flight when the spring approached, they had given the little girl the
name of Helga; but this name was too soft for a temper like that which
was associated with her beauteous form. Every month this temper showed
itself in sharper outlines; and in the course of years--during which
the storks made the same journey over and over again, in autumn to the
Nile, in spring back to the moorland lake--the child grew to be a
great girl; and before people were aware of it, she was a beautiful
maiden in her sixteenth year. The shell was splendid, but the kernel
was harsh and hard; and she was hard, as indeed were most people in
those dark, gloomy times. It was a pleasure to her to splash about
with her white hands in the blood of the horse that had been slain in
sacrifice. In her wild mood she bit off the neck of the black cock the
priest was about to offer up; and to her father she said in perfect
seriousness,
"If thy enemy should pull down the roof of thy house, while thou wert
sleeping in careless safety; if I felt it or heard it, I would not
wake thee even if I had the power. I should never do it, for my ears
still tingle with the blow that thou gavest me years ago--thou! I have
never forgotten it."
But the Viking took her words in jest; for, like all others, he was
bewitched with her beauty, and he knew not how temper and form changed
in Helga. Without a saddle she sat upon a horse, as if she were part
of it, while it rushed along in full career; nor would she spring from
the horse when it quarrelled and fought with other horses. Often she
would throw herself, in her clothes, from the high shore into the sea,
and swim to meet the Viking when his boat steered near home; and she
cut the longest lock of her hair, and twisted it into a string for her
bow.
"Self-achieved is well-achieved," she said.
The Viking's wife was strong of character and of will, according to
the custom of the times; but, compared to her daughter, she appeared
as a feeble, timid woman; for she knew that an evil charm weighed
heavily upon the unfortunate child.
It seemed as if, out of mere malice, when her mother stood on the
threshold or came out into the yard, Helga, would often seat herself
on the margin of the well, and wave her arms in the air; then suddenly
she would dive into the deep well, when her frog nature enabled her to
dive and rise, down and up, until she climbed forth again like a cat,
and came back into the hall dripping with water, so that the green
leaves strewn upon the ground floated and turned in the streams that
flowed from her garments.
[Illustration: THE TRANSFORMED PRINCESS.]
But there was one thing that imposed a check upon Helga, and that was
the evening twilight. When that came she was quiet and thoughtful, and
would listen to reproof and advice; and then a secret feeling seemed
to draw her towards her mother. And when the sun sank, and the usual
transformation of body and spirit took place in her, she would sit
quiet and mournful, shrunk to the shape of the frog, her body indeed
much larger than that of the animal whose likeness she took, and for
that reason much more hideous to behold; for she looked like a
wretched dwarf with a frog's head and webbed fingers. Her eyes then
assumed a very melancholy expression. She had no voice, and could only
utter a hollow croaking that sounded like the stifled sob of a
dreaming child. Then the Viking's wife took her on her lap, and forgot
the ugly form as she looked into the mournful eyes, and said,
"I could almost wish that thou wert always my poor dumb frog-child;
for thou art only the more terrible when thy nature is veiled in a
form of beauty."
And the Viking woman wrote Runic characters against sorcery and spells
of sickness, and threw them over the wretched child; but she could not
see that they worked any good.
"One can scarcely believe that she was ever so small that she could
lie in the cup of a water-lily," said stork-papa, "now she's grown up
the image of her Egyptian mother. Ah, we shall never see that poor
lady again! Probably she did not know how to help herself, as you and
the learned men said. Year after year I have flown to and fro, across
and across the great moorland, and she has never once given a sign
that she was still alive. Yes, I may as well tell you, that every
year, when I came here a few days before you, to repair the nest and
attend to various matters, I spent a whole night in flying to and fro
over the lake, as if I had been an owl or a bat, but every time in
vain. The two suits of swan feathers which I and the young ones
dragged up here out of the land of the Nile have consequently not been
used: we had trouble enough with them to bring them hither in three
journeys; and now they lie down here in the nest, and if it should
happen that a fire broke out, and the wooden house were burned, they
would be destroyed."
