“I smell the Nile mud and the wet frogs!” said stork mother. “There’s tickling in me! Now you’ll taste something! And you’ll see the African storks, ibis, and cranes. They all belong to our family, but are not as pretty as we are. They act distinguished, especially ibis, for the Egyptians have spoiled him. They mummify him, and stuff him up with spicy herbs. I’d rather be stuffed with living frogs and so would you! And you will be! Better to have something in your tummy when you’re alive than be made a fuss of when you’re dead! That’s my opinion, and I’m always right!”
“Now the storks have come!” they said in the luxuriant house by the Nile, where the royal gentleman was stretched out in the open hall on soft leopard skin cushions. He lay not living but not dead, hoping for the lotus blossom from the deep bog in the north. Relatives and retainers stood around him.
And into the hall flew two magnificent white swans that had come with the storks. They threw off the dazzling feather covers, and there stood two beautiful women as alike as two drops of dew. They bent over the pale, shrunken old man, and threw back their long hair. And as little Helga leaned over her grandfather, his cheeks grew rosy, his eyes regained their luster, and life returned to the stiff limbs. The old man rose up healthy and rejuvenated. His daughter and granddaughter embraced him in their arms as if they were giving him a morning greeting after a long heavy dream.
There was joy in the entire court and in the stork nest too, but there it was mostly because of the good food. The place was teeming with frogs. And while the learned ones quickly wrote a hasty story of the two princesses and about the flower of health that was such a great occurrence and blessing for house and country, the stork parents told the story in their way and for their family. But not until everyone was full, because otherwise they would have other things to do than listen to stories.
“Now you’ll become something!” whispered stork mother. “Nothing else is fair!”
“And what should I become?” said stork father, “and what have I done? Nothing!”
“You’ve done more than any of the others! Without you and the children the two princesses would never have seen Egypt again, or cured the old man. You’ll become something! You’ll definitely get a doctor’s degree, and our children will inherit it and then their children and so on! And you already look like an Egyptian doctor—in my eyes!”
The learned and wise ones explained the basic idea, as they called it, that ran through the whole course of events: “Love brings forth life!” It could be explained in different ways. “The warm sunbeam was Egypt’s princess who went down to the bog king and from their meeting the blossom sprang forth—”
“I can’t repeat the words exactly,” said stork father, who had listened from the roof and was telling about it in the nest. “What they said was so complicated, and it was so wise that right away they received high rank and gifts, even the cook got a big medal, but I think it was for the soup.”
“And what did you get?” asked stork mother. “They certainly didn’t forget the most important one, which is you? The learned men only talked about everything! But you will get your reward too, I’m sure.”
Late at night when the peace of sleep was resting over the rich and happy house, there was one who was still awake, and it wasn’t stork father, even though he stood up in the nest on one leg, sleeping watch. It was little Helga who was awake. She leaned out from the balcony and looked at the clear sky with the big shining stars, bigger and clearer in their radiance here than she had seen them in the north, but yet the same. She thought about the Viking woman by the great wild bog, about her foster mother’s gentle eyes and the tears she had shed over the poor frog-child who was now standing in radiance and starry splendor in the lovely spring air by the waters of the Nile. She thought about the love in the pagan woman’s heart, the love that she had shown a pathetic creature, who was an evil animal in human form and in animal form nasty to see and touch. She looked at the shining stars and remembered the radiance from the forehead of the dead, when they flew over the woods and swamps. Strains rang in her memory, words she had heard spoken when they rode away, and she had sat there as one possessed. Words about love’s great source: the greatest love that encompassed all things.
Oh, how much had not been given, won, and gained! Little Helga’s thoughts encompassed, day and night, her entire sum of happiness, and she looked at it like the child who turns quickly from the giver to the given—all the lovely gifts. She was completely absorbed in the increasing bliss that could come, would come. She had been brought to always greater joy and happiness through miracles, and one day she lost herself so completely in that that she didn’t think about the giver any longer. It was her youthful daring spirit making its rapid spring, and her eyes were alight with it. But she was torn from her thoughts by a loud noise down in the courtyard below her. She saw two powerful ostriches running hurriedly in tight circles. She had never seen this animal before, such a large bird and so clumsy and heavy. The wings looked like they were clipped, and the bird itself looked like it had been injured. She asked what had happened to it, and for the first time she heard the legend that the Egyptians tell about the ostrich.
His kind had once been beautiful with large, strong wings. Then one evening the forest’s other powerful birds had said to it, “Brother, should we fly down to the river tomorrow and drink, if God wills it?” And the ostrich answered, “I will it!” The next morning they flew away, first high up towards the sun, God’s eye. They flew always higher and higher, with the ostrich way ahead of the others. He flew proudly towards the light. He trusted in his powers, not the giver of them. He did not say, “If God wills it.” So a punishing angel drew the veil away from the flaming rays, and in that instant the ostrich’s wings were burned, and it sank miserably to earth. He and his kind will never be able to rise up again. He runs in fright, rushes around in circles in a narrow space. This is a reminder for us humans in all our thoughts and with each act to say, “God willing!”
