No More Learning

Each
of them had his passport and his luggage with him; they even brought
presents for me, and for you, and for all the people in the town. "Who
were they? what did they want? and what did they bring with them? "

"Good-morning," they cried to the sentry at the town-gate.

"Good-morning," replied the sentry; for the clock had struck
twelve. "Your name and profession? " asked the sentry of the one who
alighted first from the carriage.

"See for yourself in the passport," he replied. "I am myself;" and
a famous fellow he looked, arrayed in bear-skin and fur boots. "I am
the man on whom many persons fix their hopes. Come to me to-morrow,
and I'll give you a New Year's present. I throw shillings and pence
among the people; I give balls, no less than thirty-one; indeed,
that is the highest number I can spare for balls. My ships are often
frozen in, but in my offices it is warm and comfortable. My name is
JANUARY. I'm a merchant, and I generally bring my accounts with me. "

Then the second alighted. He seemed a merry fellow. He was a
director of a theatre, a manager of masked balls, and a leader of
all the amusements we can imagine. His luggage consisted of a great
cask.

"We'll dance the bung out of the cask at carnival time," said
he; "I'll prepare a merry tune for you and for myself too.
Unfortunately I have not long to live--the shortest time, in fact,
of my whole family--only twenty-eight days. Sometimes they pop me in a
day extra; but I trouble myself very little about that. Hurrah! "

"You must not shout so," said the sentry.

"Certainly I may shout," retorted the man; "I'm Prince Carnival,
travelling under the name of FEBRUARY. "

The third now got out. He looked a personification of fasting; but
he carried his nose very high, for he was related to the "forty
(k)nights," and was a weather prophet. But that is not a very
lucrative office, and therefore he praised fasting. In his button-hole
he carried a little bunch of violets, but they were very small.

"MARCH, March," the fourth called after him, slapping him on the
shoulder, "don't you smell something? Make haste into the guard
room; they're drinking punch there; that's your favorite drink. I
can smell it out here already. Forward, Master March. " But it was
not true; the speaker only wanted to remind him of his name, and to
make an APRIL fool of him; for with that fun the fourth generally
began his career. He looked very jovial, did little work, and had
the more holidays. "If the world were only a little more settled,"
said he: "but sometimes I'm obliged to be in a good humor, and
sometimes a bad one, according to circumstances; now rain, now
sunshine. I'm kind of a house agent, also a manager of funerals. I can
laugh or cry, according to circumstances. I have my summer wardrobe in
this box here, but it would be very foolish to put it on now. Here I
am. On Sundays I go out walking in shoes and white silk stockings, and
a muff. "

After him, a lady stepped out of the coach. She called herself
Miss MAY. She wore a summer dress and overshoes; her dress was a light
green, and she wore anemones in her hair. She was so scented with
wild-thyme, that it made the sentry sneeze.

"Your health, and God bless you," was her salutation to him.

How pretty she was! and such a singer! not a theatre singer, nor a
ballad singer; no, but a singer of the woods; for she wandered through
the gay green forest, and had a concert there for her own amusement.

"Now comes the young lady," said those in the carriage; and out
stepped a young dame, delicate, proud, and pretty. It was Mistress
JUNE, in whose service people become lazy and fond of sleeping for
hours. She gives a feast on the longest day of the year, that there
may be time for her guests to partake of the numerous dishes at her
table. Indeed, she keeps her own carriage; but still she travelled
by the mail, with the rest, because she wished to show that she was
not high-minded. But she was not without a protector; her younger
brother, JULY, was with her. He was a plump young fellow, clad in
summer garments and wearing a straw hat. He had but very little
luggage with him, because it was so cumbersome in the great heat; he
had, however, swimming-trousers with him, which are nothing to
carry. Then came the mother herself, in crinoline, Madame AUGUST, a
wholesale dealer in fruit, proprietress of a large number of fish
ponds and a land cultivator. She was fat and heated, yet she could use
her hands well, and would herself carry out beer to the laborers in
the field. "In the sweat of the face shalt thou eat bread," said
she; "it is written in the Bible. " After work, came the recreations,
dancing and playing in the greenwood, and the "harvest homes. " She was
a thorough housewife.

