The Wonderful Adventures of Nils quotes

Once there was a boy. He was⁠—let us say⁠—something like fourteen years old; long and loose-jointed and towheaded. He wasn’t good for much, that boy.

His chief delight was to eat and sleep; and after that—he liked best to make mischief.

Once there was a boy. He was—let us say—something like fourteen years old; long and loose-jointed and towheaded. He wasn’t good for much, that boy.

His chief delight was to eat and sleep; and after that⁠—he liked best to make mischief.

It was a Sunday morning and the boy’s parents were getting ready to go to church.

He looked and looked—and did not want to believe his eyes. But the thing, which at first seemed shadowy, became more and more clear to him; and soon he saw that it was something real.

It was no less a thing than an elf who sat there⁠—astride the edge of the chest!

To be sure, the boy had heard stories about elves, but he had never dreamed that they were such tiny creatures. He was no taller than a hand’s breadth—this one, who sat on the edge of the chest.

The boy was somewhat surprised to see the elf, but, on the other hand, he was not particularly frightened.

It was impossible to be afraid of one who was so little.

And since the elf was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he neither saw nor heard, the boy thought that it would be great fun to play a trick on him;

The Commentary lay on the table and, to all appearances, it was not changed; but there must have been something queer about that too, for he could not manage to read a single word of it, without actually standing right in the book itself.

He read a couple of lines, and then he chanced to look up. With that, his glance fell on the looking-glass; and then he cried aloud: “Look! There’s another one!”

For in the glass he saw plainly a little, little creature who was dressed in a hood and leather breeches.

or that there rose from the earth such a fine scent of resin and soil. Nor had he ever dreamed what it could be like—to ride so high above the earth.

It was just like flying away from sorrow and trouble and annoyances of every kind that could be thought of.

He was so cold and numb that he almost lost his hold around the branch; and he was dreadfully sleepy; but he didn’t dare fall asleep for fear of tumbling down.

My! but it was dismal to sit in that way the whole night through, out in the forest!

He never before understood the real meaning of “night.” It was just as if the whole world had become petrified, and never could come to life again.

My! but it was dismal to sit in that way the whole night through, out in the forest! He never before understood the real meaning of “night.”

It was just as if the whole world had become petrified, and never could come to life again.

Then it commenced to dawn. The boy was glad that everything began to look like itself once more; although the chill was even sharper than it had been during the night.

The boy came near crying with regret; but the sun stood up there—orange-coloured and happy—and put courage into the whole world.

“It isn’t worth while, Nils Holgersson, for you to be troubled about anything, as long as I’m here,” said the sun.

Everything remained unchanged in the forest—about as long as it takes a goose to eat her breakfast. But just as the morning was verging on forenoon, a goose came flying, all by herself, under the thick tree-canopy.

When Smirre Fox sank down on a pile of dry leaves, weak and powerless and almost ready to give up the ghost, they stopped teasing him.

“Now you know, Mr. Fox, what happens to the one who dares to come near Akka of Kebnekaise!”

they shouted in his ear; and with that they left him in peace.

one stood on one leg and swung round; one walked upon his forepaws. There was no regulation whatever, but there was much that was droll in the hares’ play; and the many animals who stood and watched them began to breathe faster.

Now it was spring; joy and rapture were advancing. Winter was over; summer was coming. Soon it was only play to live.

When the hares had romped themselves out, it was the great forest birds’ turn to perform. Hundreds of wood-grouse in shining dark-brown array, and with bright red eyebrows, flung themselves up into a great oak that stood in the centre of the playground.

There was something marvellous and strange about their dance. It was as though gray shadows had played a game which the eye could scarcely follow. It was as if they had learned it from the mists that hover over desolate morasses.

There was witchcraft in it.

All those who had never before been on Kullaberg understood why the whole meeting took its name from the crane’s dance. There was wildness in it; but yet the feeling which it awakened was a delicious longing. No one thought any more about struggling.

Instead, both the winged and those who had no wings, all wanted to raise themselves eternally, lift themselves above the clouds, seek that which was hidden beyond them, leave the oppressive body that dragged them down to Earth and soar away toward the infinite.

Such longing after the unattainable, after the hidden mysteries back of this life, the animals felt only once a year; and this was on the day when they beheld the great crane dance.

Then he thought how human beings had built it, that they might hear about another world than the one in which they lived, of God and the resurrection and eternal life. And the longer he walked there, the better he liked human beings.

It is so with children that they never think any farther ahead than the length of their noses.

That which lies nearest them, they want promptly, without caring what it may cost them. Nils Holgersson had not understood what he was losing when he chose to remain an elf;

In the beginning it probably oozed over the whole stairway, big as it was; then cracks appeared in it, and, gradually, the water has accustomed itself to flow alongside of it, in well dug out grooves.

