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 condemned 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 Marsh King's Daughter: Part III
The Marsh King's Daughter