After her a man came out of the coach, who is a painter; he is the
great master of colors, and is named SEPTEMBER. The forest, on his
arrival, had to change its colors when he wished it; and how beautiful
are the colors he chooses! The woods glow with hues of red and gold
and brown. This great master painter could whistle like a blackbird.
He was quick in his work, and soon entwined the tendrils of the hop
plant around his beer jug. This was an ornament to the jug, and he has
a great love for ornament. There he stood with his color pot in his
hand, and that was the whole of his luggage. A land-owner followed,
who in the month for sowing seed attended to the ploughing and was
fond of field sports. Squire OCTOBER brought his dog and his gun
with him, and had nuts in his game bag. "Crack, crack. " He had a great
deal of luggage, even an English plough. He spoke of farming, but what
he said could scarcely be heard for the coughing and gasping of his
neighbor. It was NOVEMBER, who coughed violently as he got out. He had
a cold, which caused him to use his pocket-handkerchief continually;
and yet he said he was obliged to accompany servant girls to their new
places, and initiate them into their winter service. He said he
thought his cold would never leave him when he went out woodcutting,
for he was a master sawyer, and had to supply wood to the whole
parish. He spent his evenings preparing wooden soles for skates, for
he knew, he said, that in a few weeks these shoes would be wanted
for the amusement of skating. At length the last passenger made her
appearance,--old Mother DECEMBER, with her fire-stool. The dame was
very old, but her eyes glistened like two stars. She carried on her
arm a flower-pot, in which a little fir-tree was growing. "This tree I
shall guard and cherish," she said, "that it may grow large by
Christmas Eve, and reach from the ground to the ceiling, to be covered
and adorned with flaming candles, golden apples, and little figures.
The fire-stool will be as warm as a stove, and I shall then bring a
story book out of my pocket, and read aloud till all the children in
the room are quite quiet. Then the little figures on the tree will
become lively, and the little waxen angel at the top spread out his
wings of gold-leaf, and fly down from his green perch. He will kiss
every one in the room, great and small; yes, even the poor children
who stand in the passage, or out in the street singing a carol about
the 'Star of Bethlehem. '"

"Well, now the coach may drive away," said the sentry; "we have
the whole twelve. Let the horses be put up. "

"First, let all the twelve come to me," said the captain on
duty, "one after another. The passports I will keep here. Each of them
is available for one month; when that has passed, I shall write the
behavior of each on his passport. Mr. JANUARY, have the goodness to
come here. " And Mr. January stepped forward.

When a year has passed, I think I shall be able to tell you what
the twelve passengers have brought to you, to me, and to all of us.
Now I do not know, and probably even they don't know themselves, for
we live in strange times.




THE MARSH KING'S DAUGHTER

The storks relate to their little ones a great many stories, and
they are all about moors and reed banks, and suited to their age and
capacity. The youngest of them are quite satisfied with "kribble,
krabble," or such nonsense, and think it very grand; but the elder
ones want something with a deeper meaning, or at least something about
their own family.

We are only acquainted with one of the two longest and oldest
stories which the storks relate--it is about Moses, who was exposed by
his mother on the banks of the Nile, and was found by the king's
daughter, who gave him a good education, and he afterwards became a
great man; but where he was buried is still unknown.

Every one knows this story, but not the second; very likely
because it is quite an inland story. It has been repeated from mouth
to mouth, from one stork-mamma to another, for thousands of years; and
each has told it better than the last; and now we mean to tell it
better than all.

The first stork pair who related it lived at the time it happened,
and had their summer residence on the rafters of the Viking's house,
which stood near the wild moorlands of Wendsyssell; that is, to
speak more correctly, the great moorheath, high up in the north of
Jutland, by the Skjagen peak. This wilderness is still an immense wild
heath of marshy ground, about which we can read in the "Official
Directory. " It is said that in olden times the place was a lake, the
ground of which had heaved up from beneath, and now the moorland
extends for miles in every direction, and is surrounded by damp
meadows, trembling, undulating swamps, and marshy ground covered
with turf, on which grow bilberry bushes and stunted trees. Mists
are almost always hovering over this region, which, seventy years ago,
was overrun with wolves. It may well be called the Wild Moor; and
one can easily imagine, with such a wild expanse of marsh and lake,
how lonely and dreary it must have been a thousand years ago. Many
things may be noticed now that existed then. The reeds grow to the
same height, and bear the same kind of long, purple-brown leaves, with
their feathery tips. There still stands the birch, with its white bark
and its delicate, loosely hanging leaves; and with regard to the
living beings who frequented this spot, the fly still wears a gauzy
dress of the same cut, and the favorite colors of the stork are white,
with black and red for stockings. The people, certainly, in those
days, wore very different dresses to those they now wear, but if any
of them, be he huntsman or squire, master or servant, ventured on
the wavering, undulating, marshy ground of the moor, they met with the
same fate a thousand years ago as they would now. The wanderer sank,
and went down to the Marsh King, as he is named, who rules in the
great moorland empire beneath. They also called him "Gunkel King," but
we like the name of "Marsh King" better, and we will give him that
name as the storks do. Very little is known of the Marsh King's
rule, but that, perhaps, is a good thing.

In the neighborhood of the moorlands, and not far from the great
arm of the North Sea and the Cattegat which is called the
Lumfjorden, lay the castle of the Viking, with its water-tight stone
cellars, its tower, and its three projecting storeys. On the ridge
of the roof the stork had built his nest, and there the stork-mamma
sat on her eggs and felt sure her hatching would come to something.

One evening, stork-papa stayed out rather late, and when he came
home he seemed quite busy, bustling, and important. "I have
something very dreadful to tell you," said he to the stork-mamma.