"And our good nest would be destroyed too," said stork-mamma; "but you
think less of that than of your plumage stuff and of your
moor-princess. You'd best go down into the mud and stay there with
her. You're a bad father to your own children, as I said already when
I hatched our first brood. I only hope neither we nor our children
will get an arrow in our wings through that wild girl. Helga doesn't
know in the least what she does. I wish she would only remember that
we have lived here longer than she, and that we have never forgotten
our duty, and have given our toll every year, a feather, an egg, and a
young one, as it was right we should do. Do you think I can now wander
about in the courtyard and everywhere, as I was wont in former days,
and as I still do in Egypt, where I am almost the playfellow of the
people, and that I can press into pot and kettle as I can yonder? No,
I sit up here and am angry at her, the stupid chit! And I am angry at
you too. You should have just left her lying in the water-lily, and
she would have been dead long ago."
"You are much better than your words," said stork-papa. "I know you
better than you know yourself."
And with that he gave a hop, and flapped his wings heavily twice,
stretched out his legs behind him, and flew away, or rather sailed
away, without moving his wings. He had already gone some distance,
when he gave a great _flap_! The sun shone upon his grand plumage, and
his head and neck were stretched forth proudly. There was power in it,
and dash!
"After all, he's handsomer than any of them," said stork-mamma to
herself; "but I won't tell him so."
* * * * *
Early in that autumn the Viking came home, laden with booty, and
bringing prisoners with him. Among these was a young Christian priest,
one of those who contemned the gods of the North.
Often in those later times there had been a talk, in hall and chamber,
of the new faith that was spreading far and wide in the South, and
which, by means of Saint Ansgarius, had penetrated as far as Hedeby on
the Schlei. Even Helga had heard of this belief in One who, from love
to men and for their redemption, had sacrificed His life; but with her
all this had, as the saying is, gone in at one ear and come out at the
other. It seemed as if she only understood the meaning of the word
"love," when she crouched in a corner of the chamber in the form of a
miserable frog; but the Viking's wife had listened to the mighty
history that was told throughout the lands, and had felt strangely
moved thereby.
On their return from their voyage, the men told of the splendid
temples, of their hewn stones, raised for the worship of Him whose
worship is love. Some massive vessels, made with cunning art, of gold,
had been brought home among the booty, and each one had a peculiar
fragrance; for they were incense vessels, which had been swung by
Christian priests before the altar.
In the deep cellars of the Viking's house the young priest had been
immured, his hands and feet bound with strips of bark. The Viking's
wife declared that he was beautiful as Bulder to behold, and his
misfortune touched her heart; but Helga declared that it would be
right to tie ropes to his heels, and fasten him to the tails of wild
oxen. And she exclaimed,
"Then I would let loose the dogs--hurrah! over the moor and across the
swamp! That would be a spectacle for the gods! And yet finer would it
be to follow him in his career."
But the Viking would not suffer him to die such a death: he purposed
to sacrifice the priest on the morrow, on the death-stone in the
grove, as a despiser and foe of the high gods.
For the first time a man was to be sacrificed here.
Helga begged, as a boon, that she might sprinkle the image of the god
and the assembled multitude with the blood of the priest. She
sharpened her glittering knife, and when one of the great savage dogs,
of whom a number were running about near the Viking's abode, ran by
her, she thrust the knife into his side, "merely to try its
sharpness," as she said. And the Viking's wife looked mournfully at
the wild, evil-disposed girl; and when night came on and the maiden
exchanged beauty of form for gentleness of soul, she spoke in eloquent
words to Helga of the sorrow that was deep in her heart.
The ugly frog, in its monstrous form, stood before her, and fixed its
brown eyes upon her face, listening to her words, and seeming to
comprehend them with human intelligence.
"Never, not even to my lord and husband, have I allowed my lips to
utter a word concerning the sufferings I have to undergo through
thee," said the Viking's wife; "my heart is full of woe concerning
thee: more powerful, and greater than I ever fancied it, is the love
of a mother! But love never entered into thy heart--thy heart that is
like the wet, cold moorland plants."
Then the miserable form trembled, and it was as though these words
touched an invisible bond between body and soul, and great tears came
into the mournful eyes.
