The Wonderful Adventure of Nils Holgersson

by Selma Lagerlof

  None of them turned around to look at Akka or welcome her. They did not think about anything other than staring at some long, grey lines that were glimpsed here and there on the bare fields.

  All the black rats kept silent. They were clearly in deep despair and knew well that they could defend neither their own lives nor the castle. Both of the owls sat and rolled their big eyes, turned their goggle eyes and talked in awful, sharp voices about the great cruelty of the grey rats, and that they had to move out of their nest, because they had heard that they spared neither eggs nor chicks. The old striped cat was certain that the grey rats would bite him to death, when they forced their way into the castle in such great numbers, and he quarrelled constantly with the black rats. ‘How could you be so stupid and let your best warriors go away?’ he said. ‘How could you trust the grey rats? It’s completely unforgivable.’

  The twelve black rats did not say a word in reply, but the stork could not keep from teasing the cat, despite his distress. ‘Don’t be anxious, Måns Housecat!’ he said. ‘Don’t you see that mother Akka and Thumbkin have come here to rescue the castle? You can be sure that they will succeed. Now I have to settle down to sleep, and I do it with the greatest calm. Tomorrow, when I wake up, there will probably not be a single grey rat at Glimmingehus.’

  The boy winked at Akka and made a sign that he wanted to shove the stork to the ground, now that he had settled down to sleep on the outside edge of the nest with one leg pulled up, but Akka stopped him. She did not look at all annoyed. Instead she said in a satisfied tone, ‘It would be bad if someone who is as old as I am could not get out of worse difficulties than this. If only the male and female owls, who can keep themselves awake all night, would fly off with a couple of messages on my behalf, then I think that everything will go well.’

  Both the tawny owls were willing, and Akka then asked the male owl to go and find the black rats that had gone away and advise them to hurry home at once. The female owl she sent to Flammea, the barn owl, who lived in the cathedral in Lund, with a mission that was so secret that Akka dared entrust only her with it in a whisper.

  THE RAT-CATCHER

  It was approaching midnight, when after much searching the grey rats managed to find a cellar aperture that was open. It was fairly high up on the wall, but the rats set themselves on each other’s shoulders, and it did not take long before the bravest among them was in the aperture, ready to force her way into Glimmingehus, outside whose walls so many of her ancestors had fallen.

  The grey rat sat quietly in the aperture awhile and waited to be attacked. True, the defenders’ main army was away, but she assumed that the black rats who were still in the castle would not give up without a struggle. With beating heart she listened for the slightest noise, but all remained silent. Then the grey rats’ leader plucked up courage and jumped down into the coal-dark cellar.

  One grey rat after another followed the leader. All kept very quiet, and all waited for an ambush by the black rats. Not until so many of them had forced their way into the cellar that the floor could hold no more did they dare go further.

  Although they had never been in the building before, they had no difficulty finding their way. Very soon they located the passages in the wall that the black rats used to get to the upper storeys. Before they started climbing up these narrow, steep paths, they again listened very attentively. They felt much more terrified that the black rats held back in this way than if they had met them in open battle. They could hardly believe their luck when they came up to the first storey without mishap.

  Immediately upon entry the grey rats were met by the smell of the grain that was stored in large bins on the floor. But it was not time yet for them to start enjoying their victory. First they searched with the greatest care through the gloomy, bare rooms. They ran up into the stove that stood in the middle of the floor in the old castle kitchen, and came close to falling down into the well in the inside room. They did not leave one of the narrow light openings uninspected, but still found no black rats. When this floor was completely in their power, they started to take possession of the next one with the same caution. Again they had to venture a laborious and dangerous climb through the walls, while they waited in endless anxiety that the enemy would throw himself over them. And although they were enticed by the most delightful aroma from the grain bins, they forced themselves with the greatest discipline to investigate the pillared common room used by the soldiers in the past, their stone table and stove, the deep window niches and the hole in the floor that in olden days had been taken out in order thereby to be able to pour boiling pitch over an intruding enemy.

  Still the black rats were nowhere to be seen. The grey rats searched up to the third storey with the castle lord’s great banquet hall, which stood just as bare and plain as all the other rooms in the old building, and they even made their way up to the top storey, which consisted solely of a large, deserted room. The only place that they did not think of investigating was the large stork nest on the roof, where just at this time the female owl wakened Akka and told her that Flammea, the barn owl, had granted her request and sent her what she wanted.

  Since the grey rats had investigated the whole castle so conscientiously, they felt calm. They understood that the black rats had fled and did not intend to put up resistance, and they ran with happy hearts up into the grain bins.

  But the grey rats had hardly swallowed the first grains of wheat before from the yard below the sharp sound of a small, shrill pipe was heard. The grey rats raised their heads from the grain, listened worriedly, ran a couple of steps as if they intended to leave the bin, but then turned around and started eating again.

