journey hither!
Then father-stork blinked his eyes: ‘That is a very old story; I have
heard it from my great-great-great-grandmother’s time! Yes, certainly,
there was such a princess in Egypt from the land of Denmark, but she
disappeared on the night of her wedding many hundreds of years ago, and
never came back again. That you may read for yourself on the monument in
the garden; there are sculptured both swans and storks, and at the top
you yourself stand in white marble.’
It was indeed so. Little Helga saw it, understood it, and fell on her
knees.
The sun broke forth, and as in former times at the touch of its beams
the toad form disappeared and the beautiful shape was seen, so she
raised herself now at the baptism of light in a form of brighter beauty,
purer than the air, a ray of light--to the Father of all.
Her body sank in dust; there lay a faded lotus-flower where she had
stood.
* * * * *
‘Then that was a new ending to the story!’ said the father-stork. ‘I had
not at all expected it! but I rather like it!’
‘I wonder what my young ones will say about it!’ said the mother-stork.
‘Yes, that is certainly the principal thing!’ answered the father.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE SWALLOW SOARED HIGH INTO THE AIR]
[Illustration: ‘THOU POOR LITTLE THING!’ SAID THE FIELD-MOUSE]
TOMMELISE
Once upon a time there lived a young wife who longed exceedingly to
possess a little child of her own, so she went to an old witch-woman and
said to her, ‘I wish so very much to have a child, a little tiny child;
won’t you give me one, old mother?’
‘Oh, with all my heart!’ replied the witch. ‘Here is a barley-corn for
you; it is not exactly of the same sort as those that grow on the
farmer’s fields, or that are given to the fowls in the poultry yard, but
do you sow it in a flower-pot, and then you shall see what you shall
see!’
‘Thank you, thank you!’ cried the woman, and she gave the witch a silver
sixpence, and then having returned home sowed the barley-corn as she
had been directed, whereupon a large and beautiful flower immediately
shot forth from the flower-pot. It looked like a tulip, but the petals
were tightly folded up; it was still in bud.
‘What a lovely flower!’ exclaimed the peasant-woman, and she kissed the
pretty red and yellow leaves, and as she kissed them the flower gave a
loud report and opened. It was indeed a tulip, but on the small green
pointal in the centre of the flower there sat a little tiny girl, so
pretty and delicate, but her whole body scarcely bigger than the young
peasant’s thumb. So she called her Tommelise.
A pretty varnished walnut-shell was given her as a cradle, blue violet
leaves served as her mattresses, and a rose-leaf was her coverlet; here
she slept at night, but in the daytime she played on the table. The
peasant-wife had filled a plate with water, and laid flowers in it,
their blossoms bordering the edge of the plate, while the stalks lay in
the water; on the surface floated a large tulip-leaf, and on it
Tommelise might sit and sail from one side of the plate to the other,
two white horse hairs having been given her for oars. That looked quite
charming! And Tommelise could sing too, and she sang in such low sweet
tones as never were heard before.
One night, while she was lying in her pretty bed, a great ugly toad came
hopping in through the broken window-pane. The toad was such a great
creature, old and withered-looking, and wet too; she hopped at once down
upon the table where Tommelise lay sleeping under the red rose petal.
‘That is just the wife for my son,’ said the toad; and she seized hold
of the walnut-shell, with Tommelise in it, and hopped away with her
through the broken pane down into the garden. Here flowed a broad
stream; its banks were muddy and swampy, and it was amongst this mud
that the old toad and her son dwelt. Ugh, how hideous and deformed he
was! just like his mother.
‘Coax, coax, brekke-ke-kex!’ was all he could find to say on seeing the
pretty little maiden in the walnut-shell.
‘Don’t make such a riot, or you’ll wake her!’ said old mother toad. ‘She
may easily run away from us, for she is as light as a swan-down feather.
I’ll tell you what we’ll do; we’ll take her out into the brook, and set
her down on one of the large water-lily leaves; it will be like an
island to her, who is so light and small. Then she cannot run away from
us, and we can go and get ready the state-rooms down under the mud,
where you and she are to dwell together.’