"Keep it to yourself then," she replied. "Remember that I am
hatching eggs; it may agitate me, and will affect them. "

"You must know it at once," said he. "The daughter of our host
in Egypt has arrived here. She has ventured to take this journey,
and now she is lost. "

"She who sprung from the race of the fairies, is it? " cried the
mother stork. "Oh, tell me all about it; you know I cannot bear to
be kept waiting at a time when I am hatching eggs. "

"Well, you see, mother," he replied, "she believed what the
doctors said, and what I have heard you state also, that the
moor-flowers which grow about here would heal her sick father; and she
has flown to the north in swan's plumage, in company with some other
swan-princesses, who come to these parts every year to renew their
youth. She came, and where is she now! "

"You enter into particulars too much," said the mamma stork,
"and the eggs may take cold; I cannot bear such suspense as this. "

"Well," said he, "I have kept watch; and this evening I went among
the rushes where I thought the marshy ground would bear me, and
while I was there three swans came. Something in their manner of
flying seemed to say to me, 'Look carefully now; there is one not
all swan, only swan's feathers. ' You know, mother, you have the same
intuitive feeling that I have; you know whether a thing is right or
not immediately. "

"Yes, of course," said she; "but tell me about the princess; I
am tired of hearing about the swan's feathers. "

"Well, you know that in the middle of the moor there is
something like a lake," said the stork-papa. "You can see the edge
of it if you raise yourself a little. Just there, by the reeds and the
green banks, lay the trunk of an elder-tree; upon this the three swans
stood flapping their wings, and looking about them; one of them
threw off her plumage, and I immediately recognized her as one of
the princesses of our home in Egypt. There she sat, without any
covering but her long, black hair. I heard her tell the two others
to take great care of the swan's plumage, while she dipped down into
the water to pluck the flowers which she fancied she saw there. The
others nodded, and picked up the feather dress, and took possession of
it. I wonder what will become of it? thought I, and she most likely
asked herself the same question. If so, she received an answer, a very
practical one; for the two swans rose up and flew away with her swan's
plumage. 'Dive down now! ' they cried; 'thou shalt never more fly in
the swan's plumage, thou shalt never again see Egypt; here, on the
moor, thou wilt remain. ' So saying, they tore the swan's plumage
into a thousand pieces, the feathers drifted about like a snow-shower,
and then the two deceitful princesses flew away. "

"Why, that is terrible," said the stork-mamma; "I feel as if I
could hardly bear to hear any more, but you must tell me what happened
next. "

"The princess wept and lamented aloud; her tears moistened the
elder stump, which was really not an elder stump but the Marsh King
himself, he who in marshy ground lives and rules. I saw myself how the
stump of the tree turned round, and was a tree no more, while long,
clammy branches like arms, were extended from it. Then the poor
child was terribly frightened, and started up to run away. She
hastened to cross the green, slimy ground; but it will not bear any
weight, much less hers. She quickly sank, and the elder stump dived
immediately after her; in fact, it was he who drew her down. Great
black bubbles rose up out of the moor-slime, and with these every
trace of the two vanished. And now the princess is buried in the
wild marsh, she will never now carry flowers to Egypt to cure her
father. It would have broken your heart, mother, had you seen it. "

"You ought not to have told me," said she, "at such a time as
this; the eggs might suffer. But I think the princess will soon find
help; some one will rise up to help her. Ah! if it had been you or
I, or one of our people, it would have been all over with us. "

"I mean to go every day," said he, "to see if anything comes to
pass;" and so he did.

A long time went by, but at last he saw a green stalk shooting
up out of the deep, marshy ground. As it reached the surface of the
marsh, a leaf spread out, and unfolded itself broader and broader, and
close to it came forth a bud.

One morning, when the stork-papa was flying over the stem, he
saw that the power of the sun's rays had caused the bud to open, and
in the cup of the flower lay a charming child--a little maiden,
looking as if she had just come out of a bath. The little one was so
like the Egyptian princess, that the stork, at the first moment,
thought it must be the princess herself, but after a little reflection
he decided that it was much more likely to be the daughter of the
princess and the Marsh King; and this explained also her being
placed in the cup of a water-lily. "But she cannot be left to lie
here," thought the stork, "and in my nest there are already so many.
But stay, I have thought of something: the wife of the Viking has no
children, and how often she has wished for a little one. People always
say the stork brings the little ones; I will do so in earnest this
time. I shall fly with the child to the Viking's wife; what
rejoicing there will be! "

And then the stork lifted the little girl out of the flower-cup,
flew to the castle, picked a hole with his beak in the bladder-covered
window, and laid the beautiful child in the bosom of the Viking's
wife. Then he flew back quickly to the stork-mamma and told her
what he had seen and done; and the little storks listened to it
all, for they were then quite old enough to do so. "So you see,"
he continued, "that the princess is not dead, for she must have sent
her little one up here; and now I have found a home for her. "