"Thy hard time will come," said the Viking's wife; "and it will be
terrible to me too. It had been better if thou hadst been set out by
the high-road, and the night wind had lulled thee to sleep."
And the Viking's wife wept bitter tears, and went away full of wrath
and bitterness of spirit, vanishing behind the curtain of furs that
hung loose over the beam and divided the hall.
The wrinkled frog crouched in the corner alone. A deep silence reigned
around; but at intervals a half-stifled sigh escaped from its breast,
from the breast of Helga. It seemed as though a painful new life were
arising in her inmost heart. She came forward and listened; and,
stepping forward again, grasped with her clumsy hands the heavy pole
that was laid across before the door. Silently and laboriously she
pushed back the pole, silently drew back the bolt, and took up the
flickering lamp which stood in the antechamber of the hall. It seemed
as if a strong hidden will gave her strength. She drew back the iron
bolt from the closed cellar door, and crept in to the captive. He was
asleep; and when he awoke and saw the hideous form, he shuddered as
though he had beheld a wicked apparition. She drew her knife, cut the
bonds that confined his hands and feet, and beckoned him to follow
her.
[Illustration: THE FLIGHT.]
He uttered some holy names, and made the sign of the cross; and when
the form remained motionless at his side, he said,
"Who art thou? Whence this animal shape that thou bearest, while yet
thou art full of gentle mercy?"
The frog-woman beckoned him to follow, and led him through corridors
shrouded with curtains, into the stables, and there pointed to a
horse. He mounted on its back; but she also sprang up before him,
holding fast by the horse's mane. The prisoner understood her meaning,
and in a rapid trot they rode on a way which he would never have
found, out on to the open heath.
He thought not of her hideous form, but felt how the mercy and
loving-kindness of the Almighty were working by means of this
monstrous apparition; he prayed pious prayers, and sang songs of
praise. Then she trembled. Was it the power of song and of prayer that
worked in her, or was she shuddering at the cold morning twilight that
was approaching? What were her feelings? She raised herself up, and
wanted to stop the horse and to alight; but the Christian priest held
her back with all his strength, and sang a pious song, as if that
would have the power to loosen the charm that turned her into the
hideous semblance of a frog. And the horse gallopped on more wildly
than ever; the sky turned red, the first sunbeam pierced through the
clouds, and as the flood of light came streaming down, the frog
changed its nature. Helga was again the beautiful maiden with the
wicked, demoniac spirit. He held a beautiful maiden in his arms, but
was horrified at the sight: he swung himself from the horse, and
compelled it to stand. This seemed to him a new and terrible sorcery;
but Helga likewise leaped from the saddle, and stood on the ground.
The child's short garment reached only to her knee. She plucked the
sharp knife from her girdle, and quick as lightning she rushed in upon
the astonished priest.
"Let me get at thee!" she screamed; "let me get at thee, and plunge
this knife in thy body! Thou art pale as straw, thou beardless slave!"
She pressed in upon him. They struggled together in a hard strife, but
an invisible power seemed given to the Christian captive. He held her
fast; and the old oak tree beneath which they stood came to his
assistance; for its roots, which projected over the ground, held fast
the maiden's feet that had become entangled in it. Quite close to them
gushed a spring; and he sprinkled Helga's face and neck with the fresh
water, and commanded the unclean spirit to come forth, and blessed her
in the Christian fashion; but the water of faith has no power when the
well-spring of faith flows not from within.
And yet the Christian showed his power even now, and opposed more than
the mere might of a man against the evil that struggled within the
girl. His holy action seemed to overpower her: she dropped her hands,
and gazed with frightened eyes and pale cheeks upon him who appeared
to her a mighty magician learned in secret arts; he seemed to her to
speak in a dark Runic tongue, and to be making cabalistic signs in the
air. She would not have winked had he swung a sharp knife or a
glittering axe against her; but she trembled when he signed her with
the sign of the cross on her brow and her bosom, and she sat there
like a tame bird with bowed head.
[Illustration: THE CHRISTIAN PRIEST'S SPELL.]
