Far up among the mountains of Lapland there was an old eagle's nest on a
ledge which projected from a high cliff. The nest was made of dry twigs
of pine and spruce, interlaced one with another until they formed a
perfect network. Year by year the nest had been repaired and
strengthened. It was about two metres wide, and nearly as high as a
Laplander's hut.
The cliff on which the eagle's nest was situated towered above a big
glen, which was inhabited in summer by a flock of wild geese, as it was
an excellent refuge for them. It was so secluded between cliffs that not
many knew of it, even among the Laplanders themselves.
In the heart of this glen there was a small, round lake in which was an
abundance of food for the tiny goslings, and on the tufted lake shores
which were covered with osier bushes and dwarfed birches the geese found
fine nesting places.
In all ages eagles had lived on the mountain, and geese in the glen.
Every year the former carried off a few of the latter, but they were
very careful not to take so many that the wild geese would be afraid to
remain in the glen. The geese, in their turn, found the eagles quite
useful. They were robbers, to be sure, but they kept other robbers away.
Two years before Nils Holgersson travelled with the wild geese the old
leader-goose, Akka from Kebnekaise, was standing at the foot of the
mountain slope looking toward the eagle's nest.
The eagles were in the habit of starting on their chase soon after
sunrise; during the summers that Akka had lived in the glen she had
watched every morning for their departure to find if they stopped in the
glen to hunt, or if they flew beyond it to other hunting grounds.
She did not have to wait long before the two eagles left the ledge on
the cliff. Stately and terror-striking they soared into the air. They
directed their course toward the plain, and Akka breathed a sigh of
relief.
The old leader-goose's days of nesting and rearing of young were over,
and during the summer she passed the time going from one goose range to
another, giving counsel regarding the brooding and care of the young.
Aside from this she kept an eye out not only for eagles but also for
mountain fox and owls and all other enemies who were a menace to the
wild geese and their young.
About noontime Akka began to watch for the eagles again. This she had
done every day during all the summers that she had lived in the glen.
She could tell at once by their flight if their hunt had been
successful, and in that event she felt relieved for the safety of those
who belonged to her. But on this particular day she had not seen the
eagles return. "I must be getting old and stupid," she thought, when she
had waited a time for them. "The eagles have probably been home this
long while."
In the afternoon she looked toward the cliff again, expecting to see the
eagles perched on the rocky ledge where they usually took their
afternoon rest; toward evening, when they took their bath in the dale
lake, she tried again to get sight of them, but failed. Again she
bemoaned the fact that she was growing old. She was so accustomed to
having the eagles on the mountain above her that she could not imagine
the possibility of their not having returned.
The following morning Akka was awake in good season to watch for the
eagles; but she did not see them. On the other hand, she heard in the
morning stillness a cry that sounded both angry and plaintive, and it
seemed to come from the eagles' nest. "Can there possibly be anything
amiss with the eagles?" she wondered. She spread her wings quickly, and
rose so high that she could perfectly well look down into the nest.
There she saw neither of the eagles. There was no one in the nest save a
little half-fledged eaglet who was screaming for food.
Akka sank down toward the eagles' nest, slowly and reluctantly. It was a
gruesome place to come to! It was plain what kind of robber folk lived
there! In the nest and on the cliff ledge lay bleached bones, bloody
feathers, pieces of skin, hares' heads, birds' beaks, and the tufted
claws of grouse. The eaglet, who was lying in the midst of this, was
repulsive to look upon, with his big, gaping bill, his awkward,
down-clad body, and his undeveloped wings where the prospective quills
stuck out like thorns.
At last Akka conquered her repugnance and alighted on the edge of the
nest, at the same time glancing about her anxiously in every direction,
for each second she expected to see the old eagles coming back.
"It is well that some one has come at last," cried the baby eagle.
"Fetch me some food at once!"
"Well, well, don't be in such haste," said Akka. "Tell me first where
your father and mother are."
"That's what I should like to know myself. They went off yesterday
morning and left me a lemming to live upon while they were away. You can
believe that was eaten long ago. It's a shame for mother to let me
starve in this way!"
Akka began to think that the eagles had really been shot, and she
reasoned that if she were to let the eaglet starve she might perhaps be
rid of the whole robber tribe for all time. But it went very much
against her not to succour a deserted young one so far as she could.
"Why do you sit there and stare?" snapped the eaglet. "Didn't you hear
me say I want food?"
Akka spread her wings and sank down to the little lake in the glen. A
moment later she returned to the eagles' nest with a salmon trout in her
bill.
The eaglet flew into a temper when she dropped the fish in front of him.
"Do you think I can eat such stuff?" he shrieked, pushing it aside, and
trying to strike Akka with his bill. "Fetch me a willow grouse or a
lemming, do you hear?"
Akka stretched her head forward, and gave the eaglet a sharp nip in the
neck. "Let me say to you," remarked the old goose, "that if I'm to
procure food for you, you must be satisfied with what I give you. Your
father and mother are dead, and from them you can get no help; but if
you want to lie here and starve to death while you wait for grouse and
lemming, I shall not hinder you."
When Akka had spoken her mind she promptly retired, and did not show her
face in the eagles' nest again for some time. But when she did return,
the eaglet had eaten the fish, and when she dropped another in front of
him he swallowed it at once, although it was plain that he found it very
distasteful.
