“You’re so long-winded,” said stork mother. “The eggs can catch cold! I can’t stand being kept in suspense!”
“I keep alert, you know,” said stork father, “and this evening, as I was walking in the reeds where the swamp can support me, three swans came flying. There was something about the flying style that told me: pay attention—these are not really swans— they are just swan-skins! You have a feeling about it, mother. Like me, you know what is real!”
“Of course,” she said, “but tell me about the princess. I am tired of hearing about swan-skins.”
“Well, here in the middle of the bog, you know, it’s like a lake,” said stork father. “You can see a little of it if you get up. By the reeds and the green quagmire there’s a big alder stump. The three swans landed on that, flapped their wings, and looked around. One of them threw off her swan-shape, and I recognized the princess of our house in Egypt. She sat with no other cape than her long black hair. I heard her ask the other two to take good care of the swan-skin while she dove under the water to pick the flower she thought she saw. They nodded and then rose up and took along the empty swan-skin. ‘I wonder what they are going to do with that,’ I thought, and she must have asked them the same thing because she got an answer, right in front of her eyes. They flew up in the air with her swan-skin. ‘Dive down,’ they shouted, ‘you’ll never fly in swanskin again, never see Egypt! Stay in the wild bog!’ and then they tore her swan-skin in hundreds of pieces so that the feathers were flying everywhere like in a snow storm. And the two wretched princesses flew away.”
“That’s ghastly!” said stork mother. “I can’t stand hearing about it—tell me what happened next!”
“The princess moaned and cried! The tears rolled down onto the alder stump, and then it moved—because it was the bog king himself! The one who lives in the bog. I saw how the stump turned, and then it wasn’t a stump any longer. Two long mossy branches reached up, like arms. The poor child was frightened and ran away into the quivering quagmire, but the bog can’t bear me, much less her, and so she sank right down. The alder trunk sank with her, for it was he who was pulling her down. Big black bubbles rose, and then there was no trace left. Now she is buried in the wild bog. She’ll never bring the flower back to Egypt. Oh, you wouldn’t have been able to stand the sight of this, mother!”
“You shouldn’t tell me things like this at such a time! It can affect the eggs. The princess will take care of herself, I’m sure. I suppose some one will help her. Now if it had been you or me, or one of ours, it would have been all over!”
“Well, I’ll keep a close eye on it,” said stork father, and he did.
And a long time passed.
Then one day he saw a green stalk shoot up deep from the bottom, and when it reached up to the surface of the water, a leaf grew out, wider and still wider. Close by there was a bud, and when the stork flew over it one morning, it opened in the strong rays of the sun, and right in the middle of it lay a lovely child, a little girl. She looked as if she had just gotten out of her bath. She resembled the princess from Egypt so much that at first the stork thought it was her, who had become little again. But when he thought about it, he realized it was more likely that she was the child of the princess and the bog king. That’s why she was lying in a water lily.
“She can’t remain lying there,” thought the stork, “and there are already so many of us in my nest. But I have an idea! The Viking’s wife doesn’t have any children, but she wishes she had a little one. Since they say I bring the little ones, I might as well do it for once! I’ll take the child to the Viking woman. That will make her happy.”
And the stork took the little girl and flew to the log house. He pecked a hole with his beak in the pig bladder window, laid the child at the Viking woman’s breast, and flew home to stork mother and told her about it. Indeed the children listened too, for they were old enough to hear it.
“You see, the princess isn’t dead. She has sent the little one up here, and I’ve placed her.”
“It’s what I said from the beginning,” said stork mother. “Now think a little bit about your own! It’s almost time to travel. Every now and then I feel a tickle in my wings. The cuckoo and the nightingale have already left, and I heard the quails saying that we will soon have a good tail wind. Our kids will manage the maneuvers just fine, if I know them.”