Then he spoke to her in gentle words of the kindly deed she had done
for him in the past night, when she came to him in the form of the
hideous frog, to loosen his bonds, and to lead him out to life and
light; and he told her that she too was bound in closer bonds than
those that had confined him, and that she should be released by his
means. He would take her to Hedeby (Schleswig), to the holy Ansgarius,
and yonder in the Christian city the spell that bound her would be
loosed. But he would not let her sit before him on the horse, though
of her own accord she offered to do so.
"Thou must sit behind me, not before me," he said. "Thy magic beauty
hath a power that comes of evil, and I fear it; and yet I feel that
the victory is sure to him who hath faith."
And he knelt down and prayed fervently. It seemed as though the
woodland scenes were consecrated as a holy church by his prayer. The
birds sang as though they belonged to the new congregation, the wild
flowers smelt sweet as incense; and while he spoke the horse that had
carried them both in headlong career stood still before the tall
bramble bushes, and plucked at them, so that the ripe juicy berries
fell down upon Helga's hands, offering themselves for her refreshment.
Patiently she suffered the priest to lift her on the horse, and sat
like a somnambulist, neither completely asleep nor wholly awake. The
Christian bound two branches together with bark, in the form of a
cross, which he held up high as they rode through the forest. The wood
became thicker as they went on, and at last became a trackless
wilderness.
The wild sloe grew across the way, so that they had to ride round the
bushes. The bubbling spring became not a stream but a standing marsh,
round which likewise they were obliged to lead the horse. There was
strength and refreshment in the cool forest breeze; and no small power
lay in the gentle words, which were spoken in faith and in Christian
love, from a strong inward yearning to lead the poor lost one into the
way of light and life.
They say the rain-drops can hollow the hard stone, and the waves of
the sea can smooth and round the sharp edges of the rocks. Thus did
the dew of mercy, that dropped upon Helga, smooth what was rough, and
penetrate what was hard in her. The effects did not yet appear, nor
was she aware of them herself; but doth the seed in the bosom of earth
know, when the refreshing dew and the quickening sunbeams fall upon
it, that it hath within itself the power of growth and blossoming? As
the song of the mother penetrates into the heart of the child, and it
babbles the words after her, without understanding their import, until
they afterwards engender thought, and come forward in due time clearer
and more clearly, so here also did the Word work, that is powerful to
create.
They rode forth from the dense forest, across the heath, and then
again through pathless roads; and towards evening they encountered a
band of robbers.
[Illustration: HELGA AND THE PRIEST ATTACKED BY ROBBERS.]
"Where hast thou stolen that beauteous maiden?" cried the robbers; and
they seized the horse's bridle, and dragged the two riders from its
back. The priest had no weapon save the knife he had taken from
Helga; and with this he tried to defend himself. One of the robbers
lifted his axe to slay him, but the young priest sprang aside and
eluded the blow, which struck deep into the horse's neck, so that the
blood spurted forth, and the creature sank down on the ground. Then
Helga seemed suddenly to wake from her long reverie, and threw
herself hastily upon the gasping animal. The priest stood before her
to protect and defend her, but one of the robbers swung his iron
hammer over the Christian's head, and brought it down with such a
crash that blood and brains were scattered around, and the priest sank
to the earth, dead.
Then the robber's seized beautiful Helga by her white arms and her
slender waist; but the sun went down, and its last ray disappeared at
that moment, and she was changed into the form of a frog. A
white-green mouth spread over half her face, her arms became thin and
slimy, and broad hands with webbed fingers spread out upon them like
fans. Then the robbers were seized with terror, and let her go. She
stood, a hideous monster, among them; and as it is the nature of the
frog to do, she hopped up high, and disappeared in the thicket. Then
the robbers saw that this must be a bad prank of the spirit Loke, or
the evil power of magic, and in great affright they hurried away from
the spot.
The full moon was already rising. Presently it shone with splendid
radiance over the earth, and poor Helga crept forth from the thicket
in the wretched frog's shape. She stood still beside the corpse of the
priest and the carcase of the slain horse. She looked at them with
eyes that appeared to weep, and from the frog-mouth came forth a
croaking like the voice of a child bursting into tears. She leant
first over the one, then over the other, brought water in her hollow
hand, which had become larger and more capacious by the webbed skin,
and poured it over them; but dead they were, and dead they would
remain, she at last understood. Soon wild beasts would come and tear
their dead bodies; but no, that must not be! so she dug up the earth
as well as she could, in the endeavour to prepare a grave for them.