Out in the brook there grew many water-lilies, with their broad green
leaves, each of which seemed to be floating over the water. The leaf
which was the farthest from the shore was also the largest; to it swam
old mother toad, and on it she set the walnut-shell, with Tommelise.
The poor little tiny creature awoke quite early next morning, and, when
she saw where she was, she began to weep most bitterly, for there was
nothing but water on all sides of the large green leaf, and she could in
no way reach the land.
Old mother toad was down in the mud, decorating her apartments with
bulrushes and yellow buttercups, so as to make it quite gay and tidy to
receive her new daughter-in-law. At last, she and her frightful son swam
together to the leaf where she had left Tommelise; they wanted to fetch
her pretty cradle, and place it for her in the bridal chamber before she
herself was conducted into it. Old mother toad bowed low in the water,
and said to her, ‘Here is my son, he is to be thy husband, and you will
dwell together so comfortably down in the mud!’
‘Coax, coax, brekke-ke-kex!’ was all that her son could say.
Then they took the neat little bed and swam away with it, whilst
Tommelise sat alone on the green leaf, weeping, for she did not like the
thought of living with the withered old toad, and having her ugly son
for a husband. The little fishes that were swimming to and fro in the
water beneath had heard what mother toad had said, so they now put up
their heads--they wanted to see the little maid. And when they saw her,
they were charmed with her delicate beauty, and it vexed them very much
that the hideous old toad should carry her off. No, that should never
be! They surrounded the green stalk in the water, whereon rested the
water-lily leaf, and gnawed it asunder with their teeth, and then the
leaf floated away down the brook, with Tommelise on it; away, far away,
where the old toad could not follow.
Tommelise sailed past so many places, and the wild birds among the
bushes saw her and sang, ‘Oh, what a sweet little maiden!’ On and on,
farther and farther, floated the leaf: Tommelise was on her travels.
A pretty little white butterfly kept fluttering round and round her, and
at last settled down on the leaf, for he loved Tommelise very much, and
she was so pleased. There was nothing to trouble her now that she had no
fear of the old toad pursuing her, and wherever she sailed everything
was so beautiful, for the sun shone down on the water, making it bright
as liquid gold. And now she took off her sash, and tied one end of it
round the butterfly, fastening the other end firmly into the leaf. On
floated the leaf, faster and faster, and Tommelise with it.
Presently a great cock-chafer came buzzing past; he caught sight of her,
and immediately fastening his claw round her slender waist, flew up
into a tree with her. But the green leaf still floated down the brook,
and the butterfly with it; he was bound to the leaf and could not get
loose.
[Illustration: ‘THIS IS JUST THE WIFE FOR MY SON,’ SAID THE TOAD]
Oh, how terrified was poor Tommelise when the cock-chafer carried her up
into the tree, and how sorry she felt, too, for the darling white
butterfly which she had left tied fast to the leaf; she feared that if
he could not get away, he would perish of hunger. But the cock-chafer
cared nothing for that. He settled with her upon the largest leaf in the
tree, gave her some honey from the flowers to eat, and hummed her
praises, telling her she was very pretty, although she was not at all
like a
[Illustration]
hen-chafer. And by-and-by all the chafers who lived in that tree came to
pay her a visit; they looked at Tommelise, and one Miss Hen-chafer drew
in her feelers, saying, ‘She has only two legs, how miserable that
looks!’ ‘She has no feelers,’ cried another. ‘And see how thin and lean
her waist is; why, she is just like a human being!’ observed a third.
‘How very, very ugly she is!’ at last cried all the lady-chafers in
chorus. The chafer who had carried off Tommelise still could not
persuade himself that she was otherwise than pretty, but, as all the
rest kept repeating and insisting that she was ugly, he at last began to
think they must be in the right, and determined to have nothing more to
do with her; she might go wherever she would, for aught he cared, he
said. And so the whole swarm flew down from the tree with her, and set
her on a daisy; then she wept because she was so ugly that the
lady-chafers would not keep company with her, and yet Tommelise was the
prettiest little creature that could be imagined, soft and delicate and
transparent as the loveliest rose leaf.