"Ah, I said it would be so from the first," replied the
stork-mamma; "but now think a little of your own family. Our
travelling time draws near, and I sometimes feel a little irritation
already under the wings. The cuckoos and the nightingale are already
gone, and I heard the quails say they should go too as soon as the
wind was favorable. Our youngsters will go through all the
manoeuvres at the review very well, or I am much mistaken in them. "

The Viking's wife was above measure delighted when she awoke the
next morning and found the beautiful little child lying in her
bosom. She kissed it and caressed it; but it cried terribly, and
struck out with its arms and legs, and did not seem to be pleased at
all. At last it cried itself to sleep; and as it lay there so still
and quiet, it was a most beautiful sight to see. The Viking's wife was
so delighted, that body and soul were full of joy. Her heart felt so
light within her, that it seemed as if her husband and his soldiers,
who were absent, must come home as suddenly and unexpectedly as the
little child had done. She and her whole household therefore busied
themselves in preparing everything for the reception of her lord.
The long, colored tapestry, on which she and her maidens had worked
pictures of their idols, Odin, Thor, and Friga, was hung up. The
slaves polished the old shields that served as ornaments; cushions
were placed on the seats, and dry wood laid on the fireplaces in the
centre of the hall, so that the flames might be fanned up at a
moment's notice. The Viking's wife herself assisted in the work, so
that at night she felt very tired, and quickly fell into a sound
sleep. When she awoke, just before morning, she was terribly alarmed
to find that the infant had vanished. She sprang from her couch,
lighted a pine-chip, and searched all round the room, when, at last,
in that part of the bed where her feet had been, lay, not the child,
but a great, ugly frog. She was quite disgusted at this sight, and
seized a heavy stick to kill the frog; but the creature looked at
her with such strange, mournful eyes, that she was unable to strike
the blow. Once more she searched round the room; then she started at
hearing the frog utter a low, painful croak. She sprang from the couch
and opened the window hastily; at the same moment the sun rose, and
threw its beams through the window, till it rested on the couch
where the great frog lay. Suddenly it appeared as if the frog's
broad mouth contracted, and became small and red. The limbs moved
and stretched out and extended themselves till they took a beautiful
shape; and behold there was the pretty child lying before her, and the
ugly frog was gone. "How is this? " she cried, "have I had a wicked
dream? Is it not my own lovely cherub that lies there. " Then she
kissed it and fondled it; but the child struggled and fought, and
bit as if she had been a little wild cat.

The Viking did not return on that day, nor the next; he was,
however, on the way home; but the wind, so favorable to the storks,
was against him; for it blew towards the south. A wind in favor of one
is often against another.

After two or three days had passed, it became clear to the
Viking's wife how matters stood with the child; it was under the
influence of a powerful sorcerer. By day it was charming in appearance
as an angel of light, but with a temper wicked and wild; while at
night, in the form of an ugly frog, it was quiet and mournful, with
eyes full of sorrow. Here were two natures, changing inwardly and
outwardly with the absence and return of sunlight. And so it
happened that by day the child, with the actual form of its mother,
possessed the fierce disposition of its father; at night, on the
contrary, its outward appearance plainly showed its descent on the
father's side, while inwardly it had the heart and mind of its mother.
Who would be able to loosen this wicked charm which the sorcerer had
worked upon it?
The wife of the Viking lived in constant pain and
sorrow about it. Her heart clung to the little creature, but she could
not explain to her husband the circumstances in which it was placed.
He was expected to return shortly; and were she to tell him, he
would very likely, as was the custom at that time, expose the poor
child in the public highway, and let any one take it away who would.
The good wife of the Viking could not let that happen, and she
therefore resolved that the Viking should never see the child
excepting by daylight.

One morning there sounded a rushing of storks' wings over the
roof. More than a hundred pair of storks had rested there during the
night, to recover themselves after their excursion; and now they
soared aloft, and prepared for the journey southward.

"All the husbands are here, and ready! " they cried; "wives and
children also! "

"How light we are! " screamed the young storks in chorus.
"Something pleasant seems creeping over us, even down to our toes,
as if we were full of live frogs. Ah, how delightful it is to travel
into foreign lands! "

"Hold yourselves properly in the line with us," cried papa and
mamma. "Do not use your beaks so much; it tries the lungs. " And then
the storks flew away.

About the same time sounded the clang of the warriors' trumpets
across the heath. The Viking had landed with his men. They were
returning home, richly laden with spoil from the Gallic coast, where
the people, as did also the inhabitants of Britain, often cried in
alarm, "Deliver us from the wild northmen. "

Life and noisy pleasure came with them into the castle of the
Viking on the moorland. A great cask of mead was drawn into the
hall, piles of wood blazed, cattle were slain and served up, that they
might feast in reality, The priest who offered the sacrifice sprinkled
the devoted parishioners with the warm blood; the fire crackled, and
the smoke rolled along beneath the roof; the soot fell upon them
from the beams; but they were used to all these things. Guests were
invited, and received handsome presents. All wrongs and unfaithfulness
were forgotten. They drank deeply, and threw in each other's faces the
bones that were left, which was looked upon as a sign of good
feeling amongst them. A bard, who was a kind of musician as well as
warrior, and who had been with the Viking in his expedition, and
knew what to sing about, gave them one of his best songs, in which
they heard all their warlike deeds praised, and every wonderful action
brought forward with honor. Every verse ended with this refrain,--

"Gold and possessions will flee away,
Friends and foes must die one day;
Every man on earth must die,
But a famous name will never die. "

And with that they beat upon their shields, and hammered upon the
table with knives and bones, in a most outrageous manner.

