She had done all of that, and learned in a dream that she had to bring home a lotus flower from the deep bog in Denmark, the first flower to touch her breast in the deep water. The place was described precisely, and this flower would save her father.
And that is why she flew in the swan-skin from Egypt to the wild bog. Stork father and stork mother knew all this, and now we know it more clearly than we did before. We know that the bog king pulled her down to himself and know that she is dead and gone for those at home. Only the wisest of all of them still said, like stork mother, “She will take care of herself,” and they waited for that because they didn’t know what else to do.
“I think I’ll filch the swan-skins from those two wretched princesses!” stork father said. “Then they can’t get back to the bog and do any more harm. I’ll hide them up there until there’s a use for them.”
“Where will you hide them there?” asked stork mother.
“In our nest by the bog,” he said. “I can carry them with our youngest children, and if they get too heavy for us, then there are enough places on the way where we can hide them until the next trip. One swan-skin was enough for her, but two are even better. It’s a good thing to have lots of traveling clothes in the northern countries.”
“No one will thank you for it,” said stork mother, “but you’re the boss. Nobody listens to me except in brooding season!”
In the Viking house by the wild bog, where the storks flew towards spring, the little girl had been named. They had called her Helga, but that name was much too sensitive for a nature such as the one the lovely girl had. That became clearer month after month, and as the years passed, and the storks made the same journey—in the fall towards the Nile, in spring toward the bog—the little girl became a big girl, and before you knew it, she was a lovely maiden of sixteen. She had a beautiful shell, but she was hard and rough to the core, and wilder than most in that hard, dark time.
It was a pleasure for her to spatter the steaming blood of the butchered sacrificial horse with her white hands, and with savagery she bit the head off the black hen that the priest was going to butcher. She told her foster father in complete seriousness:
“If your enemies came here and threw a rope over the beams of the roof and tore it off your bedroom while you slept, I wouldn’t wake you if I could. I wouldn’t hear it, that’s how the blood is still rushing in that ear that you boxed years ago! I remember!”
But the Viking didn’t believe her. He was, like the others, fooled by her beauty. He didn’t know how Helga’s soul and skin changed. She sat on her horse as if grown to it, without a saddle, as it galloped at full speed. She wouldn’t jump off even if it started fighting with other angry horses. She often jumped out from the face of the cliff into the fjord with all her clothes on and swam in the swift currents out to meet the Viking as his ship sailed towards land. She cut the longest lock from her lovely, long hair and braided herself a bowstring. “Self made is well made,” she said.
The Viking woman was strong in both will and spirit as women of those times and custom were, but she acted like a gentle, anxious woman towards her daughter. Of course she knew that it was black magic that swayed the dreadful child.
It was as if Helga, out of pure sadistic pleasure, would often sit on the edge of the well when her mother stood on the balcony or walked out in the yard. She would flail her arms and legs around and let herself fall into the narrow, deep hole. There, with her frog nature, she would plop under the water and crawl out again as if she were a cat. Then she would walk into the hall dripping water so that the green leaves that were spread on the floor turned over in the stream of water.
But there was one thing that held little Helga: the twilight. Then she became quiet and a little thoughtful. She would listen and obey. A kind of inner feeling drew her to her mother then, and when the sun sank and the transformation, outer and inner, followed, she sat there still and sad, crumpled together in her frog shape. The body was now much bigger than a normal frog, and just for that reason the more gruesome. She looked like a pitiful dwarf with a frog head and webbing between her fingers. There was something so sad about the eyes that looked out. She had no voice, just a hollow croak like a child who sobs in its dreams. Then the Viking woman would take her in her lap. She forgot the ugly appearance and only looked at the sad eyes and said more than once: “I could almost wish that you were always my mute frog child. You are more awful to look at when the beauty turns outward.”
And she wrote runes against sorcery and sickness and cast them over the miserable child, but there was no improvement.
“You wouldn’t think that she was once so small that she lay in a lily pad,” said stork father. “Now she’s a grown person and looks just like her Egyptian mother whom we never saw again! She didn’t take care of herself, as you and the learned thought she would. I have flown for years now hither and yon across the bog, and there was never a sign of her. Well, I can tell you that in those years when I came up here a few days before you, to repair the nest and mend this and that, I have flown continually across the open water the whole night, as if I were an owl or a bat, but to no use. And we didn’t have any use for the two swan-skins either. The children and I dragged them up here from the land of the Nile, and that was hard enough. It took us three trips. Now they have lain for many years in the bottom of the nest, and if there’s ever a fire here, if the house burns, then they are lost!”
“And our good nest would be gone!” said stork mother. “You think less about that than you do about that feather-suit and your bog princess! You should just go down to her and stay in the mud! You are a poor father for your own children, as I’ve said from the first time I laid eggs. Just so we or the children don’t get an arrow in our wings from that crazy Viking girl! She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She should realize that we have lived here longer than she has. We never forget our duty. We pay our rent every year: a feather, an egg and a young one, as is only right. Do you think I dare to go down there when she’s outside, like I did in the old days, and like I do in Egypt, where I’m like a friend to them—without forgetting who I am—and even peek in the pots and pans? No, I sit up here and am irritated with her, that hussy—and I’m irritated with you too! You should have left her lying in the lily pad. Then she would be gone!”
