“Look, there is a fine example of a toad. I will catch it and keep it as a specimen in alcohol,” said the scientist when he saw the little toad.
“You have two already. Let it live in peace,” suggested the poet.
“But that one is so wonderfully ugly,” said the scientist regretfully.
“If we could be sure it had a precious stone in its head, I would help you cut it up myself,” laughed the poet.
“Precious stone?” his friend retorted unbelievingly. “I don’t think you know any zoology.”
“I think that there is a bit of poetry in the old folklore that the toad, the ugliest of all animals, hides inside its head the most precious of all stones. Think of Æsop and Socrates: didn’t each of them have a precious jewel in his unhandsome head?”
The toad did not hear any more of the conversation and it only understood half of it. The two friends walked on, and the toad escaped being preserved in alcohol.
“They also talked of precious stones,” mumbled the little toad. “How fortunate for me that I do not possess one or I would have been in trouble.”
From the top of the roof came the sound of the male stork clattering; he was giving a lecture to his family, but he kept his glance downward, for he was watching the two young men at the same time. “The human being is the most conceited of all the animals,” he said. “Listen to them chattering; they should give their bills a rest. They pride themselves on their ability to speak, their linguistic ability! But if they travel as far as we do in a single day, they cannot comprehend one word that is spoken. They cannot understand each other, while we storks talk the same language all over the world, both in Egypt and in Denmark. As for flying, the human beings can’t. When they want to move fast from one place to another, they have to use something called a railroad. It is an invention they will break their necks on. The very thought of it makes a chill run up and down my bill. The world can exist without them. We do not need human beings, all we need are frogs and worms.”
“That was a great speech,” thought the little toad. “The stork is a very important animal and it lives so high up, I have never seen anyone who lives higher!
“And look how it can swim!” the toad exclaimed out loud as the stork spread its wings and flew away through the air.
The female stayed in the nest and told the young ones about Egypt, about the waters of the great River Nile, and about all the remarkable mud to be found in foreign countries. It was all new and wonderful to the little toad.
“I must travel to Egypt,” he said aloud. “I wonder if the stork or one of its young ones would take me. I would serve it faithfully all the rest of my days. Yes, I will get to Egypt, I am sure of it, for I am so happy. In me there is a longing and a desire that is sweet, and so much more valuable than any precious stone.”
And that was the precious stone; and this was the toad who had it in his head: the eternal longing and desire for rising ever upward. That was the jewel! That was the flame that sparkled and shone with joy and desire.
At that moment the stork came. It had spied the little toad in the grass. Its bill did not grab it gently; it squeezed the toad. He was uncomfortable and frightened, yet he felt the wind blowing around him and knew that his course was upward toward Egypt; and therefore his eyes shone with expectation, as though a spark were flying from them.
“Croak!”
The heart stopped; the body was still, the toad was dead. But the spark that had shone in its eyes, what happened to that? The rays of the sun caught it, caught the gem that the little toad had carried in its head. But where did they take it?
Don’t ask the scientist that question, ask the poet. He will tell you the answer, as a fable or a fairy tale. The caterpillar will be in his story, and the family of storks as well: The caterpillar changes itself into a beautiful butterfly. The stork flies over mountains and across oceans to distant Africa, and returns by the shortest route to Denmark—to that particular place, to that particular house where his nest is. That, too, is magic and unexplainable, and yet it happens. You may ask the scientist, he has to admit it; and you yourself know it is true, for you have seen it.
But what about the gem in the toad’s head?
Seek it in the sun, see if you can find it there!
No, the light is too intense; we do not yet have eyes that can see all the glory God has created. But maybe someday we will have such eyes. That will be the most wonderful fairy tale of all, for we ourselves will be part of it.
132
Godfather’s Picture Book
Godfather could tell stories; he knew so many and such long ones. He could cut pictures out of newspapers and could draw them himself. A few weeks before Christmas he would take from his desk a new exercise book and on its clean white pages he would paste pictures that he had cut out of the newspapers and from books; and if he had not found the right pictures to illustrate the story he wanted to tell, then he would draw them himself. When I was a little child I received many such picture books. My favorite one was called: “The Strange Year When Copenhagen Changed from Oil Lamps to Gas Lamps.” At least, that was what was written on the first page.
When my parents saw the book my father said, “You must take good care of it.” And my mother added, “You must wash your hands before you look at it.”
Underneath the title Godfather had written:
Be not afraid if a page you tear, while you look.
Other little friends have done it to another book.
Best of all was when Godfather himself showed us the book. He would not only read the verses and anything else that was written on the pages, but he would explain so many things and tell so much that history became a real story.
The picture on the first page had been cut out of the Flying Post. It was a sketch of the center of Copenhagen, and both the Round Tower and the Church of Our Lady were on it. To the left had been pasted a picture of a lamppost and under that was written: “Oil Lamp.” On the other side was a picture of a candelabrum and under that was written: “Gas.”