The Viking's wife sat upon a raised cross seat in the open hall.
She wore a silk dress, golden bracelets, and large amber beads. She
was in costly attire, and the bard named her in his song, and spoke of
the rich treasure of gold which she had brought to her husband. Her
husband had already seen the wonderfully beautiful child in the
daytime, and was delighted with her beauty; even her wild ways pleased
him. He said the little maiden would grow up to be a heroine, with the
strong will and determination of a man. She would never wink her eyes,
even if, in joke, an expert hand should attempt to cut off her
eye-brows with a sharp sword.

The full cask of mead soon became empty, and a fresh one was
brought in; for these were people who liked plenty to eat and drink.
The old proverb, which every one knows, says that "the cattle know
when to leave their pasture, but a foolish man knows not the measure
of his own appetite. " Yes, they all knew this; but men may know what
is right, and yet often do wrong. They also knew "that even the
welcome guest becomes wearisome when he sits too long in the house. "
But there they remained; for pork and mead are good things. And so
at the Viking's house they stayed, and enjoyed themselves; and at
night the bondmen slept in the ashes, and dipped their fingers in
the fat, and licked them. Oh, it was a delightful time!

Once more in the same year the Viking went forth, though the
storms of autumn had already commenced to roar. He went with his
warriors to the coast of Britain; he said that it was but an excursion
of pleasure across the water, so his wife remained at home with the
little girl. After a while, it is quite certain the foster-mother
began to love the poor frog, with its gentle eyes and its deep
sighs, even better than the little beauty who bit and fought with
all around her.

The heavy, damp mists of autumn, which destroy the leaves of the
wood, had already fallen upon forest and heath. Feathers of plucked
birds, as they call the snow, flew about in thick showers, and
winter was coming. The sparrows took possession of the stork's nest,
and conversed about the absent owners in their own fashion; and
they, the stork pair and all their young ones, where were they staying
now? The storks might have been found in the land of Egypt, where
the sun's rays shone forth bright and warm, as it does here at
midsummer. Tamarinds and acacias were in full bloom all over the
country, the crescent of Mahomet glittered brightly from the cupolas
of the mosques, and on the slender pinnacles sat many of the storks,
resting after their long journey. Swarms of them took divided
possession of the nests--nests which lay close to each other between
the venerable columns, and crowded the arches of temples in
forgotten cities. The date and the palm lifted themselves as a
screen or as a sun-shade over them. The gray pyramids looked like
broken shadows in the clear air and the far-off desert, where the
ostrich wheels his rapid flight, and the lion, with his subtle eyes,
gazes at the marble sphinx which lies half buried in sand. The
waters of the Nile had retreated, and the whole bed of the river was
covered with frogs, which was a most acceptable prospect for the stork
families. The young storks thought their eyes deceived them,
everything around appeared so beautiful.

"It is always like this here, and this is how we live in our
warm country," said the stork-mamma; and the thought made the young
ones almost beside themselves with pleasure.

"Is there anything more to see? " they asked; "are we going farther
into the country? "

"There is nothing further for us to see," answered the
stork-mamma. "Beyond this delightful region there are immense forests,
where the branches of the trees entwine round each other, while
prickly, creeping plants cover the paths, and only an elephant could
force a passage for himself with his great feet. The snakes are too
large, and the lizards too lively for us to catch. Then there is the
desert; if you went there, your eyes would soon be full of sand with
the lightest breeze, and if it should blow great guns, you would
most likely find yourself in a sand-drift. Here is the best place
for you, where there are frogs and locusts; here I shall remain, and
so must you. " And so they stayed.