She had nothing to work with but a stake and her two hands encumbered
with the webbed skin that grew between the fingers, and which were
torn by the labour, so that the blood flowed over them. At last she
saw that her endeavours would not succeed. Then she brought water and
washed the dead man's face, and covered it with fresh green leaves;
she brought green boughs and laid them upon him, scattering dead
leaves in the spaces between. Then she brought the heaviest stones she
could carry and laid them over the dead body, stopping up the
interstices with moss. And now she thought the grave-hill would be
strong and secure. The night had passed away in this difficult
work--the sun broke through the clouds, and beautiful Helga stood
there in all her loveliness, with bleeding hands, and with the first
tears flowing that had ever bedewed her maiden cheeks.
[Illustration: HELGA IN THE TREE.]
Then in this transformation it seemed as if two natures were striving
within her. Her whole frame trembled, and she looked around, as if she
had just awoke from a troubled dream. Then she ran towards the slender
tree, clung to it for support, and in another moment she had climbed
to the summit of the tree, and held fast. There she sat like a
startled squirrel, and remained the whole day long in the silent
solitude of the wood, where everything is quiet, and, as they say,
dead. Butterflies fluttered around in sport, and in the neighbourhood
were several ant-hills, each with its hundreds of busy little
occupants moving briskly to and fro. In the air danced a number of
gnats, swarm upon swarm, and hosts of buzzing flies, lady-birds, gold
beetles, and other little winged creatures; the worm crept forth from
the damp ground, the moles came out; but except these all was silent
around--silent, and, as people say, dead--for they speak of things as
they understand them. No one noticed Helga, but some flocks of crows,
that flew screaming about the top of the tree on which she sat: the
birds hopped close up to her on the twigs with pert curiosity; but
when the glance of her eye fell upon them, it was a signal for their
flight. But they could not understand her--nor, indeed, could she
understand herself.
When the evening twilight came on, and the sun was sinking, the time
of her transformation roused her to fresh activity. She glided down
from the tree, and as the last sunbeam vanished she stood in the
wrinkled form of the frog, with the torn webbed skin on her hands; but
her eyes now gleamed with a splendour of beauty that had scarcely been
theirs when she wore her garb of loveliness, for they were a pair of
pure, pious, maidenly eyes that shone out of the frog-face. They bore
witness of depth of feeling, of the gentle human heart; and the
beauteous eyes overflowed in tears, weeping precious drops that
lightened the heart.
On the sepulchral mound she had raised there yet lay the cross of
boughs, the last work of him who slept beneath. Helga lifted up the
cross, in pursuance of a sudden thought that came upon her. She
planted it upon the burial mound, over the priest and the dead horse.
The sorrowful remembrance of him called fresh tears into her eyes; and
in this tender frame of mind she marked the same sign in the sand
around the grave; and as she wrote the sign with both her hands, the
webbed skin fell from them like a torn glove; and when she washed her
hands in the woodland spring, and gazed in wonder at their snowy
whiteness, she again made the holy sign in the air between herself and
the dead man; then her lips trembled, the holy name that had been
preached to her during the ride from the forest came to her mouth, and
she pronounced it audibly.
Then the frog-skin fell from her, and she was once more the beauteous
maiden. But her head sank wearily, her tired limbs required rest, and
she fell into a deep slumber.
Her sleep, however, was short. Towards midnight she awoke. Before her
stood the dead horse, beaming and full of life, which gleamed forth
from his eyes and from his wounded neck; close beside the creature
stood the murdered Christian priest, "more beautiful than Bulder," the
Viking woman would have said; and yet he seemed to stand in a flame of
fire.
Such gravity, such an air of justice, such a piercing look shone out
of his great mild eyes, that their glance seemed to penetrate every
corner of her heart. Beautiful Helga trembled at the look, and her
remembrance awoke as though she stood before the tribunal of
judgment.
[Illustration: HELGA IS TAKEN BACK TO THE MARSH.]