No sooner was Yalmar in bed than Olé Luckoiè came with his little wand,
and touched all the furniture in the room; and, in a minute, every
thing began to chatter; and they chattered all together, and about
nothing but themselves. Every thing talked except the old door-mat,
which lay silent, and was vexed that they should be all so full of
vanity as to talk of nothing but themselves, and think only about
themselves, and never have one thought for it which lay so modestly in
a corner and let itself be trodden upon.
There hung over the chest of drawers a great picture in a gilt frame;
it was a landscape; one could see tall, old trees, flowers in the
grass, and a great river, which ran through great woods, past many
castles out into the wild sea.
Olé Luckoiè touched the picture with his wand; and with that the birds
in the picture began to sing, the tree-branches began to wave, and the
clouds regularly to move,--one could see them moving along over the
landscape!
Olé Luckoiè now lifted little Yalmar up into the picture; he put his
little legs right into it, just as if into tall grass, and there he
stood. The sun shone down through the tree-branches upon him. He ran
down to the river, and got into a little boat which lay there. It was
painted red and white, the sails shone like silk, and six swans, each
with a circlet of gold round its neck and a beaming blue star upon its
head, drew the little boat past the green-wood,--where he heard the
trees talking about robbers, and witches, and flowers, and the pretty
little fairies, and all that the summer birds had told them of.
The loveliest fishes, with scales like silver and gold, swam after the
boat, and leaped up in the water; and birds, some red and some blue,
small and great, flew, in two long rows, behind; gnats danced about,
and cockchafers said hum, hum! They all came following Yalmar, and you
may think what a deal they had to tell him.
It was a regular voyage! Now the woods were so thick and so dark--now
they were like the most beautiful garden, with sunshine and flowers;
and in the midst of them there stood great castles of glass and of
marble. Upon the balconies of these castles stood princesses, and every
one of them were the little girls whom Yalmar knew very well, and with
whom he had played. They all reached out their hands to him, and held
out the most delicious sticks of barley-sugar which any confectioner
could make; and Yalmar bit off a piece from every stick of barley-sugar
as he sailed past, and Yalmar's piece was always a very large piece!
Before every castle stood little princes as sentinels; they stood with
their golden swords drawn, and showered down almonds and raisins. They
were perfect princes!
Yalmar soon sailed through the wood, then through a great hall, or into
the midst of a city; and at last he came to that in which his nurse
lived, she who had nursed him when he was a very little child, and
had been so very fond of him. And there he saw her, and she nodded
and waved her hand to him, and sang the pretty little verse which she
herself had made about Yalmar--
Full many a time I thee have missed,
My Yalmar, my delight!
I, who thy cherry-mouth have kissed,
Thy rosy cheeks, thy forehead white!
I saw thy earliest infant mirth--
I now must say farewell!
May our dear Lord bless thee on earth,
Then take thee to his heaven to dwell!
And all the birds sang, too, the flowers danced upon their stems, and
the old trees nodded like as Olé Luckoiè did while he told his tales.