All the summer long poor Tommelise lived alone in the wide wood. She
wove herself a bed of grass-straw, and hung it under a large
burdock-leaf which sheltered her from the rain; she dined off the honey
from the flowers, and drank from the dew that every morning spangled the
leaves and herblets around her. Thus passed the summer and autumn, but
then came winter, the cold, long winter. All the birds who had sung so
sweetly to her flew away, trees and flowers withered, the large
burdock-leaf under which Tommelise had lived rolled itself up and became
a dry, yellow stalk, and Tommelise was fearfully cold, for her clothes
were wearing out, and she herself was so slight and frail, poor little
thing! she was nearly frozen to death. It began to snow, and every light
flake that fell upon her made her feel as we should if a whole
shovelful of snow were thrown upon us, for we are giants in comparison
with a little creature only an inch long. She wrapped herself up in a
withered leaf, but it gave her no warmth; she shuddered with cold.
Close outside the wood, on the skirt of which Tommelise had been living,
lay a large corn-field, but the corn had been carried away long ago,
leaving only the dry, naked stubble standing up from the hard-frozen
earth. It was like another wood to Tommelise, and oh, how she shivered
with cold as she made her way through. At last she came past the
field-mouse’s door; for the field-mouse had made herself a little hole
under the stubble, and there she dwelt snugly and comfortably, having a
room full of corn, and a neat kitchen and store-chamber besides. And
poor Tommelise must now play the beggar-girl; she stood at the door and
begged for a little piece of a barley-corn, for she had had nothing to
eat during two whole days.
‘Thou poor little thing!’ said the field-mouse, who was indeed a
thoroughly good-natured old creature, ‘come into my warm room and dine
with me.’
And as she soon took a great liking to Tommelise, she proposed to her to
stay. ‘You may dwell with me all the winter if you will, but keep my
room clean and neat, and tell me stories, for I love stories dearly.’
And Tommelise did all that the kind old field-mouse required of her, and
was made very comfortable in her new abode.
‘We shall have a visitor presently,’ observed the field-mouse; ‘my
next-door neighbour comes to see me once every week. He is better off
than I am, has large rooms in his house, and wears a coat of such
beautiful black velvet. It would be a capital thing for you if you could
secure him for your husband, but unfortunately he is blind, he cannot
see you. You must tell him the prettiest stories you know.’
[Illustration: OH, HOW TERRIFIED WAS POOR TOMMELISE!]
But Tommelise did not care at all about pleasing their neighbour Mr.
Mole, nor did she wish to marry him. He came and paid a visit in his
black-velvet suit, he was so rich and so learned, and the field-mouse
declared his domestic offices were twenty times larger than hers, but
the sun and the pretty flowers he could not endure, he was always
abusing them, though he had never seen either. Tommelise was called upon
to sing for his amusement, and by the time she had sung ‘Lady-bird,
lady-bird, fly away home!’ and ‘The Friar of Orders Grey,’ the mole had
quite fallen in love with her through the charm of her sweet voice;
however, he said nothing, he was such a prudent, cautious animal.
He had just been digging a long passage through the earth from their
house to his, and he now gave permission to the field-mouse and
Tommelise to walk in it as often as they liked; however, he bade them
not be afraid of the dead bird that lay in the passage; it was a whole
bird, with beak and feathers entire, and therefore he supposed it must
have died quite lately, at the beginning of the winter, and had been
buried just in the place where he had dug his passage.
The mole took a piece of tinder, which shines like fire in the dark, in
his mouth, and went on first to light his friends through the long dark
passage, and when they came to the place where the dead bird lay, he
thrust his broad nose up against the ceiling and pushed up the earth, so
as to make a great hole for the light to come through. In the midst of
the floor lay a swallow, his wings clinging firmly to his sides, his
head and legs drawn under the feathers; the poor bird had evidently died
of cold. Tommelise felt so very sorry, for she loved all the little
birds, who had sung and chirped so merrily to her the whole summer long;
but the mole kicked it with his short legs, saying, ‘Here’s a fine end
to all its whistling! a miserable thing it must be to be born a bird.
