“We were flying, all three of us, high up in the air when a hunter saw us; he shot an arrow and it hit our friend. She sank down toward a little lake, while she sang her good-by: her swan song. By the shore of the lake, under a birch tree, we buried her! We took revenge. We tied burning tinder under the wings of the swallow that lived underneath the hunter’s roof. It flew home to its nest and set fire to his house. The hunter died in the fire and the flames could be seen as far as the birch tree under which the princess rests, where she has become dust in the dust. She will never come back to Egypt.”
Then they cried, both of them; and the father stork, who heard it all, clattered with his bill, he was so angry.
“Lies and more lies,” he said. “I felt like running my beak right through them!”
“And breaking it!” replied his wife. “You would be a sight then! Think a little more about yourself and your family. What is outside it shouldn’t concern you.”
“I will fly over to the great dome and listen tomorrow, when all the wise men assemble to discuss the king’s illness. Maybe they will get a little nearer to the truth.”
The learned and the wise gathered, and talked and talked; but the stork couldn’t understand their chatter. It did not help the sick man either, or his daughter who was lost in the great bog. We could listen a little to what was said; one has to hear an awful lot of that kind of talk before one dies. But since this is a story and we are free to travel in time as well as space, let’s hear about the first assembly of the wise and learn what happened when the king became ill, a year before. We ought to know at least as much as the stork could understand.
“Love breeds life, and the highest form of love breeds the highest form of life. Only through love can our sick king be brought back to life.” This had been said at the first assembly, and the learned and the wise had all agreed that it was true.
“It is a beautiful thought,” the stork had explained as soon as he came home to the nest.
“I don’t quite understand it,” his wife had said, “and I don’t believe the fault is mine. It is unclear! But it doesn’t matter, I have enough to think about already.”
The learned and the wise had then gone on to discuss the different forms of love: the one between lovers, and the one that parents feel for their children, besides the more complicated forms, such as the one between light and the plants—how the sun rays kiss the black earth, making the seeds sprout. That part of the discussion was so learned and so filled with long and difficult words that the stork could understand almost none of it, let alone be able to repeat it when he got home. He became very morose, half closed his eyes, and stood on one leg for a whole day. Excessive learning is very hard to bear.
But one thing he did know, for he had heard it said often enough, both by the courtiers and the ordinary people—and they had talked from their hearts: it was a disaster to the whole country that the king was sick, and it would be a great blessing to the people if he got well.
“But where grows the flower that can give him back his health?” That was the question everyone had asked last year. They had studied old learned books, the stars, the weather, and the clouds, and used every possible detour to get at the truth. The wise and the learned—as we know—had agreed upon the maxim, “Love breeds life, life to our father.” They repeated it over and over again and wrote it down as a prescription: “Love breeds life.” But how the prescription was to be filled, that no one knew. At last they had agreed that the princess, who loved her father so much, must be the one to find the answer. And the wise men even decided how she was to go about it. At night, when the new moon had disappeared from the sky, she was to go out in the desert to the marble sphinx. There she should cast away the sand from the half-buried door at its base and walk through the long corridors that led to the center of one of the great pyramids. Here lay buried one of the great kings from ancient times. The princess was to enter this chamber of death and splendor, and lean her head against the decorated casing that contained the mummy. The dead king would then reveal to her how her father could be saved.
She had done what had been demanded of her, and in a dream she had learned that in the wild bog in the north—the place had been very accurately described—there grew a lotus flower that would bring back her father’s health. She was to dive into the black water and pick the first flower that touched her breast.
This had all happened a year and a day before, and that was why the princess had flown in a swanskin from Egypt north to Denmark. The storks knew all about this; and now we know it, which makes the whole story easier to understand. We know, too, that the bog king took her down to his castle and that everyone in Egypt thought she was lost forever—that is, everyone but the wisest of all the wise; he was of the same opinion as the mother stork: “The princess will take care of herself.”
“I think I will steal the swanskins from the two evil princesses,” proposed the father stork, “then they won’t be able to fly north and do more harm. I will hide the swanskins up there until there will be a use for them.”
“What do you mean by up there?” asked his wife.
“In our nest up by the bog, in Denmark. Our children can help me carry them. Should they be too heavy, then we can find a hiding place along the way and carry them the rest of the way next year. One swanskin is enough for the princess, but you know how it is when you travel in the north, you can never have clothes enough along.”
“Nobody is going to thank you for it,” grumbled his wife. “But you are the master; no one listens to me except when I am laying eggs.”
In the Viking hall by the great bog, the young girl had been given a name. She was called Helga. A name too soft to fit her character. Years passed; each spring the storks traveled north and each fall they returned to Egypt. Helga grew, became a big girl, and then a maiden sixteen summers old. Beautiful was the shell, but the kernel was hard and cruel; she was wilder and more ferocious than most people in those grim and brutal times.
She found pleasure in seeing the red blood of the horses that were offered to Odin stain her white hands. And once, in a fit of temper, she had bitten the head off a black cock that was to be offered to Thor. To her father she said—and she meant it—“Should your enemies come and tear the roof off the hall while you slept, I should not wake you. I would not warn you, for my cheeks are still burning from the time, years ago, when you slapped my face.”