Well, how happy the Viking woman was when she woke up in the morning and found the lovely little child at her breast! She kissed and patted it, but the child cried terribly and flailed her arms and legs. She didn’t seem at all happy. Finally she cried herself to sleep, and the sight of the sleeping child was the most beautiful thing you could imagine. The Viking woman was so happy and light-hearted, and it occurred to her that now perhaps her husband with all his men would return just as unexpectedly as the child had come. So she and the others got busy to have everything ready. They hung up the long, colored tapestries that the woman and her maids had woven themselves with the representations of their idols: Odin, Thor, and Freya. The slaves had to scrub the old shields that decorated the walls. Cushions were placed on the benches and dry firewood piled in the fireplace in the middle of the hall so the fire could quickly be lit. The Viking woman worked too so that in the evening she was very tired and slept well.
When she woke up towards morning, she was totally aghast because the little child was gone. She leapt up, lit a pine tar torch, and looked around. There, lying by her feet when she stretched them out in bed, lay not the little child, but a big hideous frog. She was disgusted, took a big pole, and was going to kill the frog, but it looked at her with such strange sad eyes that she couldn’t do it. Once again she looked around. The frog uttered a faint, pitiful croak. The woman gave a start and sprang from the bed over to the shutter and opened it. The sun came out at the same time and cast its rays right into the bed onto the big frog, and all at once it was as if the beast’s wide mouth pulled together and became little and red. The limbs stretched out and turned into small, lovely shapes. It was her own lovely little child lying there, and not an ugly frog.
“What’s this?” she said. “Have I dreamed a bad dream? It’s my own lovely fairy child lying there!” And she kissed it and pressed it to her breast, but it scratched and bit and acted like a wild kitten.
The Viking didn’t come home that day or the next, although he was on his way. The wind was against him, and blew towards the south for the sake of the storks. A tail wind for one is head wind for another.
After a few days and nights it was clear to the Viking woman what was happening with her little child. The child was bewitched. During the day it was as lovely as a fairy but had an evil, wild disposition. At night, in contrast, it was an ugly frog, quiet and whimpering, with sorrowful eyes. There were two natures that shifted back and forth, both internally and externally. It was because the little girl that the stork had brought had her mother’s exterior during the day combined with her father’s disposition. At night she resembled her father in her bodily shape, but her mother’s mind and heart were evident within. Who could break this black magic spell? The Viking woman was sad and worried about it, but she still loved the poor little creature, whose condition she didn’t dare tell her husband about. Now that he would soon be home, he would undoubtedly, as the custom was, lay the child outside on the highway to be taken by whomever wanted it. The kind woman didn’t want that to happen and decided that her husband should only see the child by daylight.
One morning the whistling of stork wings was heard over the roof. More than a hundred stork couples had rested there that night after the big maneuvers. Now they flew upwards to start heading south.
“Everyone ready!” came the shout. “Wives and children too!”
“I’m so light,” said one of the young storks. “There’s crawling and creeping way out in my legs as if they were full of living frogs. Oh, how lovely it is to be traveling abroad!”
“Stay with the flock,” said father and mother, ?
??and don’t chatter too much, it saps your breathing.”
And they flew off.
At the very same moment a horn was heard across the heath. The Viking had landed with all his men. They turned towards home with rich booty from the Gallic coast, where the people, like in Wales, prayed in their fright:“From the fury of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us!”1
They turned towards home with rich booty from the Gallic coast.
Now what life and merriment there was in the Viking house by the wild bog! The mead vat was brought into the hall. The fire was lit, and horses were slaughtered. This was going to be a real feast! The sacrificial priest sprayed the horse blood on the slaves as a consecration. The fire crackled, the smoke drifted up to the ceiling, and soot dripped from the beams, but they were used to that. Guests were invited, and they received good gifts. Intrigues and deceitfulness were forgotten. They drank and threw gnawed bones in each other’s faces—that was a sign of being in a good mood. The skald—he was a kind of musician who was also a warrior—had been with them and knew what he was singing about. He sang a ballad in which they heard all about their heroic deeds and remarkable events in battle. After each stanza he sang the same refrain:“Cattle die, kinsmen die,
one day you die yourself;
I know one thing that never dies—
the dead man’s reputation.”2
And then they all pounded on their shields and hammered with their knives or bones on the table. They made a lot of noise.