And water is water, whatever one does with it. It never has any rest.

In one place it cuts and files away, and in another it adds to. Those grooves it has dug into vales, and the walls of the vales it has decked with soil;

Akka said no more, and after Smirre had sent up a few more yowls, all was still. The boy lay all the while awake. Now it was Akka’s words to the fox that prevented him from sleeping.

Never had he dreamed that he should hear anything so great as that anyone was willing to risk life for his sake. From that moment, it could no longer be said of Nils Holgersson that he did not care for anyone.

But before the geese had reached the water, the west storm caught up with them. Already, it drove before it fogs, salt scum and small birds; it also snatched with it the wild geese, threw them on end, and cast them toward the sea.

It was a rough storm.

The wild geese tried to turn back, time and again, but they couldn’t do it and were driven out toward the East sea. The storm had already blown them past Öland, and the sea lay before them—empty and desolate.

“You surely cannot mean, father, that a poor little creature like me should be able to get at them, when neither you nor the peasants have succeeded in getting the better of them.”

“He that is little and spry can put many things to rights,” said the big ram.

They talked no more about this, and the boy went over and seated himself among the wild geese who fed on the highland.

gables that were inlaid with multicoloured bits of glass, and gables that were striped and checked with white and black marble. As the boy admired all this, a sudden sense of haste came over him.

“Anything like this my eyes have never seen before. Anything like this, they would never see again,”

he said to himself. And he began to run in toward the city—up one street, and down another.

He saw neither the cheery cottages on the side streets, with their black walls, and white bows and red pelargoniums behind the shining windowpanes, nor the many pretty gardens and avenues, nor the beauty in the weed-clad ruins.

His eyes were so filled with the preceding glory, that he could not see anything good in the present.

The wild geese flew back and forth over the city a couple of times, so that Thumbietot might see everything. Finally they sank down on the grass-grown floor of a cathedral ruin to spend the night.

“Surely you’re not afraid of an old and sick woman,” said the cow. “But you do not need to go into the cabin. Just stand outside the door and peep in through the crack!”

“Oh! if that is all you ask of me, I’ll do it of course,” said the boy.

With that he opened the cowshed door and went out in the yard. It was a fearful night! Neither moon nor stars shone; the wind blew a gale, and the rain came down in torrents.

“

Pity him who is little!

” said the boy as he ventured out in the yard. And he had a right to say this, for he was blown down twice before he got to the house:

He hunted up the psalm book, and seated himself to read a couple of psalms in an undertone. But in the middle of the reading he paused—because he had begun to think about his mother and father.

Think, that parents can long so for their children! This he had never known.

Think, that life can be as though it was over for them when the children are away! Think, if those at home longed for him in the same way that this old peasant woman had longed!

This thought made him happy, but he dared not believe in it. He had not been such a one that anybody could long for him.

But what he had not been, perhaps he could become.

Round about him he saw the portraits of those who were away. They were big, strong men and women with earnest faces. There were brides in long veils, and gentlemen in fine clothes; and there were children with waved hair and pretty white dresses.

When the workmen heard the answer, they believed it was their own longing that made the goose-cackle sound like human speech. “Take us along with you!”

“Not this year,” answered the boy. “Not this year.”

Next, the geese rode over the well-known match factory, which lies on the shores of Vettern—large as a fortress—and lifts its high chimneys toward the sky. Not a soul moved out in the yards; but in a large hall young working-women sat and filled matchboxes.

“ ‘

I am sitting and thinking about high and holy things,

’ answered she.

There he paused. He looked in at the narrow pen where he had lived up till now; saw the beaten ground, the stale fodder, the little trough where he had drunk water, and the dark shed in which he had slept.

“The elk are one with the forest!” he cried.

Then he threw back his head, so that his neck rested against his back, and rushed wildly into the woods.

It seemed as though her real abode must have been at Asker; but she used also to appear at other places. Nowhere in all Närke could one be sure of not meeting her.

She was no dark, mournful witch, but gay and frolicsome; and what she loved most of all was a gale of wind.

As soon as there was wind enough, off she would fly to the Närke plain for a good dance. On days when a whirlwind swept the plain, Ysätter-Kaisa had fun!

He listened, and at once understood that it was nothing—only the wind roaring in the chimney.

But the queer thing about it was, when the wind repeated his thoughts, they seemed so strangely stupid and hard and false!

The children meanwhile had stretched themselves, side by side, on the floor. They were not quiet, but lay there muttering.

“What would father have said of this?”

“Father had his day at ruling,” retorted the mother. “Now it is your day. As long as father lived we had to obey him. Now is the time to show what you are.”

Her son was so astonished that he ceased crying.

During the tussle the boy got loose, ran over to the wall, and started to scale it. Then both cubs scurried after him, and, nimbly scaling the cliff, they caught up with him and tossed him down on the moss, like a ball.