“You are much more worthy of respect than one would think from your talk,” said stork father. “I know you better than you know yourself.”
And he made a jump, two heavy flaps of his wings, stretched his legs out behind him and flew, sailing away, without moving his wings. He was pretty far away when he gave a powerful wing flap. The sun shone on the white feathers, with the neck and head stretched out in front. He was flying fast and high.
“He is still the handsomest of them all!” said stork mother, “but I won’t tell him that.”
That fall the Viking came home early with his booty and captives. Among these was a young Christian priest, one of those men who persecuted the idols of the northern countries. There had been a lot of talk lately in the halls and among the women about the new religion that had already spread widely in the south, even reaching up to Hedeby by Slien5 through the missionary Ansgar. Even young Helga had heard about the belief in the white Christ, who in love had given himself to save them. But for her it was, as they say, in one ear and out the other. She only seemed to have a sense of the word love when she sat in her shriveled frog shape in her closed-up room. But the Viking woman had listened and felt herself strangely affected by the stories and legends that were going around about the son of one true God.
The men who had come home from their raids told about the magnificent temples of costly chiseled stone that had been raised for the one whose message was love. They had brought home a pair of large, gilded vessels, artistically carved and of pure gold. Each of them had a peculiar spicy fragrance. They were censers that the Christian priests swung in front of the altar where blood never flowed, but wine and consecrated bread were t
ransformed in his blood—He who had given himself for as yet unborn generations.
The young captured Christian priest was brought down into the deep, stony cellar of the log house with his feet and hands bound with ropes of hemp. He was handsome. “He looks like Balder,”6 said the Viking woman, and she was touched by his suffering. But young Helga wanted them to pull a rope through his hamstrings and tie him to the heels of the wild oxen.
“Then I would let the dogs out. Whee! Away across the bogs and thickets to the heath! It would be fun to see, even more fun to follow him on the trip!”
The Viking did not want him to suffer that death, but since he had denied and persecuted the high gods, he would be offered to them tomorrow on the blood stone in the grove. It would be the first human sacrifice there.
Young Helga asked if she could be allowed to spatter the idols and the people with his blood. She sharpened her shiny knife, and when one of the big, ferocious dogs, of whom there were enough of there, ran by her feet, she stuck him in the side with the knife. “I wanted to test it,” she said, and the Viking woman looked sadly at the wild, evil-natured girl. And when night came and the characters of beauty in body and soul shifted in her daughter, she spoke warmly and sincerely to her from deep in her sorrowing soul.
The ugly frog with the troll body stood in front of her, fastened the brown sorrowful eyes on her, listened, and seemed to understand with human thought.
“Never, even to my husband, have I spoken of how doubly I suffer because of you!” said the Viking woman. “There is more pity in my heart for you than I could have believed myself. A mother’s love is great, but there was never love in your heart! Your heart is like a cold clump of mud. From where did you come to my house?”
Then the pathetic creature trembled strangely. It was as if the words touched an invisible bond between body and soul, and big tears appeared in its eyes.
“Hard times will come for you one day!” said the Viking woman. “And it will be terrible for me also! It would have been better if you had been set out on the highway and had the cold of night lull you to death.” And the Viking woman cried bitter tears and went away angry and sad, behind the loose skin curtain that hung over the beam and divided the room.
The huddled-over frog sat alone in the corner. She was silent, but every once in a while from inside her came a partly stifled sigh. It was as if a life was being born in pain deep in her heart. She took a step forward, listened, then went another step and with her clumsy hands grasped the heavy bar that was shoved across the door. Slowly she moved it and quietly pulled the peg that was set in over the latch. She grasped the lit lamp that was standing in the room. It was as if a strong will gave her the strength. She drew the iron peg out of the closed trapdoor and sneaked down to the captive. He was sleeping. She touched him with her cold, clammy hand, and when he awoke and saw the hideous creature, he shivered as if at a dreadful vision. She drew her knife, cut the ropes that bound him, and motioned to him to follow her.
He spoke holy names, made the sign of the cross, and when the creature remained unchanged, he said these words from the Bible:
“‘Blessed is he who considers the poor! The Lord delivers him in the day of trouble.’ Who are you? Why this form of an animal and yet full of acts of compassion?”
The frog beckoned and led him through an empty hallway behind sheltering hides out to the stable and pointed at a horse. He swung himself onto the horse, and she also leaped up and sat in front holding onto the horse’s mane. The captive understood her, and at a rapid pace they rode a path that he never would have found out to the open heath.