“That is the introduction,” said Godfather, “like the playbill in front of the theater. It is the entrance to the story I am going to tell. It could have been written as a play and called: Oil and Gas, or the Life and Career of a City: Copenhagen. That would not have been a bad title either.
“At the bottom of the page there’s a little picture that really shouldn’t have been there at all; it belongs at the end of the book. It is a hell-horse: a demon, who always reads books from the back to the front, and is always dissatisfied with them because he thinks he could have written them better himself. During the day he is tethered to a newspaper, where he runs up and down the columns. At night the hell-horse is let loose and gallops straight to a poet’s house, and in front of it he whinnies his message that the poor writer inside is dead. He isn’t, of course: that is, if there’s any life in him at all. The hell-horse is usually a poor confused fellow who can hardly earn his daily bread, which he needs in order to keep on whinnying. I am sure he will not like this picture book; but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth the paper that it’s written on.
“Well, that was the first page of the book: the playbill!
“It was the last night that the oil lamps were lighted; the new gaslights were burning as well, and they shone so brightly that the oil lamps didn’t seem to be giving any light at all. I saw it myself,” explained Godfather. “I had gone out for a stroll that evening. There were lots of people in the streets; twice as many legs as there were heads. We had all come for the same reason: to say good-by to the old lamps and have a look at the new ones. The night watchmen stood around looking very depressed. They were not sure that they weren’t going to be fired just as the old lamps had been.
“The oil lamps were thinking of the past, for which you could not blame them; they did not dare think of the future. They had a long memory and remembered much from the long dark winter nights and the still summer evenings. I was leaning against a la
mppost. The wick sputtered. I heard what it said and now I shall tell it to you:
“ ‘We have done all we could do,’ began the old oil lamp. ‘We have served our time. We have lighted the steps of those who were happy and those who were sad. Many strange sights have we seen. We have been the eyes of the city at night. Let the new lamps take over our office. How long they will keep it and on what they will shine, only time can tell. They shine a little more brightly than we do, but that is easily explained. They are metal candelabra and they have connections! They have tubes that run all over town and even beyond it. They gain strength from each other. We oil lamps gave what light we had within ourselves, we didn’t ask for help from the family. We—and the generations of oil lamps before us—have lighted the streets of Copenhagen since ancient times. We have been demoted, we must stand behind you, our brighter brothers; but we shall not spend our last night here in envy. On the contrary, we greet you—the new sentries—good-naturedly and happily. We are the old. You have come to relieve us of our guard duty: your uniform is brighter and more beautiful than ours. We should like to spend the time we have together in telling you what has happened to us and to our great-grandparents. It will be the history of a city, Copenhagen. May you and your children—until the last gaslight is extinguished—experience as much as we have, and may you be able to tell of it when at last you, too, are dismissed. That time will come for you as well. Human beings will discover something brighter than gas with which to light the streets. I have heard a student say that eventually they will be able to burn sea water.’ At these words, the oil lamp sputtered as if it had got water in its wick.”
Godfather had listened carefully and had pondered over what he had heard; and he thought it was admirable of the old oil lamps, on such a night of transition, to tell the story of Copenhagen.
“When you are given a good idea you shouldn’t let it go,” said Godfather. “I went straight home and made this picture book for you; and it goes even further back in time than the oil lamps could remember.
“Now here is the book: The Biography of the City of Copenhagen. It begins in darkness and that is why the first page is painted black. Now we shall turn the leaf and look at the next one.
“On this page there is only the wild ocean and the ferocious northwest wind. The wind is driving before it great floes of ice; and on some of them there are great granite boulders that have come from the mountains of Norway. The ice is being blown south, for the northeast wind wants to show the mountains of Germany how huge the granite blocks of the north can be. That fleet of ice passed through the Sound, along whose coast Copenhagen now lies; then there were only some sandbanks, and the ice floes, carrying the big boulders from Norway, stranded on the sand.
“The northwest wind blew, but he couldn’t free his fleet. He got as angry as the northeast wind can get; and then he cursed the sandbank. He called it the ‘Robber Reef’ and predicted that if it ever rose above the water, it would be inhabited by thieves and a gallows would be the only structure on it.
“But while he shouted and cursed, the sun came out, and its rays and beams—those sweet and pure spirits, those children of light—danced. They danced across the ice floes and melted them, and the great granite boulders sank down into the sand.
“ ‘Rabble that follow the sun!’ shouted the wind. ‘Is that friendship, is that the comradeship of nature, to destroy my fleet? I shall remember this and revenge myself. I curse this place!’
“ ‘And we bless it,’ said the children of the sun. ‘The sandbank shall rise above the water, and we shall protect it. The good, the true, and the beautiful shall flourish there!’
“ ‘Chitchat and nonsense,’ returned the wind.
“All of this the oil lamps could not have known about,” explained Godfather. “But I know it, and it is of great importance to the history of the city.”
