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Chapter I.
"Chapter I." by Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940), translated by Velma Swanston Howard.
From: The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. by Selma Lagerlöf. New York: Doubleday,
Page & Company, 1922, pp. 3-23.
CHAPTER ONE
THE BOY
THE ELF
Sunday, March twentieth.
ONCE there was a boy. He was, let us say, something like fourteen years old;
long and loose jointed and towheaded. He wasn't good for much, that boy. His
chief delight was to eat and sleep, and after that he liked best to make
mischief.
It was a Sunday morning and the boy's parents were getting ready for church. The
boy, in his shirt sleeves, sat on the edge of the table thinking how lucky it
was that both father and mother were going away so the coast would be clear for
a couple of hours. "Good! Now I can take down pop's gun and fire off a shot,
without anybody's meddling interference," he said to himself.
But it was almost as if father should have guessed the boy's thoughts, for just
as he was on the threshold and ready to start, he stopped short, and turned
toward the boy: "Since you won't come to church with mother and me," he said,
"the least you can do is to read the service at home. Will you promise to do
so?" "Yes, that I can do easy enough," said the boy, thinking, of course, that
he wouldn't read any more than he felt like reading.
The boy thought that never had he seen his mother get around so fast. In a jiffy
she was over by the book shelf, near the fireplace, taking down Luther's
Commentary, which she laid on the table, in front of the window ­ opened at the
service for the day. She also opened the New Testament, and placed it beside the
Commentary. Finally, she drew up the big armchair, which was bought at the
parish auction the year before, and which, as a rule, no one but father was
permitted to occupy.
The boy sat thinking that his mother was giving herself altogether too much
trouble with this spread; for he had no intention of reading more than a page or
so. But now, for the second time, it was almost as if his father were able to
see right through him. He walked up to the boy, and said in a severe tone: "Now
remember that you are to read carefully! For when we come back, I shall question
you thoroughly; and if you have skipped a single page, it will not go well with
you."
"The service is fourteen pages and a half long," said his mother, piling it on,
as it were. "You'll have to sit down and begin the reading at once, if you
expect to get through with it."
With that they departed. And as the boy stood in the doorway, watching them, he
felt that he had been caught in a trap. "There they go congratulating
themselves, I suppose, in the belief that they've hit upon something so good
that I'll be forced to sit and hang over the sermon the whole time that they are
away," thought he.
But his father and mother were certainly not congratulating themselves upon
anything of the sort; but, on the contrary, they were very much distressed. They
were poor farmers, and their place was not much bigger than a garden-plot. When
they first moved there, the bit of land couldn't feed more than one pig, and a
pair of chickens; but they were uncommonly thrifty and capable folk ­ and now
they had both cows and geese. Things had turned out very well for them; and they
would have gone to church that beautiful morning satisfied and happy, if they
hadn't had their son to think of. Father complained that he was dull and lazy;
he had not cared to learn anything at school, and he was such an all-around
good-for-nothing that he could barely be made to tend geese. Mother could not
deny that this was true; but she was most distressed because he was wild and
bad: cruel to animals, and ill-willed toward human beings. "May God soften his
hard heart and give him a better disposition!" said the mother, "else he will be
a misfortune, both to himself and to us."
The boy stood there a long time pondering whether he should read the service or
not. Finally, he came to the conclusion that this time it was best to be
obedient. He seated himself in the easy chair, and began to read. But when he
had been rattling away in an undertone for a little while, this mumbling seemed
to have a soothing effect upon him ­ and he began to nod.
It was the most beautiful weather outside! It was only the twentieth of March;
but the boy lived in West Vemmenhög Parish, down in Southern Skåne, where the
spring was already in full swing. It was not as yet green, but fresh and
budding. There was water in all the trenches, and the colt's-foot at the edge of
the ditch was in bloom. All the weeds that grew in among the stones were brown
and shiny. The beech-woods in the distance seemed to swell and grow thicker with
every second. The skies were high, and a clear blue. The cottage door stood
ajar, and the lark's trill could be heard in the room. The hens and geese
pattered about in the yard; and the cows, who felt the spring air away in their
stalls, lowed their approval every now and then.
The boy read and nodded and fought against drowsiness. "No! I don't want to fall
asleep," thought he, "for then I'll not get through with this thing the whole
forenoon."
But somehow he fell asleep.
He did not know whether he had slept a short while or a long while; but he was
awakened by hearing a slight noise back of him.
On the window-sill, facing the boy, stood a small looking-glass; and almost the
entire cottage could be seen in it. As the boy raised his head, he happened to
look in the glass; and then he saw that the cover to his mother's chest had been
opened.
His mother owned a great, heavy, iron-bound oak chest, which she permitted no
one but herself to open. Here she treasured all the things she had inherited
from her mother, and of these she was especially careful. Here lay a couple of
old-time peasant dresses, of red homespun with short bodice and plaited shirt,
and a pearl-bedecked breast-pin. There were starched white linen headdresses,
and heavy silver ornaments and chains, Folks don't care to go about dressed like
that in these days, and several times his mother had thought of getting rid of
the old things; but somehow, she hadn't the heart to do it.
Now the boy saw distinctly ­ in the glass ­ that the chest-lid was open. He
could not understand how this had happened, for his mother had closed the chest
before she went. She never would have left that precious chest open with only
him here.
He became low-spirited and apprehensive. He was afraid that a thief had sneaked
his way into the cottage. He didn't dare move, but sat still and stared into the
looking-glass.