He forgot her awful shape and felt that the Lord’s mercy and compassion were working through this monster. He recited pious prayers and sang hymns, and she trembled. Was it the power of the prayer and the song that affected her, or was it a shiver from the cold in the morning that would soon come? What was it she felt? She lifted herself high in the air, wanted to stop the horse and get off, but the Christian priest held her as tightly as he could and sang a hymn loudly as if it could loosen the spell that held her in the hideous frog shape. The horse ran on, and the sky became red. The first ray of the sun shone through the cloud and with the clear flood of light came the transformation. She was again the beautiful young girl with the demonic evil nature. He held the most beautiful young woman in his arms and, terrified at this, he sprang from the horse and stopped it. He thought he had met another wicked wile of witchcraft. But with one jump young Helga was also on the ground. The short child’s dress she was wearing reached only to her knees. She pulled the sharp knife from her belt and rushed at the surprised priest.
“Just let me get you!” she screamed. “Let me get you, and my knife will be in you! You are as pale as hay, you beardless slave!”
She lunged towards him. They wrestled in battle, but it was as if an unseen power gave the Christian strength. He held her tightly, and the old oak tree close by seemed to come to his aid by ensnarling her feet in its roots that were partly loosened from the ground when they slid under them. There was a spring close by, and he splashed the fresh water over her breast and face, prayed for the unclean spirits to leave her, and blessed her as in Christian custom, but the water of baptism does not have any power where there is no inner flood of faith.
But in faith too he was the strong one. More lay in his act than man’s strength against struggling evil power, and it was as if it captivated her. She dropped her arms and looked with a wondering gaze and paling cheeks at this man who seemed to be a powerful wizard, strong in magic and the black arts. Those were dark runes that he read, and he drew symbols in the air. She would not have blinked if he had swung a gleaming axe or a sharp knife towards her eyes, but she did so when he drew the sign of the cross on her forehead and breast. Now she sat like a tame bird with her head bent on her chest.
Then he spoke to her gently of the act of love she had shown towards him in the night when she came to him in the shape of the ugly frog. She had cut his bonds and led him out to light and life. She was also tied, he said, tied with stronger bonds than had bound him, but she also would come to light and life with his help. He would take her to Hedeby, to the holy Ansgar. There, in that Christian place, the enchantment would be broken. But he didn’t dare have her sit in front of him on the horse, even if she sat there willingly.
“You must sit behind me on the horse, not in front. Your magical beauty has a power that comes from evil. I fear it—and yet the victory will be mine in Christ!”
He bent his knee and prayed so piously and sincerely. It was as if the quiet forest was consecrated thereby to a holy church. The birds started singing as if they belonged to the new congregation. The wild curled mint wafted as if it wanted to substitute for the ambergris and incense. He preached aloud the words from Holy Scripture: “To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
And he spoke to her about “creation waiting with eager longing,” and while he talked the horse, that had carried them at such a furious pace, stood still and pulled at the big blackberry vines so that the ripe juicy berries fell down in little Helga’s hand, offering themselves for refreshment.
She patiently allowed herself to be lifted onto the horse’s back, and sat there like a sleepwalker, who neither wakes nor wanders. The Christian man tied two branches together with a cord of fibers in the shape of a cross. He held it high in his hand, and they rode through the forest that became denser and denser. The road went deeper and deeper and finally disappeared altogether. The black-thorns stood like barriers, and they had to ride around them. The spring did not become a running stream, but rather a stagnant bog, and they had to ride around it. There was restoration and refreshment in the fresh forest air, and there lay no less power in the gentle words that resounded with faith and Christian love in the heartfelt desire to lead the possessed one to light and life.
They say that raindrops hollow out the hard rock. Over time the wa
ves of the sea polish the angular stones until they’re round. The dew of grace that fell over little Helga hollowed out the hardness and rounded the sharpness. But she didn’t recognize that, didn’t know it herself. Does the seed in the earth, when it’s dampened by life-giving moisture and the warm rays of the sun, know that it hides growth and a flower within itself?
He bent his knee and prayed so Piously and sincerely.
Just as the mother’s song roots itself unnoticed in the child’s mind, and the child repeats the single words without understanding them until they become clearer with time, so was the word working here, with the power to create.
They rode out of the forest and over the heath and then again through trackless woods, and towards evening they met a band of robbers.
“Where did you steal that beautiful girl from?” they shouted. They stopped the horse and pulled the two riders off, for there were many of them. The priest had no other weapon than the knife he had taken from little Helga, and he thrust with it to all sides. One of the robbers swung his axe, but the young Christian luckily jumped aside, otherwise he would have been struck. The axe flew deeply into the neck of the horse so the blood flowed out, and the animal fell to the ground. Little Helga, who awoke from her long, deep trance, threw herself over the gasping horse. The Christian priest stood in front of her to defend her, but one of the robbers swung his heavy iron hammer against his forehead so that it smashed, and blood and brains sprayed all around. He fell to the ground dead.
Fairy Tales (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 46