And Helga bent her head thankfully and looked at the chasing ostrich. She saw his fear and his foolish joy at the sight of his big shadow on the wide sunlit wall. And gravity sank its deep roots in her mind and thoughts. A life so rich, so full of blessings had been given and won—what would happen? What would still come? The best: “God willing!”
Early in the spring, when the storks headed north again, little Helga took her golden bracelet, carved her name inside it, and beckoned to stork father. She placed the bracelet around his neck and asked him to take it to the Viking woman. She would understand from it that her foster daughter was alive and happy and remembered her.
“It’s heavy to carry,” thought the stork, when it was placed around his neck, “but you can’t throw gold and honor on the road. Now they’ll know up there that the stork brings good fortune!”
“You lay gold, and I lay eggs!” said stork mother. “But you only lay once, while I do it every year! But neither of us gets any appreciation! That hurts!”
“We are aware of it, mother,” said stork father.
“Well you can’t decorate yourself with that,” said stork mother. “It gives neither a fair wind nor a meal!”
And then they flew away.
The little nightingale who sang in the tamarind bush would soon fly north too. Little Helga had often heard it up there by the great bog. She would send a message with it. She knew the language of the birds which she learned when she flew in the swan-skin and had often talked to the stork and swallows since then. The nightingale would understand her, and she asked it to fly to the beech forest on the peninsula of Jutland where the grave of rock and branches was raised. She asked it to request all the small birds there to stand guard over the grave and sing a song and yet another.
And the nightingale flew away—and time flew too!
One autumn day an eagle on a pyramid saw a stately caravan of richly laden camels. There were expensively dressed, armed men on snorting Arabian horses, shining white like silver and with red, trembling
nostrils, whose manes were big and thick and hung down between their delicate legs. Rich guests, a royal prince from Arabia, handsome as a prince should be, came to the proud house where the stork nest stood empty. Those who lived there were in a northern country, but they would soon be back. And it so happened that they returned that very day, when there was so much joy and happiness there. There was a wedding party, and little Helga was the bride, dressed in silk and jewels. The bridegroom was the young prince from Arabia. They sat at the head of the table between mother and grandfather.
But she didn’t look at the bridegroom’s brown, manly cheek, where a black beard curled. She didn’t look at the ardent dark eyes that were fastened on her. She looked out and up at the twinkling, sparkling stars shining down from the sky.
Then came the rushing sound of strong wings in the air. The storks were coming back, and the old stork couple, no matter how tired they were from the trip, and how much they needed to rest, flew right down on the railing by the veranda. They knew what the celebration was for. They had already heard at the border that little Helga had had them depicted on the wall. They were part of her story.
“That was very thoughtful,” said stork father.
“It’s not much,” said stork mother, “It was the least she could do!”
When Helga saw them, she got up and went out on the veranda to clap them on the back. The old stork couple curtsied with their necks, and the youngest children watched and felt honored.
And Helga looked up at a gleaming star that was shining more and more clearly, and between it and her a figure moved, clearer even than the air and therefore visible. It swayed quite close to her. It was the dead Christian priest. He too came on her day of celebration, came from heaven.
“The glory and splendor there surpasses anything known on earth,” he said.
And little Helga, asked so sweetly and sincerely, as she never had begged for anything before, if she could for just a single minute look in—just cast one glance into the heavenly kingdom, to the Father.
And he lifted her up in glory and splendor, in a stream of tones and thoughts. And there was light and sound not just outside of her, but inside too. Words cannot describe it.
“Now we must return. You are missed!” he said.
“Just a glance yet,” she asked, “only a single short minute!”
“We must get back to earth. All the guests are leaving!”
“Only a glance—the last!”
And little Helga stood on the veranda again, but all the torches there had been put out, and all the lights in the banquet hall were out too. The storks were gone, and there were no guests to be seen, no bridegroom. Everything had vanished in three short minutes.
Then Helga felt afraid. She walked through the big empty hall, and into the next chamber. Foreign soldiers were sleeping there. She opened the side door that led to her room, but when she went in there, she was standing outside in the garden. It wasn’t like this here before! The sky was glimmering red. It was almost dawn.
Only three minutes in heaven, and an entire earthly night was gone!
Then she saw the storks. She called to them, spoke their language, and stork father turned his head, listened and came closer.
“You speak our language!” he said. “What do you want? And why have you come here—a foreign woman?”
“But it’s me! It’s Helga! Don’t you know me? Three minutes ago we were speaking together over there on the veranda.”
“You’re mistaken,” said the stork. “You must have dreamed all of it.”
“No, no!” she said and reminded him of the Viking log house and the great bog, and the trip down there!
Then stork father blinked his eyes. “That’s an old story that I heard from my great, great, great grandmother’s time! Of course, there was such a princess from Denmark here in Egypt, but she disappeared on her wedding night many hundreds of years ago and never came back. You can read it yourself on the monument in the garden. There are both swans and storks carved on it, and on top you’re standing there yourself in white marble.”