The parents sat in the nest on the slender minaret, and rested,
yet still were busily employed in cleaning and smoothing their
feathers, and in sharpening their beaks against their red stockings;
then they would stretch out their necks, salute each other, and
gravely raise their heads with the high-polished forehead, and soft,
smooth feathers, while their brown eyes shone with intelligence. The
female young ones strutted about amid the moist rushes, glancing at
the other young storks and making acquaintances, and swallowing a frog
at every third step, or tossing a little snake about with their beaks,
in a way they considered very becoming, and besides it tasted very
good. The young male storks soon began to quarrel; they struck at each
other with their wings, and pecked with their beaks till the blood
came. And in this manner many of the young ladies and gentlemen were
betrothed to each other: it was, of course, what they wanted, and
indeed what they lived for. Then they returned to a nest, and there
the quarrelling began afresh; for in hot countries people are almost
all violent and passionate. But for all that it was pleasant,
especially for the old people, who watched them with great joy: all
that their young ones did suited them. Every day here there was
sunshine, plenty to eat, and nothing to think of but pleasure. But
in the rich castle of their Egyptian host, as they called him,
pleasure was not to be found. The rich and mighty lord of the castle
lay on his couch, in the midst of the great hall, with its many
colored walls looking like the centre of a great tulip; but he was
stiff and powerless in all his limbs, and lay stretched out like a
mummy. His family and servants stood round him; he was not dead,
although he could scarcely be said to live. The healing moor-flower
from the north, which was to have been found and brought to him by her
who loved him so well, had not arrived. His young and beautiful
daughter who, in swan's plumage, had flown over land and seas to the
distant north, had never returned. She is dead, so the two
swan-maidens had said when they came home; and they made up quite a
story about her, and this is what they told,--

"We three flew away together through the air," said they: "a
hunter caught sight of us, and shot at us with an arrow. The arrow
struck our young friend and sister, and slowly singing her farewell
song she sank down, a dying swan, into the forest lake. On the
shores of the lake, under a spreading birch-tree, we laid her in the
cold earth. We had our revenge; we bound fire under the wings of a
swallow, who had a nest on the thatched roof of the huntsman. The
house took fire, and burst into flames; the hunter was burnt with
the house, and the light was reflected over the sea as far as the
spreading birch, beneath which we laid her sleeping dust. She will
never return to the land of Egypt. " And then they both wept. And
stork-papa, who heard the story, snapped with his beak so that it
might be heard a long way off.

"Deceit and lies! " cried he; "I should like to run my beak deep
into their chests. "

"And perhaps break it off," said the mamma stork, "then what a
sight you would be. Think first of yourself, and then of your
family; all others are nothing to us. "

"Yes, I know," said the stork-papa; "but to-morrow I can easily
place myself on the edge of the open cupola, when the learned and wise
men assemble to consult on the state of the sick man; perhaps they may
come a little nearer to the truth. " And the learned and wise men
assembled together, and talked a great deal on every point; but the
stork could make no sense out of anything they said; neither were
there any good results from their consultations, either for the sick
man, or for his daughter in the marshy heath. When we listen to what
people say in this world, we shall hear a great deal; but it is an
advantage to know what has been said and done before, when we listen
to a conversation. The stork did, and we know at least as much as
he, the stork.

"Love is a life-giver. The highest love produces the highest life.
Only through love can the sick man be cured. " This had been said by
many, and even the learned men acknowledged that it was a wise saying.

"What a beautiful thought! " exclaimed the papa stork immediately.

"I don't quite understand it," said the mamma stork, when her
husband repeated it; "however, it is not my fault, but the fault of
the thought; whatever it may be, I have something else to think of. "

Now the learned men had spoken also of love between this one and
that one; of the difference of the love which we have for our
neighbor, to the love that exists between parents and children; of the
love of the plant for the light, and how the germ springs forth when
the sunbeam kisses the ground. All these things were so elaborately
and learnedly explained, that it was impossible for stork-papa to
follow it, much less to talk about it. His thoughts on the subject
quite weighed him down; he stood the whole of the following day on one
leg, with half-shut eyes, thinking deeply. So much learning was
quite a heavy weight for him to carry. One thing, however, the papa
stork could understand. Every one, high and low, had from their inmost
hearts expressed their opinion that it was a great misfortune for so
many thousands of people--the whole country indeed--to have this man
so sick, with no hopes of his recovery. And what joy and blessing it
would spread around if he could by any means be cured! But where
bloomed the flower that could bring him health? They had searched
for it everywhere; in learned writings, in the shining stars, in the
weather and wind. Inquiries had been made in every by-way that could
be thought of, until at last the wise and learned men has asserted, as
we have been already told, that "love, the life-giver, could alone
give new life to a father;" and in saying this, they had overdone
it, and said more than they understood themselves. They repeated it,
and wrote it down as a recipe, "Love is a life-giver. " But how could
such a recipe be prepared--that was a difficulty they could not
overcome. At last it was decided that help could only come from the
princess herself, whose whole soul was wrapped up in her father,
especially as a plan had been adopted by her to enable her to obtain a
remedy.

More than a year had passed since the princess had set out at
night, when the light of the young moon was soon lost beneath the
horizon. She had gone to the marble sphinx in the desert, shaking
the sand from her sandals, and then passed through the long passage,
which leads to the centre of one of the great pyramids, where the
mighty kings of antiquity, surrounded with pomp and splendor, lie
veiled in the form of mummies. She had been told by the wise men, that
if she laid her head on the breast of one of them, from the head she
would learn where to find life and recovery for her father. She had
performed all this, and in a dream had learnt that she must bring home
to her father the lotus flower, which grows in the deep sea, near
the moors and heath in the Danish land. The very place and situation
had been pointed out to her, and she was told that the flower would
restore her father to health and strength. And, therefore, she had
gone forth from the land of Egypt, flying over to the open marsh and
the wild moor in the plumage of a swan.

