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