  Again the pipe sounded with a sharp, cutting tone, and now something remarkable happened. One rat, two rats, yes, a whole bunch of rats left the grain, jumped out of the bin and hurried the shortest way down to the cellar to get out of the building. Yet there were still just as many grey rats left. They thought about the effort it had cost them to win Glimmingehus and they did not want to leave it. But the tones of the pipe reached them yet again and they had to follow them. They rushed out of the bins in a wild frenzy, went down through the narrow hole in the walls and tumbled over each other in their eagerness to get out.

  In the middle of the courtyard stood a little imp who was blowing on a pipe. Around him he already had a whole circle of rats who listened to him, amazed and delighted, and more came with every moment. Once, he took the pipe from his mouth for a second to thumb his nose at the rats, and then it looked as if they wanted to throw themselves over him and bite him to death, but as soon as he blew, they were under his power.

  When the imp had played all the grey rats out of Glimmingehus, he slowly started wandering from the courtyard out on to the road, and all the grey rats followed him, because the tones from the pipe sounded so delightful in their ears that they could not resist them.

  The imp went ahead and lured them with him on the road towards Vallby. He led them on in all possible types of circles and bends and curves through hedges and down into ditches, and wherever he went, they had to follow. He blew unceasingly on his pipe, which seemed to be made of an animal horn, although the horn was so little that there is no animal in our day from whose head it could have been broken. No one knew who had made it either. Flammea, the barn owl, found it in a niche in the cathedral in Lund. She had shown it to Bataki, the raven, and together they figured out that it was the sort of horn that used to be made in the past by those who wanted to acquire power over rats and mice. But the raven was Akka’s friend and it was from him that she found out that Flammea owned such a treasure.

  And it was true that the rats could not resist the pipe. The boy
went before them and played, as long as the starlight lasted, and they followed him the whole time. He played at daybreak, he played at sunrise, and still the whole troop of grey rats followed him and were lured farther and farther away from the great grain lofts at Glimmingehus.

  Five

  The Great Crane Dance at Kullaberg

  Tuesday, 29 March

  It must be said that although many magnificent buildings have been erected in Skåne, none of them has such beautiful walls as old Kullaberg.

  Kullaberg is low and long. It is by no means a large or massive hill. On its broad crown there are woods and fields and an occasional heather moor. Here and there round, heather-covered mounds and bare rocks rise up. It is not particularly beautiful; it looks like any other upland ground in Skåne.

  Anyone taking the road that runs straight across the hill can’t help feeling a bit disappointed.

  But then perhaps he turns off from the road, goes out towards the sides of the hill and looks down the rock faces, and then suddenly he finds so much worth seeing that he hardly knows how he can take it all in. For the fact is that Kullaberg is not situated with plains and valleys around it like other hills; instead it has rushed out into the sea as far as it can go. Not the slightest stretch of land lies below the hill to protect it from the sea waves, which reach all the way up to the rock walls and can wear them and shape them as they please.

  For that reason the rock walls stand there as richly ornamented as the sea and its assistant the wind have been able to accomplish. There are steep clefts deeply incised in the sides of the hill, and black promontories that have been worn smooth under the constant whiplashes of the wind. There are solitary rock pillars that stand right up out of the water, and dark grottos with narrow entries. There are vertical, bare precipices and soft, leaf-covered rises. There are small promontories and small bays and small cobblestones, which are rinsed and rattle up and down with every pounding wave. There are stately cliff gates that arch over the water, there are sharp stones constantly sprayed with white foam, and others that are reflected in black-green, changeless still water. There are giant cauldrons that are turned out in the cliff, and massive cracks that lure the wanderer to venture into the depths of the hill all the way up to the Kulla Man’s cave.

  And up and along all these clefts and cliffs vines and tendrils creep and crawl. Trees grow there too, but the power of the wind is so great that the trees also have to turn into creepers to survive out on the rock faces. The oaks are short and stay low to the ground, while the foliage stands over them like a narrow arch, and the short-trunked beeches cower in the clefts like big leaf tents.

  These remarkable rock walls, along with the wide, blue sea beyond them and the shimmering, sharp air above them are what make Kullaberg so dear to humans that large groups of them make their way up there every day as long as summer lasts. It can be harder to see what makes it so attractive for the animals that they gather there every year for a big play date. But this is a custom that has been followed since ancient times, and you had to have been there already when the first breaker shattered into foam against the shore to be able to explain why just Kullaberg was chosen for the meeting place ahead of every other site.

  When the meeting is to take place, the red deer, roe deer, hares, foxes and other wild quadrupeds make the journey to Kullaberg that very night, so as not to be noticed by the humans. Right before the sun rises, they all march up to the playground, which is a heather moor to the left of the road not far from the hill’s outermost promontory.