The papa and mamma storks knew all this, and we also know it
now. We know, too, that the Marsh King has drawn her down to
himself, and that to the loved ones at home she is forever dead. One
of the wisest of them said, as the stork-mamma also said, "That in
some way she would, after all, manage to succeed;" and so at last they
comforted themselves with this hope, and would wait patiently; in
fact, they could do nothing better.

"I should like to get away the swan's feathers from those two
treacherous princesses," said the papa stork; "then, at least, they
would not be able to fly over again to the wild moor, and do more
wickedness. I can hide the two suits of feathers over yonder, till
we find some use for them. "

"But where will you put them? " asked the mamma stork.

"In our nest on the moor. I and the young ones will carry them
by turns during our flight across; and as we return, should they prove
too heavy for us, we shall be sure to find plenty of places on the way
in which we can conceal them till our next journey. Certainly one suit
of swan's feathers would be enough for the princess, but two are
always better. In those northern countries no one can have too many
travelling wrappers. "

"No one will thank you for it," said stork-mamma; "but you are
master; and, excepting at breeding time, I have nothing to say. "

In the Viking's castle on the wild moor, to which the storks
directed their flight in the following spring, the little maiden still
remained. They had named her Helga, which was rather too soft a name
for a child with a temper like hers, although her form was still
beautiful. Every month this temper showed itself in sharper
outlines; and in the course of years, while the storks still made
the same journeys in autumn to the hill, and in spring to the moors,
the child grew to be almost a woman, and before any one seemed aware
of it, she was a wonderfully beautiful maiden of sixteen. The casket
was splendid, but the contents were worthless. She was, indeed, wild
and savage even in those hard, uncultivated times. It was a pleasure
to her to splash about with her white hands in the warm blood of the
horse which had been slain for sacrifice. In one of her wild moods she
bit off the head of the black cock, which the priest was about to slay
for the sacrifice. To her foster-father she said one day, "If thine
enemy were to pull down thine house about thy ears, and thou shouldest
be sleeping in unconscious security, I would not wake thee; even if
I had the power I would never do it, for my ears still tingle with the
blow that thou gavest me years ago. I have never forgotten it. " But
the Viking treated her words as a joke; he was, like every one else,
bewitched with her beauty, and knew nothing of the change in the
form and temper of Helga at night. Without a saddle, she would sit
on a horse as if she were a part of it, while it rushed along at
full speed; nor would she spring from its back, even when it
quarrelled with other horses and bit them. She would often leap from
the high shore into the sea with all her clothes on, and swim to
meet the Viking, when his boat was steering home towards the shore.
She once cut off a long lock of her beautiful hair, and twisted it
into a string for her bow. "If a thing is to be done well," said
she, "I must do it myself. "

The Viking's wife was, for the time in which she lived, a woman of
strong character and will; but, compared to her daughter, she was a
gentle, timid woman, and she knew that a wicked sorcerer had the
terrible child in his power. It was sometimes as if Helga acted from
sheer wickedness; for often when her mother stood on the threshold
of the door, or stepped into the yard, she would seat herself on the
brink of the well, wave her arms and legs in the air, and suddenly
fall right in. Here she was able, from her frog nature, to dip and
dive about in the water of the deep well, until at last she would
climb forth like a cat, and come back into the hall dripping with
water, so that the green leaves that were strewed on the floor were
whirled round, and carried away by the streams that flowed from her.

But there was one time of the day which placed a check upon Helga.
It was the evening twilight; when this hour arrived she became quiet
and thoughtful, and allowed herself to be advised and led; then also a
secret feeling seemed to draw her towards her mother. And as usual,
when the sun set, and the transformation took place, both in body
and mind, inwards and outwards, she would remain quiet and mournful,
with her form shrunk together in the shape of a frog. Her body was
much larger than those animals ever are, and on this account it was
much more hideous in appearance; for she looked like a wretched dwarf,
with a frog's head, and webbed fingers. Her eyes had a most piteous
expression; she was without a voice, excepting a hollow, croaking
sound, like the smothered sobs 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 often said, "I could
wish that thou wouldst always remain my dumb frog child, for thou
art too terrible when thou art clothed 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 they did no
good.