The Viking woman sat on the cross-bench in the open banquet hall. She was wearing a silk dress and gold arm-rings and big amber beads. She was wearing her best clothes, and the skald also mentioned her in his song. He talked about the golden treasure she had brought her rich husband. And the Viking was truly fond of the lovely child. He had only seen it in daylight, but he liked her wild disposition. He said that she could become a formidable valkyrie who would conquer a warrior. Her eyes wouldn’t blink when a practiced hand, in jest, cut off her eyebrows with a sharp sword.
The mead vat was emptied, and a new one brought in. They drank copiously. They were people who could hold their liquor. In those days the saying was: “The herds know when it’s time to go home and give up grazing, but a foolish man will always forget the size of his stomach.”3 They knew that, all right, but do as I say, not as I do! They also knew that “love turns to loathing if you sit too long on someone else’s bench,”4 but still they stayed. Meat and mead are good things! They had a good time, and at night the slaves slept in the warm ashes, dipped their fingers in the greasy soot, and licked them. It was a glorious time!
The Viking went out on a raid again that year although the fall storms had started. He traveled with his men to the coast of Wales, which was just “over the pond,” he said. And his wife remained at home with her little girl, and the fact was that she soon cared more for the poor frog with the gentle eyes and deep sighs than the lovely girl who scratched and bit her.
The raw, damp autumn fogs that gnaw leaves, which they called mouthless, spread over the forest and heath. Featherless birds, as they called the snowflakes, were flying one after the other. Winter was coming. The sparrows commandeered the storks’ nest and commented in their way on the absent owners. And where was the stork couple with all their children now?
The storks were in Egypt, where the sun was shining warmly like a lovely summer day here. The tamarind and acacia trees were flowering everywhere. The crescent moon of Mohammed shone brightly from the domes of the temples, and there were many pairs of storks resting on the slender towers after their long trip. Big flocks of them had nests next to each other on the enormous columns and broken arches of temples and forgotten ruins. The date palm lifted its umbrella roof high up, as if it wanted to be a parasol. The greyish white pyramids stood like shady outlines against the clear sky towards the desert, where the ostrich knew it could use its legs, and the lion sat with big wise eyes and watched the marble sphinx that lay half buried in the sand. The waters of the Nile had receded, and the entire riverbed was crawling with frogs, and for the stork family this was the most beautiful view in the whole country. The young ones thought that it was an optical illusion, so incredible did they find everything.
“This is what it’s like here, and it’s always like this here in our warm land!” said stork mother, and the little ones’ stomachs tingled.
“Is there more to see?” they asked, “are we going to travel further into the country?”
“There’s nothing more to see!” said stork mother. “On the fertile side there’s only trackless forest where the trees grow into each other and are entangled with prickly vines. Only the elephants with their thick legs can find their way through there. The snakes there are too big for us, and the lizards are too lively. And if you go into the desert, you’ll get sand in your eyes at best, and at the worst you’ll get into a sand storm. No, it’s best here! There are frogs and grasshoppers! I’m staying here, and so are you!”
And they stayed. The old storks sat in their nests on the slender minarets and rested, but still were busy grooming their feathers and rubbing their red stockings with their beaks. Then they lifted their necks, greeted each other solemnly, and raised their heads with the high foreheads and their fine, smooth feathers. Their brown eyes shone so wisely. The little female storks walked solemnly through the succulent reeds, glanced at the other young storks, made acquaintances, and with every third step, swallowed a frog, or walked around with a little snake dangling from their bills. They thought it looked becoming, and the snakes were tasty. The young male storks quarreled with each other, flapped their wings at each other, pecked with their beaks, even drawing blood, and then one got engaged and another got engaged, the young females and the young males. This was what they lived for, after all. They built nests, and then came new quarreling, since in the hot countries everyone is so hot tempered. But it was all fun and brought great joy to the old storks. One’s own children can do no wrong! The sun shone every day, and every day there was plenty of food. There was nothing to do but enjoy oneself. But inside the rich palace of the Egyptian landlord, as they called him, there was no enjoyment.