That’s how it was. Little Helga saw it and understood and fell to her knees.
The sun shone forth, and as in days of old when the frog skin fell because of its rays, and the lovely creature came to light, so now by the baptism of light rose a beautiful figure clearer and purer than the air—like a beam of light—to the Father.
Her body fell to dust. A withered lotus flower lay where she had been standing.
“That was a new ending to the story,” said stork father. “I hadn’t expected that! But I liked it quite well.”
“I wonder what the children will say about it?” asked stork mother.
“Well, that’s the most important thing, of course,” said stork father.
NOTES
1 Prayer attributed to Celtic monks of the eighth and ninth centuries, but unverifiable.
2 Stanza from Sayings of the High One (Hávamál); from Poems of the Elder Edda, translated by Patricia Terry, revised edition, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.
3 From Hávamál, Terry translation.
4 From Hávamál, Terry translation.
5 Ansgar the missionary received permission to build a church in Hedeby by the Slien River in Schleswig in 850.
6 A god of Nordic mythology, Odin’s son. At the instigation of the evil god Loki, the beautiful and good Balder was killed by a sprig of mistletoe, the only thing that could hurt him.
7 Loki is the trickster figure of Nordic mythology.
8 The Midgard serpent, which encircles the world and is destined to fight Thor at Ragnarök (the end of the world of gods and men).
THE GIRL WHO STEPPED ON BREAD
You MUST HAVE HEARD about the girl who stepped on bread to avoid dirtying her shoes, and how badly things turned out for her? It’s been both written down and printed.
She was a poor child, proud and arrogant. There was a bad streak in her, as they say. As quite a young girl she used to enjoy catching flies and pulling their wings off to make crawlers out of them. She took June bugs and dung beetles and stuck pins in them. Then she would put a green leaf or a little scrap of paper up to their feet and the poor bugs would clasp onto it, turn and twist it, to try to get off the pin.
“Now the June bug’s reading!” said little Inger. “Look how it’s leafing the page!”
As she grew up, she became worse rather than better, but she was pretty, and that was her misfortune. Otherwise she probably would have been treated harsher than she was.
“Desperate diseases must have desperate remedies,” said her own mother. “You often stepped on my apron as a child, and I’m afraid you’ll step on my heart when you’re older.”
And she did too!
She went into service out in the country with some distinguished people. They treated her as if she were their own daughter, and dressed her like it too. She looked good, and her arrogance grew.
When she’d been there a year, her mistress said, “You should really visit your parents sometime, little Inger!”
She went, but it was to show off. She wanted them to see how fine she had become. But when she came to the edge of town, she saw girls and boys gossiping by the pond, and her mother was sitting there on a rock resting with a load of firewood that she had gathered in the woods. Inger turned around because she was ashamed that she, who was so finely dressed, should have a mother who was so ragged, and who gathered sticks. She didn’t regret turning around; she was just irritated.
Half a year went by.
“You should go home one day and see your old parents, little Inger,” said her mistress. “Here’s a big loaf of white bread you can take along for them. They’ll be glad to see you.”
And Inger put on her best clothes and her new shoes, and she lifted her skirts and walked so carefully so that her feet would stay nice and clean, and one can’t blame her for that. But when she got to where the path went over some marshy ground, and there was water
and mud for a long stretch, she threw the bread into the mud so she could step on it and get across with dry shoes. But as she stood with one foot on the bread and lifted the other, the bread with her on it sank deeper and deeper. She completely disappeared and there was nothing to be seen but a black bubbling pool.
That’s the story. Oh, you’d like to hear what happened to her?
Well, she came to the bog woman, who brews in the marsh. The bog woman is an aunt of the elf maidens. Everyone knows the elves. Ballads have been written about them, and they’ve been painted. But about the bog women people only know that, when there’s mist on the meadows in the summer, it’s the bog woman who’s brewing. Well, Inger sank down to her brewery, and you can’t stand it there for long. A cesspool is a light, magnificent apartment compared to the bog woman’s brewery. Every vat stinks so badly that humans faint from it, and the vats are pressed against each other. If there’s a little opening between them anywhere, where you could squeeze through, you can’t anyway because of all the wet toads and fat snakes that are matted together there, where little Inger sank. All the nasty living mass was so icy cold that her body shivered through and through, and became more and more stiff from it. She was stuck to the bread, and it pulled her, like a clump of amber pulls in a little straw.
The bog woman was home. That day the brewery was being inspected by the devil and his great-grandmother. She is an old, very venomous woman, who’s never idle. She never goes out without her needlework, and she had it here too. She was sewing trick insoles for people’s shoes so they couldn’t stop moving. She embroidered lies and crocheted thoughtless words that had fallen to the ground. Everything she did was for harm and depravity. Yes, that old great-grandmother could sew, embroider, and crochet.
She saw Inger, put her glasses on, and looked at her once again. “That’s a girl with talent,” she said. “I’d like to have her as a souvenir of my visit here. She would do for a pedestal in my great-grandson’s anteroom!”