The Sand-Hills of Jutland Part 7

the Viking's wife would have said; and yet he came as a flash of fire.

There was an earnestness in his large, mild eyes, a searching, penetrating look--grave, almost stern--that thrilled the young proselyte to the utmost depths of her heart. Helga trembled before him; and her memory awoke as if with the power it would exercise on the great day of doom. All the kindness that had been bestowed on her, every affectionate word that had been said to her, came back to her mind with an impression deeper than they had ever before made. She understood that it was love that, during the days of trial here, had supported her--those days of trial in which the offspring of a being with a soul, and a form of mud, had writhed and struggled. She understood that she had only followed the promptings of her own disposition, and done nothing to help herself. All had been bestowed on her--all had been ordained for her. She bowed herself in lowly humility and shame before Him who must be able to read every thought of the heart; and at that moment she felt as if a purifying flame darted through her--a light from the Holy Spirit.

"Daughter of the dust!" said the Christian priest, "from dust, from earth hast thou arisen--from earth shalt thou again arise! A ray from G.o.d's invisible sun shall stream on thee. No soul shall be lost. But far off is the time when life takes flight into eternity. I come from the land of the dead. Thou also shalt once pa.s.s through the dark valley into yon lofty realms of brightness, where grace and perfection dwell. I shall not guide thee now to Hedeby for Christian baptism.

First must thou disperse the slimy surface over the deep mora.s.s, draw up the living root of thy life and thy cradle, and perform thy appointed task, ere thou darest to seek the holy rite."

And he lifted her up on the horse, and gave her a golden censer like those she had formerly seen at the Viking's castle; and strong was the perfume which issued from it. The open wound on the forehead of the murdered man shone like a diadem of brilliants. He took the cross from the grave, and raised it high above him; then away they went through the air, away over the rustling woods, away over the mountains where the giant heroes are buried, sitting on the slaughtered steed. Still onward the phantom forms pursued their way; and in the clear moonlight glittered the gold circlet round their brows, and the mantle fluttered in the breeze. The magic dragon, who was watching over his treasures, raised his head and gazed at them. The hill dwarfs peeped out from their mountain recesses and plough-furrows. There were swarms of them, with red, blue, and green lights, that looked like the numerous sparks in the ashes of newly-burned paper.

Away over forest and heath, over limpid streams and stagnant pools, they hastened towards "the wild mora.s.s," and over it they flew in wide circles. The Christian priest held aloft the cross, which looked as dazzling as burnished gold, and as he did so he chanted the ma.s.s hymns. Little Helga sang with him as a child follows its mother's song. She swung the censer about as if before the altar, and there came a perfume so strong, so powerful in its effect, that it caused the reeds and sedges to blossom; every sprout shot up from the deep bottom--everything that had life raised itself up; and with the rest arose a ma.s.s of water-lilies, which looked like a carpet of embroidered flowers. Upon it lay a sleeping female, young and beautiful. Helga thought she beheld herself mirrored in the calm water; but it was her mother whom she saw--the mud-king's wife--the princess from the banks of the Nile.

The dead Christian priest prayed that the sleeper might be lifted upon the horse. At first the latter sank under the additional burden, as if its body were but a winding-sheet fluttering in the wind; but the sign of the cross gave strength to the airy phantom, and all three rode on it to the solid ground.

Then crowed the c.o.c.k at the Viking's castle, and the apparitions seemed to disappear in a mist, which was wafted away by the wind; but the mother and daughter stood together.

"Is that myself I behold in the deep water?" exclaimed the mother.

"Is that myself I see on the s.h.i.+ning surface?" said the daughter.

And they approached each other till form met form in a warm embrace, and wildly the mother's heart beat when she perceived the truth.

"My child! my heart's own flower! my lotus from the watery deep!"

And she encircled her daughter with her arm, and wept Her tears caused a new sensation to Helga--they were the baptism of love for her.

"I came hither in the magic disguise of a swan, and I threw it off,"

said the mother. "I sank through the swaying mire deep into the mud of the mora.s.s, which like a wall closed around me; but soon I perceived that I was in a fresher stream--some power drew me deeper and still deeper down. I felt my eyelids heavy with sleep--I slumbered and I dreamed. I thought that I was again in the interior of the Egyptian pyramid, but before me still stood the heaving alder trunk that had so terrified me on the surface of the mora.s.s. I saw the cracks in the bark, and they changed their appearance, and became hieroglyphics. It was the mummy's coffin I was looking at; it burst open, and out issued from it the monarch of a thousand years ago--the mummy form, black as pitch, dark and s.h.i.+ning as a wood-snail, or as that thick slimy mud.

It was the mud-king, or the mummy of the pyramids; I knew not which.