But the Viking chieftain did not believe her; his daughter’s beauty blinded him to all her faults. He did not know how Helga’s soul and body changed when night fell. When she rode, she sat on the horse as if she and the animal were one; and if sometimes the horse got into a fight with another horse, she stayed on its back, laughing while the animals kicked and bit each other. When the Vikings returned from a raid, she would throw herself into the waters of the fjord and swim out to the boat to greet them. From her beautiful long hair she cut strands and with them she made bowstrings.
“Self-made is well made,” she would say, and laugh.
Her foster mother—the Viking woman—according to the times and habits of the country, was a strong-willed and capable woman; but toward her daughter she was soft and frightened, for she knew the curse that rested on the poor child.
To make her mother miserable—as if she enjoyed seeing the poor woman’s terror—Helga would throw herself over the side of the well when her mother was nearby. The wretched woman would watch while, froglike, she swam in the freezing well water; then, more agilely than a cat, she would climb the steep stone sides of the well and rush into the hall, while her clothes were still dripping wet, so that she dampened the fresh leaves that had been strewn on the floor.
But at twilight, just before the sun set, Helga changed; she became quiet and thoughtful. Then she was obedient and would listen to what was said to her. She would draw close to her mother and, when the sun went down and her appearance and nature were transformed, she would sit still and sorrowful in her frog shape. Her body was
much larger than any frog’s, and therefore she was all the uglier; she looked like a horrible dwarf with a frog’s head and webbed hands and feet. Her eyes alone were lovely with their infinite sadness. Of voice she had none. All she could manage was a hollow croak that sounded like a child sobbing in its dreams. Then her foster mother would take her on her lap and, disregarding her ugly body, she would look into her sad eyes and say, “I could almost wish that you always would be my silent frog child, for you are far more frightening to look at when your outside is beautiful and your inside ugly.”
And the poor woman wrote magic runic letters on birch bark and put them on her frog child to break the spell, but none of them worked.
“One wouldn’t think she had ever been so small that she could lie in a water lily,” said the father stork. “She is a real woman now and the image of her mother, the Egyptian princess. We have never seen her again. And you, my dear, and the Egyptian wise man were wrong, she couldn’t take care of herself. Through all these years, ever since she disappeared, I have flown back and forth across the bog but I have seen no sign of her. Once, when I came up here a few days before you and the young ones, in order to repair the nest and put things in order, I flew all night—as if I were an owl or a bat—above the place where she disappeared, but I didn’t see a thing. The swanskins that it took us three years to bring up here will never be used. Now they have lain on the bottom of the nest these many years; and if this log house burns down, they will be lost.”
“And so will our good nest!” said his wife angrily. “You are less concerned about that than those toys made of feathers, and that precious bog princess of yours. Why don’t you dive down and stay with her! You are neither a good father nor a good husband; that I said the very first time that I laid eggs. We will be lucky if that Viking hussy doesn’t send an arrow through our own children. She is a madwoman and doesn’t know what she is doing. But she ought to remember that we are of an ancient family and have lived here a lot longer than she has. We pay our taxes—and that is only right—one feather, one egg, and a young one, every year. When she is around, then I stay in the nest. Don’t think that I fly down in the yard as I used to, and still do in Egypt, where I am friends with almost everyone and even take a look into the pots and pans. No, here I stay at home, and grow more and more irritated over that wench and over you, too! You should have let her stay in the water lily, then we would have been rid of her.”
“You are more respectable than your speech shows,” said her husband. “I know you even better than you know yourself.”
He made a little jump, beat the air twice with his wings, and sailed upward on the breeze. When he had risen, he again flapped his wings as he turned and made a circle. The sunlight shone upon his white feathers; his long neck and bill were stretched straight forward, it was a lovely sight.
“He is the handsomest of the lot of them,” said his wife, “but that I will never tell him.”
The Vikings returned from their raids abroad early that autumn. Among the prisoners was a Christian priest, one of those who were enemies of Odin and Thor. This new religion, which had already won so many converts in the south, was often discussed among the warriors, as well as among the women of the house. A man called the holy Ansgarius was preaching it, no farther away than Hedeby near Slien. Even Helga had heard about Christ, who for love of humanity gave up his life. But it had gone in one ear and out the other. The word “love” did not seem to have any meaning to her, except at night when, in the wretched shape of a frog, she sat silently in a tiny locked room. But her foster mother had been deeply moved when she listened to the legends told about this strange man who was the Son of God.
The Vikings, who had been abroad, described the great temples built of costly stones for this God whose message was love. Once they had brought back with them two big vessels made of gold; they were richly decorated and had smelled of strange spices. They were censers, which the Christian priests swung in front of their altars, where blood never flowed, although bread and wine were changed into the blood of Him who had sacrificed Himself for the sake of generations yet unborn.
Down into the deep stone cellar of the house the young Christian was carried. His hands and feet were bound. He was handsome. “As handsome as the God Balder,” the chieftain’s wife claimed.