Akka had imposed upon herself a tedious task. The old eagles never
appeared again, and she alone had to procure for the eaglet all the food
he needed. She gave him fish and frogs and he did not seem to fare badly
on this diet, but grew big and strong. He soon forgot his parents, the
eagles, and fancied that Akka was his real mother. Akka, in turn, loved
him as if he had been her own child. She tried to give him a good
bringing up, and to cure him of his wildness and overbearing ways.
After a fortnight Akka observed that the time was approaching for her to
moult and put on a new feather dress so as to be ready to fly. For a
whole moon she would be unable to carry food to the baby eaglet, and he
might starve to death.
So Akka said to him one day: "Gorgo, I can't come to you any more with
fish. Everything depends now upon your pluck--which means can you dare
to venture into the glen, so I can continue to procure food for you? You
must choose between starvation and flying down to the glen, but that,
too, may cost you your life."
Without a second's hesitation the eaglet stepped upon the edge of the
nest. Barely taking the trouble to measure the distance to the bottom,
he spread his tiny wings and started away. He rolled over and over in
space, but nevertheless made enough use of his wings to reach the ground
almost unhurt.
Down there in the glen Gorgo passed the summer in company with the
little goslings, and was a good comrade for them. Since he regarded
himself as a gosling, he tried to live as they lived; when they swam in
the lake he followed them until he came near drowning. It was most
embarrassing to him that he could not learn to swim, and he went to Akka
and complained of his inability.
"Why can't I swim like the others?" he asked.
"Your claws grew too hooked, and your toes too large while you were up
there on the cliff," Akka replied. "But you'll make a fine bird all the
same."
The eaglet's wings soon grew so large that they could carry him; but not
until autumn, when the goslings learned to fly, did it dawn upon him
that he could use them for flight. There came a proud time for him, for
at this sport he was the peer of them all. His companions never stayed
up in the air any longer than they had to, but he stayed there nearly
the whole day, and practised the art of flying. So far it had not
occurred to him that he was of another species than the geese, but he
could not help noting a number of things that surprised him, and he
questioned Akka constantly.
"Why do grouse and lemming run and hide when they see my shadow on the
cliff?" he queried. "They don't show such fear of the other goslings."
"Your wings grew too big when you were on the cliff," said Akka. "It is
that which frightens the little wretches. But don't be unhappy because
of that. You'll be a fine bird all the same."
After the eagle had learned to fly, he taught himself to fish, and to
catch frogs. But by and by he began to ponder this also.
"How does it happen that I live on fish and frogs?" he asked. "The other
goslings don't."
"This is due to the fact that I had no other food to give you when you
were on the cliff," said Akka. "But don't let that make you sad. You'll
be a fine bird all the same."
When the wild geese began their autumn moving, Gorgo flew along with the
flock, regarding himself all the while as one of them. The air was
filled with birds who were on their way south, and there was great
excitement among them when Akka appeared with an eagle in her train. The
wild goose flock was continually surrounded by swarms of the curious who
loudly expressed their astonishment. Akka bade them be silent, but it
was impossible to stop so many wagging tongues.
"Why do they call me an eagle?" Gorgo asked repeatedly, growing more and
more exasperated. "Can't they see that I'm a wild goose? I'm no
bird-eater who preys upon his kind. How dare they give me such an ugly
name?"
One day they flew above a barn yard where many chickens walked on a dump
heap and picked. "An eagle! An eagle!" shrieked the chickens, and
started to run for shelter. But Gorgo, who had heard the eagles spoken
of as savage criminals, could not control his anger. He snapped his
wings together and shot down to the ground, striking his talons into one
of the hens. "I'll teach you, I will, that I'm no eagle!" he screamed
furiously, and struck with his beak.
That instant he heard Akka call to him from the air, and rose
obediently. The wild goose flew toward him and began to reprimand him.
"What are you trying to do?" she cried, beating him with her bill. "Was
it perhaps your intention to tear that poor hen to pieces?" But when the
eagle took his punishment from the wild goose without a protest, there
arose from the great bird throng around them a perfect storm of taunts
and gibes. The eagle heard this, and turned toward Akka with flaming
eyes, as though he would have liked to attack her. But he suddenly
changed his mind, and with quick wing strokes bounded into the air,
soaring so high that no call could reach him; and he sailed around up
there as long as the wild geese saw him.
Two days later he appeared again in the wild goose flock.
"I know who I am," he said to Akka. "Since I am an eagle, I must live
as becomes an eagle; but I think that we can be friends all the same.
You or any of yours I shall never attack."
But Akka had set her heart on successfully training an eagle into a mild
and harmless bird, and she could not tolerate his wanting to do as he
chose.
"Do you think that I wish to be the friend of a bird-eater?" she asked.
"Live as I have taught you to live, and you may travel with my flock as
heretofore."
Both were proud and stubborn, and neither of them would yield. It ended
in Akka's forbidding the eagle to show his face in her neighbourhood,
and her anger toward him was so intense that no one dared speak his name
in her presence.
After that Gorgo roamed around the country, alone and shunned, like all
great robbers. He was often downhearted, and certainly longed many a
time for the days when he thought himself a wild goose, and played with
the merry goslings.
Among the animals he had a great reputation for courage. They used to
say of him that he feared no one but his foster-mother, Akka. And they
could also say of him that he never used violence against a wild goose.