“Now I know how a poor little mousie fares when it falls into the cat’s claws,” thought the boy.

He made several attempts to get away. He ran deep down into the old tunnel and hid behind the rocks and climbed the birches, but the cubs hunted him out, go where he would.

This is the heart of your country, Clement. All the change you have in your pocket is coined here, and the postage stamps you stick on your letters are made here. There is something here for every Swede.

Here no one need feel homesick, for here all Swedes are at home.

“And when you read of all that has been brought here to Stockholm, think too of the latest that the city has attracted to itself: these old-time peasant cottages here at Skansen; the old dances; the old costumes and house-furnishings; the musicians and storytellers.

“Why do grouse and lemming run and hide when they see my shadow on the cliff?” he queried. “They don’t show such fear of the other goslings.”

“Your wings grew too big when you were on the cliff,” said Akka. “It is that which frightens the little wretches. But don’t be unhappy because of that. You’ll be a fine bird all the same.”

After the eagle had learned to fly, he taught himself to fish, and to catch frogs. But by and by he began to ponder this also.

The cage stood out in the open, and was so large that a couple of trees had easily been moved into it, and quite a large cairn was piled up in there.

Notwithstanding all this, the birds were unhappy.

They sat motionless on the same spot nearly all day. Their pretty, dark feather dresses became rough and lustreless, and their eyes were riveted with hopeless longing on the sky without.

Gorgo scarcely raised his head. “Don’t disturb me, Thumbietot,” he yawned.

“I’m sitting here dreaming that I am free, and am soaring away up among the clouds. I don’t want to be awake.”

“You must rouse yourself, and see what goes on around you,” the boy admonished, “or you will soon look as wretched as the other eagles.”

The little patches of soil in crevices and between stones were without ferns, without starflowers, without all the green and red and light and soft and soothing things which usually clothe the forest ground.

It was as if a bright light flashed upon the mountain when all the parish children covered it.

Here again was something sweet and delicate; something fresh and rosy; something young and growing. Perhaps these children would bring to the poor abandoned forest a little new life.

The land which spread below them was Southern Medelpad. When the eagle heard the boy’s remark, he replied:

“Up here they have forests for fields.”

The boy thought of the contrast between the light, golden-rye fields with their delicate blades that spring up in one summer, and the dark spruce forest with its solid trees which took many years to ripen for harvest.

Ah, look! Now smoke curled up in many places on the ridge.

The forest fire was both bird and snake.

It could fly in the air over wide stretches, or steal along the ground. The whole ridge was ablaze!

Everybody liked her. Many were astonished because she could be so calm after all that she had passed through, but the mother was very strong and patient. When anyone spoke to her of her two sturdy children, she only said:

“I shall soon lose them also,”

without a quaver in her voice or a tear in her eye. She had accustomed herself to expect nothing else.

“She will find kind parents and kind brothers and sisters in the tent,” insisted Ola Serka.

“It’s worse to be alone than to freeze.”

The fisherman became more and more zealous to prevent the adoption. It seemed as if he could not bear the thought of a child of Swedish parents being taken in by Laplanders.

“We’re so hungry, we can’t fly any more!” whimpered the goslings. “We’re so hungry, we can’t fly any more!”

“Wild geese must learn to eat air and drink wind,” said the leader-goose, and kept right on flying.

It actually seemed as if the young ones were learning to live on wind and air, for when they had flown a little longer, they said nothing more about being hungry.

“We haven’t room in our heads for any more of those awful names!” shrieked the goslings.

“The more you put into your heads the more you can get into them,” retorted the leader-goose, and continued to call out the queer names.

The boy sat thinking that it was about time the wild geese betook themselves southward, for so much snow had fallen that the ground was white as far as the eye could see.

“You can ask Akka yourself,” said Bataki. “I see her coming up there with her whole flock. And don’t forget what I have told you today.

There is usually a way out of all difficulties, if only one can find it.

I shall be interested to see what success you have.”

They had lived by themselves, and this was why so many stories and legends were stowed away in their memories. They had worn homespun clothes, but they had also been able to lead carefree and independent lives.

“Nowhere else in the world do they know how to get so much out of life as they did at one of these little homesteads in my childhood!”

she thought. “There was just enough work and just enough play, and every day there was a joy. How I should love to come back here again! Now that I have seen the place, it is hard to leave it.”

The moment she had said this the flock of doves rose and flew away. She tried to follow them with her eyes, but they vanished instantly.

It was as if the whole white company had dissolved in the shimmering air.

The doves had only just gone when she heard a couple of piercing cries from the garden, and as she hastened thither she saw a singular sight. There stood a tiny midget, no taller than a hand’s breadth, struggling with a brown owl.