His plight did not move Helga. She suggested that his legs should be pierced, a rope pulled through them and tied to the tail of a bull. “Then let the dogs loose, and the bull will run as fast it can across the meadows toward the heath, dragging him behind it. That would be an amusing sight and it would be fun to follow on horseback!” she suggested.
Such a horrible death the Vikings would not make him suffer, but because he had offended the gods, he would be offered to them. In the little copse where the stone altar to Odin stood, he was to be killed; and this would be the first time a human being had been sacrificed there.
Young Helga begged to have the privilege of spraying the warm blood on the statues to the gods. She sharpened her knife and when a dog—of which there were so many around the house—ran by her she stuck her knife into it and said with a laugh, “That was to test it.”
With horror her mother looked at the evil girl. When night came, and Helga’s body and soul changed, then she spoke to her of her sorrow and misery. The ugly frog with the troll-like body stood in front of her and looked up at her with sad eyes and seemed to understand what she was saying.
“Never, even to my husband, have I admitted how doubly you have made me suffer,” said the Viking chieftain’s wife. “I have more pity for you than I even knew I had. Great is a mother’s love; but you, you have never felt love for anything. Your heart is made from the black cold mud of the bog! Why did you ever come to my house!”
The pathetic creature shook, it was as if the words had touched the invisible cord that connects soul and body; great tears formed in its eyes.
“But dark times will come for you,” her foster mother continued, “and they will be hard for me too. Better would it have been if you had been set out as a babe on the heath and the cold night air had lulled you to sleep.” The woman cried bitterly, then she rose and walked to her bed, which stood on the other side of the leather curtain that divided the room. She was angry and in despair.
The miserable frog sat forlorn in its corner. Every once in a while a sound like a stifled sigh was heard; full of pain was this muffled cry that came from the heart of the poor creature. She seemed to be listening as if she were waiting for someone; then she waddled over to the door and with great difficulty she removed the bar that locked it. Her webbed hand grabbed the tallow lamp, then she drew the iron bar that closed the trap door that led to the cellar. Noiselessly she descended the stairs. In a corner of the underground room she found the helpless prisoner sleeping. She touched him with her cold and slimy hand. He awoke and, seeing the horrible creature in front of him, he shivered with fright, for he thought that she was an evil spirit. The frog took a knife and cut the ropes that bound the man, then she waved her hand to make him understand that he was to follow her.
He mumbled all the holy names that he could remember and crossed himself, but still the creature in front of him stood unchanged. Then he quoted a line from the psalms: “ ‘Blessed is he that considereth the poor, the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.’ … Who are you? Why have you, who are so filled with mercy, the shape of an animal?”
The frog beckoned and led the priest through a corridor out into the stable. She pointed to a horse; he led it outside and swung himself onto its back. With surprising agility, the big frog mounted the animal too; she sat in front of the priest and held onto the horse’s mane. The priest understood that his strange companion wanted to guide him, and followed the directions that the frog indicated by a nod or a movement with its webbed hands. Soon they were out on the heath, far away from the Vikings’ hall.
The priest felt that the grace and mercy of Our Lord manifested themselves through the strange crea
ture who had saved him. He prayed and sang a hymn. The frog trembled. Was it the prayer that touched the monster’s soul? Or did she shiver because it soon would be morning? What did she feel? Suddenly the frog straightened itself and grabbed the bridle to stop the horse; she wanted to dismount. But the priest would not let go of his strange companion. He held onto it while he sang another hymn, hoping that this might break the magic spell that the poor creature so obviously was suffering under.
The horse galloped on. The horizon turned pink, and soon the first ray of the sun broke through the low clouds of morning. With it came the transformation of soul and body: the frog with the sad eyes became the beautiful girl with the evil heart. The priest was horrified when he realized that he held not a giant frog but a beautiful girl in his arms. He jumped down from the horse; he was convinced that the powers of evil were playing some terrible trick upon him. Helga dismounted as quickly as he had and, drawing the knife that hung from her belt, she attacked the shocked and confused young priest.
“Let the blade of my knife reach you,” she screamed. “Let it draw blood! You look pale, slave! Beardless fool!”
The two of them wrestled, but it was as if unseen powers gave the young priest strength. The roots of an old tree that grew on the bank of the tiny stream helped him, for Helga’s feet got caught in one of them and she fell. The priest dipped his hand in the clear water and, spraying it on her forehead and chest, he bade the unclean spirit leave her and baptized her in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. But the water of baptism only has strength when those it falls upon have faith.
Yet had she not the faith herself, it was that very attribute in the young priest that gave him power over her. His strength fascinated her, and she let her arms fall to her sides and stopped fighting with him. To her he seemed a mighty magician: pale and amazed, she looked at this man who knew so many enchantments and charms. To her, his prayers and psalms sounded like magic and the sign of the Cross looked like witchcraft. Had the young man swung a knife or a sharp ax in front of her face, she would not have blinked; but, when he drew with his finger the sign of the Cross on her forehead, she shuddered and closed her eyes. There she sat like a tame bird, with her head bowed.