“Now we shall turn another page. Centuries have gone by. The sandbank has risen and the great boulders that were carried from Norway by the ice floes are now sticking up above the water. A sea gull is sitting on one of them. You can see it in the picture I have drawn. More centuries pass and the sandbank itself is above water. The sea has thrown dead fish upon the beach and lyme grass has begun to appear in the sand. The tough lyme grass withers, rots, and fertilizes the sand. Slowly it changes to become a light loam. Other grasses and even herbs begin to grow.
“The Vikings landed on the island. It provided safe anchorage near the great island of Zealand. It was an ideal place to fight in single combat, and here the Vikings settled those disputes between two men, which were so grave that they fought to the death.
“The first oil lamp was lighted about that time, and it was probably used for frying fish. Fish were plentiful There were such great shoals of herring in the Sound that boats could have difficulty passing through them. The scales of the herring glistened and reflected the sunlight, so that it appeared as though the northern lights were imprisoned in the sea. The fish brought prosperity to the shores of Zealand. Small communities grew up along the coastline. The people built their houses of oak with bark roofs, for there was wood in abundance.
“Ships seek new and better harbors; they have oil lamps hanging in their rigging. The northeast wind blew across the island and sang, ‘Away.… Be gone! Away!’ And if there was a light on that little island, then it was a thieves’ light, for only smugglers and thieves landed on ‘Thieves’ Island.’
“ ‘See how it grows: all the evil that I willed!’ sang the northeast wind. ‘Soon the tree will grow, whose fruits I shall shake.’
“And here is the tree: the gallows tree on ‘Thieves’ Island,’ ” said Godfather, pointing to the picture. “They used to hang robbers and murderers in iron chains. The wind would play with the corpses and make their limbs dance, and the moon would shine as happily upon them as it did upon those who dance in the forest. The sun rays would shine on the hanged men, too, till their bones fell from the gallows and finally became dust in the dust.
“ ‘We know.… We know,’ sang the sun rays. ‘But in time to come it shall be beautiful here. The true and the good shall flourish.’
“ ‘Chicken talk!’ screeched the northeast wind.
“That’s enough of that page. Now let’s turn to another,” said Godfather.
“The bells were ringing in the town of Roskilde. There lived Bishop Absalon, who could not only read the Bible but swing a sword as well. Some bold fishermen had settled with their families on the island. There was a tiny village with a market place, and Bishop Absalon had decided to protect it from pirates and foreign fleets; and he had the power to turn his will into deeds. ‘Thieves’ Island’ was consecrated with holy water and now was a place where Christians could settle. Masons and carpenters were put to work; at the bidding of the bishop a brick building was constructed. The sun rays kissed the red walls as they were being built.
“That was Absalon’s Castle, and the village around it was simply called ‘the harbor,’ or havn as it is in Danish. But the merchants who came to buy fish also built warehouses, and soon it had another word added to its name, and it was called—as it still is today—‘Merchants’ Harbor,’ which in Danish is København. Foreigners have found that too difficult to pronounce and have called it Copenhagen, as the first Germans who came there did.
“The town grew and the northeast wind blew through its streets and alleys, and sometimes he carried a thatched roof away with him. ‘If I cannot get inside, I shall blow around them and above them, both the houses and the castle,’ he said. ‘And this promise I make: the castle shall be called Absalon’s stake.’
“And that happened too. I have drawn a picture of it for you,” said Godfather. “See, there is a castle with a stockade erected around $$ he dressed, buckled on his sword, and blew on the ram’s horn to call his men. The pirates tried to flee. They rowed with all their might, but the arrows of Bishop Absalon and his men pierced their backs and their hands. They were overtaken, and every one of them
was captured. Their heads were chopped off and put on the stakes that surrounded the castle. That night when the northeast wind blew, his cheeks were large and round: ‘He carried ugly weather in his mouth,’ as the seamen say.
“ ‘I’ll stretch myself and rest now,’ said the wind, ‘and just watch what’s going on.’ He rested for hours and blew for days; and the years passed.”
“There is a guard standing in the tower. He looks toward the east, toward the south, west, and the north. You can see him here in the picture I have drawn; and now I am going to tell you what he is looking at. He can see the shores of Zealand and across the wide bay to Køge. In the distance he can see villages. And below him the town is large and it keeps on growing. There are half-timbered houses with gables. Each of the crafts has a whole street: shoemakers, tanners, brewers. There are a market place and a guildhall. So near the sea that its spires and towers can be mirrored in the clear water, stands the Church of St. Nicholas. Not far from it is the Church of Our Lady. There they are saying mass; the air is heavy with incense, and wax candles are burning. The town of Copenhagen is in the diocese of Roskilde and the Bishop of Roskilde rules over it.
“Bishop Erlandsen is in Absalon’s Castle. The cooks are busy in the kitchen. The servants are pouring wine and beer for the bishop and his men; there is the sound of lute and drums. In the great hall, wax candles and oil lamps are burning. The castle is illuminated as though it were a beacon for the whole country. The northeast wind blows above the towers and around the walls, but they are solid. The wind strikes against the west wall of the city; it is only of wood, but it holds.