None of my children will be birds, that’s a comfort! Such creatures have
nothing but their “quivit,” and must be starved to death in the winter.’
‘Yes, indeed, a sensible animal like you may well say so,’ returned the
field-mouse; ‘what has the bird got by all his chirping and chirruping?
when winter comes it must starve and freeze; and it is such a great
creature too!’
Tommelise said nothing, but when the two others had turned their backs
upon the bird, she bent over it, smoothed down the feathers that covered
its head, and kissed the closed eyes. ‘Perhaps it was this one that sang
so delightfully to me in the summer-time,’ thought she; ‘how much
pleasure it has given me, the dear, dear bird!’
The mole now stopped up the hole through which the daylight had pierced,
and then followed the ladies home. But Tommelise could not sleep that
night, so she got out of her bed, and wove a carpet out of hay, and then
went out and spread it round the dead bird; she also fetched some soft
cotton from the field-mouse’s room, which she laid over the bird, that
it might be warm amid the cold earth.
‘Farewell, thou dear bird,’ said she; ‘farewell, and thanks for thy
beautiful song in the summer-time, when all the trees were green, and
the sun shone so warmly upon us!’ And she pressed her head against the
bird’s breast, but was terrified to feel something beating within it. It
was the bird’s heart. The bird was not dead; it had lain in a swoon, and
now that it was warmer its life returned.
Every autumn all the swallows fly away to warm countries; but if one of
them linger behind, it freezes and falls down as though dead, and the
cold snow covers it.
Tommelise trembled with fright, for the bird was very large compared
with her, who was only an inch in length. However, she took courage,
laid the cotton more closely round the poor swallow, and fetching a leaf
which had served herself as a coverlet, spread it over the bird’s head.
The next night she stole out again, and found that the bird’s life had
quite returned, though it was so feeble that only for one short moment
could it open its eyes to look at Tommelise, who stood by with a piece
of tinder in her hand--she had no other lantern.
‘Thanks to thee, thou sweet little child!’ said the sick swallow. ‘I
feel delightfully warm now; soon I shall recover my strength, and be
able to fly again, out in the warm sunshine.’
‘Oh, no,’ she replied, ‘it is too cold without, it snows and freezes!
Thou must stay in thy warm bed; I will take care of thee.’
She brought the swallow water in a flower-petal and he drank, and then
he told her how he had torn one of his wings in a thorn bush, and
therefore could not fly fast enough to keep up with the other swallows
who were all migrating to the warm countries. He had at last fallen to
the earth, and more than that he could not remember; he did not at all
know how he had got underground.
However, underground he remained all the winter long, and Tommelise was
kind to him, and loved him dearly, but she never said a word about him
either to the mole or the field-mouse, for she knew they could not
endure the poor swallow.
As soon as the spring came and the sun’s warmth had penetrated the
earth, the swallow said farewell to Tommelise, and she opened for him
the covering of earth which the mole had thrown back before. The sun
shone in upon them so deliciously, and the swallow asked whether she
would not go with him; she might sit upon his back, and then they would
fly together far out into the greenwood. But Tommelise knew it would vex
the old field-mouse if she were to leave her.
‘No, I cannot, I must not go,’ said Tommelise.
‘Fare thee well, then, thou good and pretty maiden,’ said the swallow,
and away he flew into the sunshine. Tommelise looked after him and the
tears came into her eyes, for she loved the poor swallow so much.
‘Quivit, quivit,’ sang the bird, as he flew into the greenwood. And
Tommelise was now sad indeed. She was not allowed to go out into the
warm sunshine; the wheat that had been sown in the field above the
field-mouse’s house grew up so high that it seemed a perfect forest to
the poor little damsel who was only an inch in stature.