He threw his arms around me, and I felt as if I were dying. I only felt that I was alive again when I found something warm on my breast, and there a little bird was flapping with its wings, twittering and singing. It flew from my breast high up in the dark, heavy s.p.a.ce; but a long green string bound it still to me. I heard and I comprehended its tones and its longing: "Freedom! Suns.h.i.+ne! To the father!" Then I thought of my father in my distant home, that dear sunny land--my life, my affection--and I loosened the cord, and let it flutter away home to my father. Since that hour I have not dreamed. I have slept a long, dark, heavy sleep until now, when the strange sounds and perfume awoke me and set me free."

That green tie between the mother's heart and the bird's wings, where now did it flutter? what now had become of it? The stork alone had seen it. The cord was the green stem; the knot was the s.h.i.+ning flower--the cradle for that child who now had grown up in beauty, and again rested near her mother's heart.

And as they stood there embracing each other the stork-father flew in circles round them, hastened back to his nest, took from it the magic feather disguises that had been hidden away for so many years, cast one down before each of them, and then joined them as they raised themselves from the ground like two white swans.

"Let us now have some chat," said the stork-father, "now we understand each other's language, even though one bird's beak is not exactly made after the pattern of another's. It is most fortunate that you came to night; to-morrow we should all have been away--the mother, the young ones, and myself. We are off to the south. Look at me! I am an old friend from the country where the Nile flows, and so is the mother, though there is more kindness in her heart than in her tongue. She always believed that the princess would make her escape. The young ones and I brought these swan garbs up here. Well, how glad I am, and how fortunate it is that I am here still! At dawn of day we shall take our departure--a large party of storks. We shall fly foremost, and if you will follow us you will not miss the way. The young ones and myself will have an eye to you."

"And the lotus flower I was to have brought," said the Egyptian princess; "it shall go within the swan disguise, by my side, and I shall have my heart's darling with me. Then homewards--homewards!"

Then Helga said that she could not leave the Danish land until she had once more seen her foster-mother, the Viking's excellent wife. To Helga's thoughts arose every pleasing recollection, every kind word, even every tear her adopted mother had shed on her account; and, at that moment, she felt that she almost loved that mother best.

"Yes, we must go to the Viking's castle," said the stork; "there my young ones and their mother await me. How they will stare! The mother does not speak much; but, though she is rather abrupt, she means well.

I will presently make a little noise, that she may know we are coming."

And he clattered with his bill as he and the swans flew close to the Viking's castle.

Within it all were lying in deep sleep. The Viking's wife had retired late to rest; she lay in anxious thought about little Helga, who now for full three days and nights had disappeared along with the Christian priest: she had probably a.s.sisted him in his escape, for it was her horse that was missing from the stables. By what power had all this been accomplished? The Viking's wife thought upon the wondrous works she had heard had been performed by the immaculate Christ, and by those who believed on him and followed him. Her changing thoughts a.s.sumed the shapes of life in her dreams; she fancied she was still awake, lost in deep reflection; she imagined that a storm arose--that she heard the sea roaring in the east and in the west, the waves das.h.i.+ng from the Kattegat and the North Sea; the hideous serpents which encircled the earth in the depths of the ocean struggling in deadly combat. It was the night of the G.o.ds--RAGNAROK, as the heathens called the last hour, when all should be changed, even the high G.o.ds themselves. The reverberating horn sounded, and forth over the rainbow[3] rode the G.o.ds, clad in steel, to fight the final battle; before them flew the winged Valkyries, and the rear was brought up by the shades of the dead giant-warriors; the whole atmosphere was illuminated around them by the Northern lights, but darkness conquered all--it was an awful hour!

[Footnote 3: The Bridge of Heaven in the fables of the Scandinavian mythology.--_Trans._]

And near the terrified Viking's wife sat upon the floor little Helga in the ugly disguise of the frog; and she s.h.i.+vered and worked her way up to her foster-mother, who took her in her lap, and disgusting as she was in that form, lovingly caressed her. The air was filled with the sounds of the clas.h.i.+ng of swords, the blows of clubs, the whizzing of arrows, like a violent hail-storm. The time was come when heaven and earth should be destroyed, the stars should fall, and all be swallowed up below in Surtur's fire; but a new earth and a new heaven she knew were to come; the corn was to wave where the sea now rolled over the golden sands; the unknown G.o.d at length reigned; and to him ascended Baldur, the mild, the lovable, released from the kingdom of death. He came; the Viking's wife beheld him--she recognised his countenance: it was that of the captive Christian priest. "Immaculate Christ!" she cried aloud; and whilst uttering this holy name she impressed a kiss upon the ugly brow of the frog-child. Then fell the magic disguise, and Helga stood before her in all her radiant beauty, gentle as she had never looked before, and with speaking eyes. She kissed her foster-mother's hands, blessed her for all the care and kindness which she, in the days of distress and trial, had lavished upon her; thanked her for the thoughts with which she had inspired her mind--thanked her for mentioning _that name_ which she now repeated, "Immaculate Christ!" and then lifting herself up in the suddenly adopted shape of a graceful swan, little Helga spread her wings widely out with the rustling sound of a flock of birds of pa.s.sage on the wing, and in another moment she was gone.