The rich, powerful master lay on a couch, all of his limbs stiff. He was stretched out like a mummy in the middle of the big hall with the colorfully painted walls. It looked like he was lying in a tulip. Relatives and servants stood around him. He wasn’t dead, but it couldn’t really be said that he was living either. The water lily flower from the northern land, the one that had to be sought and picked by the one who loved him best, the one that could bring deliverance, would never be brought. His beautiful young daughter, who had flown away over sea and shore in the shape of a swan, far towards the north, would never come back. “She is dead and gone,” the two returning swan maidens had reported. They had constructed a whole story between the two of them, and it went like this:
“All three of us flew high up in the air. A hunter saw us and shot his arrow. It hit our young friend, and slowly she sank like a dying swan down into a forest lake, singing her last farewell. We buried her there on the bank under a fragrant weeping birch. But we have taken revenge. We tied smoldering tinder under the wing of a swallow that nested under the eave of the hunter’s reed roof. It flared up. The house went up in flames, and he was burned to death. The flames lit up the lake all the way to the weeping birch, where she now lies, earth in earth. She’ll never come back to Egypt.”
They both cried, and when stork father heard the story, he chattered his beak so it rattled: “Lies and fabrication!” he cried. “I would like to stab them in the heart with my beak!”
“And break it off,” said stork mother. “Then you’d look really attractive! Think about yourself and your family first. You should keep out of everything else.”
“But I’ll sit up on the edge of the open dome tomorrow when all the wise and learned men gather to talk about the sick man. Maybe then they’ll come a little closer to the truth.”
And the wise and l
earned men gathered and talked a lot, talked widely about things that the stork couldn’t get anything out of—and nothing came out of it for the sick man either, or for his daughter in the bog. But we may as well listen a little bit, since there’s so much to listen to anyway.
Indeed, the right thing is to hear and know what happened before this, so we can follow the story better. We should at least know as much about it as stork father does:
“Love brings forth life! The highest love brings forth the highest life! His life’s salvation can only be won through love!” is what was said, and it was exceptionally wise and well said, the learned ones assured each other.
“That’s a lovely thought,” stork father said right away.
“I don’t quite understand it,” said stork mother, “but that’s not my fault. It’s the idea’s fault. But it doesn’t make any difference because I have other things to think about.”
And then the learned men had talked about love in one way and another, and the difference between the love between lovers and that between parents and children; between the light and growing things, how the sun kisses the mud and that causes sprouts to shoot forth—it was so long-winded and technically explained that it became impossible for stork father to follow along, much less repeat it. He became quite pensive about it, partly closed his eyes, and stood on one leg for a whole day afterwards. Scholarship was very difficult for him to bear.
But stork father had understood one thing. He had heard both the common people and the most distinguished speak from their hearts. It was a great misfortune for thousands of people, and for the whole country too, that that man had taken ill and wouldn’t recover. It would be a joy and blessing if he could regain his health. “But where does the flower grow that can bring him back to health?” They had all asked that, searched in long articles, in the twinkling stars, in wind and weather, searched all the roundabout methods that could be found, and finally the learned and wise, as already mentioned, found the answer: “Love brings forth life, the life of the father,” and in this they were saying more than they realized themselves. Then they repeated this and wrote it up as a prescription : “Love brings forth life,” but how the whole thing was going to be worked out, they didn’t know. Finally they agreed that the help must come through the princess—she who loved her father with all her heart and soul. They also finally figured out how it should be done. That was more than a year and a day ago now. At night when the new moon had set, she was to go to the marble sphinx by the desert, brush away the sand from the door in its foot, and go through the long hallway that led to the middle of one of the big pyramids. One of antiquity’s great kings lay there as a mummy, surrounded by splendor and magnificence. She was to lean her head next to the king, and it would be revealed to her how she could revive and save her father.