his own eyes.
The summer before, when he had served as goose-boy with a farmer in the
neighbourhood of Jordberga, he used to meet almost every day two Småland
children, who also tended geese. These children had irritated him terribly with
their Småland.
It wouldn't be fair to say that Osa, the goose-girl, had annoyed him. She was
much too wise for that. But the one who could be aggravating with a vengeance
was her brother, little Mats.
"Have you heard, Nils Goose-boy, what happened when Småland and Skåne were
created?" he would ask, and if Nils Holgersson said no, he promptly began to
relate the old joke-legend.
"Well, it happened at the time when Our Lord was creating the world. While he
was doing his best work, Saint Peter came along. He stopped and looked on, and
then he asked if it was hard work. 'Well, it isn't exactly easy,' said Our Lord.
Saint Peter stood there a while longer, and when he noticed how easy it appeared
to lay out one landscape after another, he too wanted to try his hand at it.
'Perhaps you need to rest yourself a little,' said Saint Peter, 'I could attend
to the work in the meantime for you.' But this Our Lord did not wish. 'I do not
know if you are so much at home in this art that I can trust you to take hold
where I leave off,' he answered. Then Saint Peter was angry, and said that he
believed he could create just as fine countries as Our Lord himself.
"It happened that Our Lord was just then creating Småland. It wasn't even half
ready but it looked as if it would become an indescribably beautiful and fertile
land. It was difficult for Our Lord to say no to Saint Peter, and besides, he
thought very likely that a thing so well begun no one could spoil. Therefore he
said: 'If you like, we will prove which of us understands this sort of work the
better. You, who are only a novice, shall go on with this, which I have begun,
and I will create a new land.' To this Saint Peter agreed at once; and so they
went to work ­ each one in his place.
"Our Lord moved southward a bit, where he undertook to create Skåne. It wasn't
long before he was through with it, and asked if Saint Peter had also finished,
and would come to look at his work. 'Mine was ready long ago,' said Saint Peter;
and from the sound of his voice it was plain how pleased he was with what he had
accomplished.
"When Saint Peter saw Skåne, he had to acknowledge that there was nothing but
good to be said of that country. It was a fertile land and easy to cultivate,
with wide plains wherever one looked, and with hardly a sign of hills. It was
evident that Our Lord had really contemplated making it such that people would
feel at home there. 'Yes, this is a good country,' said Saint Peter, 'but I
think that mine is better.' 'Then we'll take a look at it,' said Our Lord.
"The land was already finished in the north and east when Saint Peter began the
work, but the southern and western parts, and the whole interior, he had created
all by himself. Now when Our Lord came up there, where Saint Peter had been at
work, he was so horrified that he stopped short and exclaimed: 'What on earth
have you been doing with this land, Saint Peter?'
"Saint Peter, too, stood looking around ­ perfectly astonished. He had had the
idea that nothing could be so good for a land as a great deal of heat. Therefore
he had gathered together an enormous mass of stones and mountains, and had
erected a highland, and this he had done so that it might be near the sun, and
receive much help from the sun's heat. Over the stone-heaps he had spread a thin
layer of soil, and then he had thought that everything was well arranged.
"But while he was down in Skåne, a couple of heavy showers had come up, and more
was not needed to show what his work amounted to. When Our Lord came to inspect
the land, all the soil had been washed away, and the naked mountain foundation
shone forth all over. Where it was about the best, lay clay and heavy gravel
over the rocks, but it looked so poor that it was plainly to be seen that little
else than spruce and juniper and moss and heather could grow there. But what
there was plenty of was water! It covered all the clefts in the mountain; and
lakes and rivers and brooks were everywhere, to say nothing of swamps and
morasses, which spread over large areas. And the most exasperating of it all
was, that while some tracts had too much water, it was so scarce in others that
whole fields lay like dry moors, where sand and earth whirled up in clouds with
the least little breeze.
"'What can have been your meaning in creating such a land as this?' said Our
Lord. Saint Peter made excuses, and declared he had wished to build up a land so
high that it should have plenty of warmth from the sun. 'But then you will also
get much of the night chill,' said Our Lord, 'for that too comes from heaven. I
am very much afraid the little that can grow here will freeze.'
"This, to be sure, Saint Peter hadn't thought about.
"'Yes, here it will be a poor and frost-bound land,' said Our Lord, 'it can't be
helped.'"
When little Mats had gotten this far in his story, Osa, the goose-girl,
protested: "I cannot bear, little Mats, to hear you say that it is so miserable
in Småland. You forget entirely how much good soil there is there. Only think of
Möre district, by Kalmar Sound! I wonder where you'll find a richer grain
region. There are fields upon fields, just like here in Skåne. The soil is so
good that I cannot imagine anything that couldn't grow there."
"I can't help that," little Mats insisted. "I'm only relating what others have
said before."
"And I have heard many say that there is not a more beautiful coast land than
Tjust. Think of the bays and islets, and the manors, and the groves!" said Osa.
"Yes, that's true enough," little Mats admitted. "And don't you remember,"
continued Osa, "the school teacher said that such a lively and picturesque
district as that bit of Småland which lies south of Lake Vettern is not to be
found in all Sweden? Think of the the beautiful lake and the yellow
coast-mountains, and of Grenna and Jönköping, with its match factory, and think
of Huskvarna, and all the big establishments there!" "Yes, that's true enough,"
said little Mats once again. "And think of Visingsö, little Mats, with the ruins
and the oak forests and the legends! Think of the valley through which Em River
flows, with all the villages and flour-mills and sawmills, and carpenter shops!"
"Yes, that is true enough," said little Mats, and seemed troubled.