The Viking's wife awoke, and on the outside of her cas.e.m.e.nt were to be heard the same rustling and flapping of wings. It was the time, she knew, when the storks generally took their departure; it was them she heard. She wished to see them once more before their journey to the south, and bid them farewell. She got up, went out on the balcony, and then she saw, on the roof of an adjoining outhouse, stork upon stork, while all around the place, above the highest trees, flew crowds of them, wheeling in large circles; but below, on the brink of the well, where little Helga had but so lately often sat, and frightened her with her wild actions, sat now two swans, looking up at her with expressive eyes; and she remembered her dream, which seemed to her almost a reality. She thought of Helga in the appearance of a swan; she thought of the Christian priest, and felt a strange gladness in her heart.

The swans fluttered their wings and bowed their necks, as if they were saluting her; and the Viking's wife opened her arms, as if she understood them, and smiled amidst her tears and manifold thoughts.

Then, with a clattering of bills and a noise of wings, the storks all turned towards the south to commence their long journey.

"We will not wait any longer for the swans," said the stork-mother.

"If they choose to go with us, they must come at once; we cannot be lingering here till the plovers begin their flight. It is pleasant to travel as we do in a family party, not like the chaffinches and strutting c.o.c.ks. Among their species the males fly by themselves, and the females by themselves: that, to say the least of it, is not at all seemly. What a miserable sound the stroke of the swans' wings has compared with ours!"

"Every one flies in his own way," said the stork-father. "Swans fly slantingly, cranes in triangles, and plovers in serpentine windings."

"Name not serpents or snakes when we are about to fly up yonder," said the stork-mother. "It will only make the young ones long for a sort of food which they can't get just now."

"Are these the high hills, beneath yonder, of which I have heard?"

asked Helga, in the disguise of a swan.

"These are thunder-clouds driving under us," replied her mother.

"What are these white clouds that seem so stationary?" asked Helga.

"These are the mountains covered with everlasting snow that thou seest," said her mother; and they flew over the Alps towards the blue Mediterranean.

"There is Africa! there is Egypt!" cried in joyful accents, under her swan disguise, the daughter of the Nile, as high up in the air she descried, like a whitish-yellow, billow-shaped streak, her native soil.

The storks also saw it, and quickened their flight.

"I smell the mud of the Nile and the wet frogs," exclaimed the stork-mother. "It makes my mouth water. Yes, now ye shall have nice things to eat, and ye shall see the marabout, the ibis, and the crane: they are all related to our family, but are not nearly so handsome as we are. They think a great deal, however, of themselves, particularly the ibis: he has been spoiled by the Egyptians, who make a mummy of him, and stuff him with aromatic herbs. _I_ would rather be stuffed with living frogs; and that is what ye would all like also, and what ye shall be. Better a good dinner when one is living than to be made a grand show of when one is dead. That is what I think, and I know I am right."

"The storks have returned," was told in the splendid house on the banks of the Nile, where, within the open hall, upon soft cus.h.i.+ons, covered with a leopard's skin, the king lay, neither living nor dead, hoping for the lotus flower from the deep mora.s.s of the north. His kindred and his attendants were standing around him.

And into the hall flew two magnificent white swans--they had arrived with the storks. They cast off the dazzling magic feather garbs, and there stood two beautiful women, as like each other as two drops of water. They leaned over the pallid, faded old man; they threw back their long hair; and, as little Helga bowed over her grandfather, his cheeks flushed, his eyes sparkled, life returned to his stiffened limbs. The old man rose hale and hearty; his daughter and his grand-daughter pressed him in their arms, as if in a glad morning salutation after a long heavy dream.

And there was joy throughout the palace, and in the storks' nest also; but _there_ the joy was princ.i.p.ally for the good food, the swarms of nice frogs; and whilst the learned noted down in haste, and very carelessly, the history of the two princesses and of the lotus flower as an important event, and a blessing to the royal house, and to the country in general, the old storks related the history in their own way to their own family; but not until they had all eaten enough, else these would have had other things to think of than listening to any story.

"Now thou wilt be somebody," whispered the stork-mother; "it is only reasonable to expect that."

"Oh! what should _I_ be?" said the stork-father. "And what have _I_ done? Nothing!"

"Thou hast done more than all the others put together. Without thee and the young ones the two princesses would never have seen Egypt again, or cured the old man. Thou wilt be nothing! Thou shouldst, at the very least, be appointed court doctor, and have a t.i.tle bestowed on thee, which our young ones would inherit, and their little ones after them. Thou dost look already exactly like an Egyptian doctor in my eyes."

The learned and the wise lectured upon "the fundamental notion," as they called it, which pervaded the whole tissue of events. "Love bestows life." Then they expounded their meaning in this manner:--

"The warm sunbeam was the Egyptian princess; she descended to the mud-king, and from their meeting sprang a flower----"