  The playground is surrounded on all sides by round rock mounds, which conceal it from anyone who does not happen to come right up to it. And in the month of March it is not very likely that any wanderer will go astray there. All the strangers that otherwise roam around on the mounds and climb up the sides of the hill, the autumn storms have already chased away many months ago. And the lighthouse keeper out on the promontory, the old woman in Kullagården farm and the Kulla farmer and his household, they go their usual ways and don’t run around on the desolate heather fields.

  When the quadrupeds have arrived at the playground, they settle down on the round rock mounds. Every species keeps to itself, although it is given that on a day like this general peace prevails and no one need fear being attacked. On this day a little baby hare could wander over the foxes’ mound without losing so much as one of its long ears. But the animals line up anyway in separate flocks. It is ancient custom.

  When all have taken their places, they start to look around for the birds. The weather is almost always beautiful on this day. The cranes are good weathermen and would not call the animals together if they expected rain. But although the air is clear and nothing obstructs the view, the quadrupeds see no birds. This is odd. The sun is high in the sky and the birds should already be on their way.

  What the animals on Kullaberg do notice on the other hand is an occasional dark cloud that is slowly moving ahead over the plain. And look! One of these clouds now suddenly steers along the coast of Öresund up towards Kullaberg. When the cloud has come straight across the playground, it stops, and at the same time the whole cloud starts to ring and chirp, as if it were made up only of tones. It rises and falls, rises and falls, but still it rings and chirps. At last the whole cloud falls down over a hill, the whole cloud at once, and immediately thereafter the hill is completely covered by grey larks, showy red-grey-and-white chaffinches, speckled starlings and yellow-green chickadees.

  Right after that another cloud moves across the plain. It stops over every farm, over migrant workers’ huts and castles, over market towns and cities, over farms and railway stations, over fishing villages and sugar mills. Every time it stops it draws to it from the farms on the ground below a little upwardly whirling pillar of small grey specks of dust. In this way it grows and grows, and when it is finally gathered and moves up towards Kullaberg it is no longer just a cloud, but a whole cloud bank, so large that it casts a shadow on the ground all the way from Höganäs to Mölle. When it stops over the playground, it blocks the sun, and it has to rain grey sparrows down on one of the hills for a long time before the ones who have flown farthest inside the cloud once again see a glimpse of daylight.

  But the largest of these bird clouds is still the one that now appears. It has been formed by flocks that have come travelling from all directions and joined up with it. It is heavy grey-blue, and not a ray of sunshine penetrates through it. It approaches, as gloomy and terrifying as a thundercloud. It is full of the most awful noise, the most horrid shrieking, the most scornful laughter and the most ominous cawing. Everyone at the playground is happy when it finally dissolves in a rain of flapping and cawing, of crows and jackdaws and ravens and rooks.

  After that in the sky not only clouds, but a number of different streaks and signs are visible. Then straight, dotted lines appear in the east and north-east. These are forest birds from the counties in Göinge; black grouse and wood grouse, who come flying in long rows a few metres apart from each other. And the swimming birds who stay at the Måkläppen nature reserve outside Falsterbo now come hovering over Öresund in many peculiar flying formations: in triangles and long dashes, in tilted brackets and semicircles.

  Akka and her flock came later than all the others to the great meeting that took place the year that Nils Holgersson travelled around with the wild geese, and this was not surprising, because Akka had to fly over all of Skåne to get to Kullaberg. Besides, as soon as she woke up she had been forced to go out and find Thumbkin, who for many hours had been playing for the grey rats and luring them far away from Glimmingehus. The male owl had come back with the message that the black rats would be home again right after sunrise and thus it was no lon
ger a danger to let the barn owl’s pipe fall silent and leave the grey rats free to go where they wanted.

  But it was not Akka who discovered the boy, where he was going with his long retinue, and quickly descended upon him, encircled him with his beak and soared up in the air with him, but Herr Ermenrich, the stork. For Herr Ermenrich had also gone out to search for him, and once he had brought him up to the stork nest, he asked him to forgive him for having treated him with disrespect the night before.

  The boy liked this a lot and he and the stork became good friends. Akka also proved to be very friendly to him, stroking her old head several times against his arm and praising him, because he had helped those who were in distress.

  But it must be said in the boy’s honour that he did not want to take praise that he had not earned. ‘No, Mother Akka,’ he said, ‘you should not believe that I lured the grey rats away to help the black rats. I only wanted to show Herr Ermenrich that I was good for something.’

  He had hardly said this before Akka turned to the stork and asked if he thought it was advisable to take Thumbkin along to Kullaberg. ‘I think that we can rely on him like one of us,’ she said. The stork at once very eagerly recommended letting Thumbkin go along. ‘Of course we will take Thumbkin along to Kullaberg, Mother Akka,’ he said. ‘It is a joy for us that we can reward him for everything he has withstood tonight for our sake. And because it still mortifies me that last evening I did not conduct myself towards him in a suitable way, I will be the one who carries him on my back to the meeting place.’