All of a sudden he looked up and said: "Now we are pretty stupid! All this, of
course, lies in Our Lord's Småland, in that part of the land which was already
finished when Saint Peter undertook the job. It's only natural that it should be
pretty and fine there. But in Saint Peter's Småland it looks as it says in the
legend. And it wasn't surprising that Our Lord was distressed when he saw it,"
continued little Mats, picking up the thread of his story. "Saint Peter didn't
lose his courage, at all events, but tried to comfort Our Lord. 'Don't be so
grieved over this!' said he. 'Only wait until I have created people who can till
the swamps and break up fields from the stone hills.'
"That was the end of Our Lord's patience ­ and he said: 'No! you can go down to
Skåne and make the Skåninge, but the Smålander I will create myself.' And so Our
Lord created the Smålander, and made him quick-witted and contented and happy
and thrifty and enterprising and capable, that he might be able to get his
living in his poor country."
Then little Mats was silent; and if Nils Holgersson had also kept still, all
would have gone well; but he couldn't possibly refrain from asking how Saint
Peter had succeeded in creating the Skåninge.
"Well, what do you think yourself?" said little Mats, and he looked so scornful
that Nils fell upon him, to thrash him. But Mats was only a little chap, and
Osa, the goose-girl, who was a year older than he, ran forward instantly to help
him. Good-natured though she was, she sprang like a lion as soon as any one
touched her brother.
Nils Holgersson did not care to fight a girl, so turned his back; and he didn't
look at those Småland children for the rest of the day.
[Next]
Chapter XVI.
"Chapter XVI." 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. 191-212.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE CROWS
THE EARTHEN CROCK
IN THE southwest corner of Småland lies a parish called Sonnerbo ­ a rather
smooth and even country. And one who sees it in winter, when it is covered with
snow, cannot imagine that there is anything under the snow but garden-plots,
rye-fields and clover-meadows, as is generally the case in flat countries. But,
in the beginning of April when the snow melts away in Sonnerbo, it becomes
apparent that under it lie only dry, sandy heaths, bare rocks, and big, marshy
swamps. There are fields here and there, to be sure, but these are so small that
they are scarcely worth mentioning; and there are also little red or gray
farmhouses hidden away in some birch-coppice ­ almost as if they were afraid to
be seen.
Where Sonnerbo Parish touches the boundaries of Halland, there is a sandy heath
which is so far-reaching that he who stands at one end of it cannot look across
to the other. Nothing except heather grows on the heath, and it wouldn't be easy
to coax other growths to thrive there. To start with, one would have to uproot
the heather; for it is thus with heather: although it has only a little shrunken
root, small shrunken branches, and dry, shrunken leaves, it fancies itself a
tree. Therefore, it acts just like real trees ­ spreads itself out in forest
fashion over wide areas; holds faithfully together, and causes all foreign
growths that wish to crowd in upon its territory to die out.
The only place on the heath where the heather is not all-powerful is a low,
stony ridge which crosses it. There you'll find juniper bushes, mountain ash,
and a few large, fine oaks. At the time that Nils travelled around with the wild
geese, a little cabin stood there, with a bit of cleared ground around it. But
the people who once lived there for some reason or other had moved away. The
little cabin was empty now, and the ground lay unused.
On leaving the cabin the tenants had closed the damper, fastened the
window-hooks, and locked the door. But no one had thought of the broken
window-pane which was only stopped up with a rag. After the showers of a couple
of summers, the rag had moulded and shrunk, and, finally, a crow had succeeded
in poking it out.
The ridge on the heather-heath was really not so desolate as one might think,
for it was inhabited by a large crow-folk. Naturally, the crows did not live
there all the year around. They moved to foreign lands in the winter; in the
autumn they travelled from one grain-field to another all over Götaland, and
picked grain; during the summer, they spread themselves over the farms in
Sonnerbo Parish, and lived upon eggs and berries and birdlings; but every
spring, at nesting time, they came back to the heather-heath.
The one who had poked the rag from the window was a crow-cock named Garm
Whitefeather; but he was never called anything but Fumle or Drumle, or out and
out Fumle-Drumle, because he always acted awkwardly and stupidly, and wasn't
good for anything except to be made fun of. Fumle-Drumle was bigger and stronger
than any of the other crows, but that didn't help him in the least; he was ­ and
remained ­ a butt for ridicule. Nor did it profit him that he came of very good
stock. By rights he should have been leader for the whole flock, since this
honour from time immemorial had belonged to the oldest Whitefeather. But long
before Fumle-Drumle was born, the power had gone from his family, and it was now
held by a cruel wild crow named Wind-Rush.
This transference of power was due to the fact that the crows on crow-ridge had
decided to change their manner of living. Possibly there are many who think that
everything in the shape of crow lives in the same way; but such is not the case.
There are entire crow-folk who lead respectable lives ­ that is to say, they eat
only grain, worms, caterpillars, and dead animals; and there are others who lead
a regular bandit's life, who throw themselves upon baby hares and small birds,
and who plunder every bird's nest they set eyes on.
The ancient Whitefeathers had been strict and temperate; and so long as they had
led the flock, the crows had been compelled to conduct themselves in such a way
that other birds could speak no ill of them. But the crows were numerous, and
poverty was great among them. They didn't care to go the whole length of living
a strictly moral life, so they rebelled against the Whitefeathers, and gave the
power to Wind-Rush who was the worst nest-plunderer and robber that could be
imagined ­ if his wife, Wind-Air, wasn't worse still. Under their government the
crows had begun to lead such a life that now they were more feared than
pigeon-hawks and leech-owls.
Naturally, Fumle-Drumle had nothing to say in the flock. The crows were all of