While he sat there and waited for the thief to make his appearance, he began to
wonder what that dark shadow was which fell across the edge of the chest. He
stared and stared and wouldn't believe his eyes. But the object, which at first
seemed shadowy, became more and more clear to him; and soon he saw that it was
something real. It was nothing less than an elf that sat there ­ astride the
edge of the chest!
To be sure, the boy had heard stories about elves, but he had never dreamed that
they were such tiny creatures. He was no taller than a hand's breadth ­ this
one, who sat on the edge of the chest. He had an old, wrinkled and beardless
face, and was dressed in a black frock coat, knee-breeches and a broad-brimmed
black hat. He was very trim and smart, with his white laces at the throat and
wrist-bands, his buckled shoes, and the bows on his garters. He had taken from
the chest an embroidered piece, and sat gazing at the old-fashioned handiwork
with such an air of veneration that he did not observe the boy had awakened.
The boy was somewhat surprised to see the elf, but, on the other hand, he was
not exactly frightened. It was impossible to be afraid of one who was so little.
And since the elf was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he neither saw nor
heard, the boy thought it would be great fun to play a trick on him; to push him
over into the chest and shut the lid on him, or something of that kind.
Yet the boy was not so courageous that he dared to touch the elf with his hands,
instead he glanced around the room for something to poke him with. He let his
gaze wander from the sofa to the leaf-table, from the leaf-table to the
fireplace. He glanced at the kettles, then at the coffee-urn, which stood on a
shelf near the fireplace; on the water bucket near the door; and on the spoons
and knives and forks and saucers and plates, which could be seen through the
half-open cupboard door. He looked up at his father's gun, which hung on the
wall beside the portrait of the Danish royal family, and at the geraniums and
fuchsias, which blossomed in the window. And last, he caught sight of an old
butterfly-snare that hung on the window frame. He had hardly set eyes on that
butterfly-snare, before he reached over and snatched it and jumped up and swung
it alongside the edge of the chest. He was himself astonished at the luck he
had. He hardly knew how he had managed it ­ but he had actually snared the elf.
The poor little chap lay, head downward, in the bottom of the long snare, and
could not free himself.
At the first moment the boy hadn't the least idea as to what he should do with
his catch; but he was only careful to swing the snare backward and forward, to
prevent the elf from getting a foothold and clambering up.
The elf began to speak, and begged, oh! so pitifully, for his freedom. He had
brought them good luck these many years, he said, and deserved better treatment.
Now, if the boy would set him free, he would give him an old penny, a silver
spoon, and a gold coin, as big as the case on his father's silver watch.
The boy didn't think that this was much of an offer; but it so happened that
after he had got the elf into his power, he was afraid of him. He felt that he
had entered into an agreement with something weird and uncanny; something which
did not belong to his world; and he was only too glad to rid himself of the
horrid creature.
"THE ELF BEGAN TO SPEAK, AND BEGGED, OH! SO PITIFULLY, FOR HIS FREEDOM."
For this reason he agreed at once to the bargain, and held the snare still, so
the elf could crawl out of it. But when the elf was almost out of the snare, the
boy happened to think that he should have bargained for large estates, and all
sorts of good things. He should at least have made this stipulation: that the
elf conjure the sermon into his head. "What a fool I was to let him go!" thought
he, and began to shake the snare violently, so the elf would tumble down again.
But the instant the boy did that he received such a stinging box on the ear that
he thought his head would fly in pieces. He was dashed ­ first against one wall,
then against the other; finally he sank to the floor, and lay there ­ senseless.
When he awoke he was alone in the cottage. There was not a sign of the elf! The
chest-lid was down, and the butterfly-snare hung in its usual place by the
window. If he had not felt how the right cheek burned from that box on the ear,
he would have been tempted to believe the whole thing a dream. "At any rate,
father and mother will be sure to insist that it was nothing else," thought he.
"They are not likely to make any allowances for that old sermon, on the elf's
account. It's best for me to get at that reading again," thought he.
But as he walked toward the table, he noticed something remarkable. It couldn't
be possible that the cottage had grown. But why did he have to take so many more
steps than usual to get to the table? And what was wrong with the chair? It
looked no bigger than it did a while ago; but now he had to step on the rung
first, and then clamber up in order to reach the seat. It was the same with the
table. He could not look across the top without climbing to the arm of the
chair.
"What in all the world is this?" said the boy. "I believe the elf has bewitched
both armchair and table ­ and the whole cottage."
The Commentary lay on the table and, to all appearances, it was not changed; but
there must have been something queer about that too, for he could not manage to
read a single word of it without actually standing right in the book itself.
He read a couple of lines, then happened to look up. With that, his glance fell
on the looking-glass; and then he cried aloud: "Look! There's another one!"
For in the glass he saw plainly a little, little creature who was dressed in a
hood and leather breeches.
"Why, that one is dressed exactly like me!" said the boy, clasping his hands in
astonishment. And then he saw that the thing in the mirror did the same thing.
There-upon he began to pull his hair and pinch his arms and swing round; and
instantly he did the same thing after him; he, who was seen in the mirror.
The boy ran around the glass several times, to see if there wasn't a little man
hidden behind it, but he found no one there, and then he began to shake with
terror. For now he understood that the elf had bewitched him, and that the
creature whose image he saw in the glass was ­ himself.
THE WILD GEESE
THE boy simply could not make himself believe that he had been transformed into
an elf. "It can't be anything but a dream ­ a queer fancy," thought he. "If I
wait a few moments, I'll surely be turned back into a human being."
He placed himself before the glass and closed his eyes. He opened them again
after a couple of minutes, expecting to find that it had all passed over ­ but