"One can scarcely believe that she was ever small enough to lie in
the cup of the water-lily," said the papa stork; "and now she is grown
up, and the image of her Egyptian mother, especially about the eyes.
Ah, we shall never see her again; perhaps she has not discovered how
to help herself, as you and the wise men said she would. Year after
year have I flown across and across the moor, but there was no sign of
her being still alive. Yes, and I may as well tell you that you that
each year, when I arrived a few days before you to repair the nest,
and put everything in its place, I have spent a whole night flying
here and there over the marshy lake, as if I had been an owl or a bat,
but all to no purpose. The two suit of swan's plumage, which I and the
young ones dragged over here from the land of the Nile, are of no use;
trouble enough it was to us to bring them here in three journeys,
and now they are lying at the bottom of the nest; and if a fire should
happen to break out, and the wooden house be burnt down, they would be
destroyed. "

"And our good nest would be destroyed, too," said the mamma stork;
"but you think less of that than of your plumage stuff and your
moor-princess. Go and stay with her in the marsh if you like. You
are a bad father to your own children, as I have told you already,
when I hatched my first brood. I only hope neither we nor our children
may have an arrow sent through our wings, owing to that wild girl.
Helga does not know in the least what she is about. We have lived in
this house longer than she has, she should think of that, and we
have never forgotten our duty. We have paid every year our toll of a
feather, an egg, and a young one, as it is only right we should do.
You don't suppose I can wander about the court-yard, or go
everywhere as I used to do in old times. I can do it in Egypt, where I
can be a companion of the people, without forgetting myself. But
here I cannot go and peep into the pots and kettles as I do there. No,
I can only sit up here and feel angry with that girl, the little
wretch; and I am angry with you, too; you should have left her lying
in the water lily, then no one would have known anything about her. "

"You are far better than your conversation," said the papa
stork; "I know you better than you know yourself. " And with that he
gave a hop, and flapped his wings twice, proudly; then he stretched
his neck and flew, or rather soared away, without moving his outspread
wings. He went on for some distance, and then he gave a great flap
with his wings and flew on his course at a rapid rate, his head and
neck bending proudly before him, while the sun's rays fell on his
glossy plumage.

"He is the handsomest of them all," said the mamma stork, as she
watched him; "but I won't tell him so. "

Early in the autumn, the Viking again returned home laden with
spoil, and bringing prisoners with him. Among them was a young
Christian priest, one of those who contemned the gods of the north.
Often lately there had been, both in hall and chamber, a talk of the
new faith which was spreading far and wide in the south, and which,
through the means of the holy Ansgarius, had already reached as far as
Hedeby on the Schlei. Even Helga had heard of this belief in the
teachings of One who was named Christ, and who for the love of
mankind, and for their redemption, had given up His life. But to her
all this had, as it were, gone in one ear and out the other. It seemed
that she only understood the meaning of the word "love," when in the
form of a miserable frog she crouched together in the corner of the
sleeping chamber; but the Viking's wife had listened to the
wonderful story, and had felt herself strangely moved by it.

On their return, after this voyage, the men spoke of the beautiful
temples built of polished stone, which had been raised for the
public worship of this holy love. Some vessels, curiously formed of
massive gold, had been brought home among the booty. There was a
peculiar fragrance about them all, for they were incense vessels,
which had been swung before the altars in the temples by the Christian
priests. In the deep stony cellars of the castle, the young
Christian priest was immured, and his hands and feet tied together
with strips of bark. The Viking's wife considered him as beautiful
as Baldur, and his distress raised her pity; but Helga said he ought
to have ropes fastened to his heels, and be tied to the tails of
wild animals.

"I would let the dogs loose after him" she said; "over the moor
and across the heath. Hurrah! that would be a spectacle for the
gods, and better still to follow in its course. "

But the Viking would not allow him to die such a death as that,
especially as he was the disowned and despiser of the high gods. In
a few days, he had decided to have him offered as a sacrifice on the
blood-stone in the grove. For the first time, a man was to be
sacrificed here. Helga begged to be allowed to sprinkle the
assembled people with the blood of the priest. She sharpened her
glittering knife; and when one of the great, savage dogs, who were
running about the Viking's castle in great numbers, sprang towards
her, she thrust the knife into his side, merely, as she said, to prove
its sharpness.

The Viking's wife looked at the wild, badly disposed girl, with
great sorrow; and when night came on, and her daughter's beautiful
form and disposition were changed, she spoke in eloquent words to
Helga of the sorrow and deep grief that was in her heart. The ugly
frog, in its monstrous shape, stood before her, and raised its brown
mournful eyes to her face, listening to her words, and seeming to
understand them with the intelligence of a human being.

"Never once to my lord and husband has a word passed my lips of
what I have to suffer through you; my heart is full of grief about
you," said the Viking's wife. "The love of a mother is greater and
more powerful than I ever imagined. But love never entered thy
heart; it is cold and clammy, like the plants on the moor. "

Then the miserable form trembled; it was as if these words had
touched an invisible bond between body and soul, for great tears stood
in the eyes.

"A bitter time will come for thee at last," continued the Viking's
wife; "and it will be terrible for me too. It had been better for thee
if thou hadst been left on the high-road, with the cold night wind
to lull thee to sleep. " And the Viking's wife shed bitter tears, and
went away in anger and sorrow, passing under the partition of furs,
which hung loose over the beam and divided the hall.

The shrivelled frog still sat in the corner alone. Deep silence
reigned around.