Yet had she not the faith herself, it was that very attribute in the young priest that gave him power over her. His strength fascinated her, and she let her arms fall to her sides and stopped fighting with him. To her he seemed a mighty magician: pale and amazed, she looked at this man who knew so many enchantments and charms. To her, his prayers and psalms sounded like magic and the sign of the Cross looked like witchcraft. Had the young man swung a knife or a sharp ax in front of her face, she would not have blinked; but, when he drew with his finger the sign of the Cross on her forehead, she shuddered and closed her eyes. There she sat like a tame bird, with her head bowed.
He spoke to her gently about that deed of love she had performed herself when, in her frog shape, she had come and cut the ropes that held him and led him back to freedom and to life. She was still bound by bands far stronger than those a knife could cut. But also she could gain her freedom and learn to love the eternal light of God. He would take her to Hedeby, the town where the holy Ansgarius lived and worked. He would be able to break the spell.
Although she was willing to ride in front of him, he would not allow her to. “You must sit behind me on the horse, for your magic beauty comes from the Evil One, I fear it!” said the young priest, paused and then added: “But the victory was mine, in Christ!”
He fell on his knees and prayed most piously. The whole forest became a holy church; the birds sang as if they belonged to the congregation, and the wild mint smelled so fragrantly that one could believe it was trying its best to pretend that it was incense. The young priest said aloud the words from the Gospel: “ ‘To give light to them that sit in the darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’ ”
Then he preached about the nature of God and His love for all; and while he spoke the horse stood still as if it, too, were listening.
Patiently, Helga let the young priest help her up on the animal’s back and there she sat like a sleepwalker. The young man tied two twigs together in the form of a cross and, holding the sign before him, they rode deeper and deeper into the forest. The trees grew close together, the road became narrower and narrower; soon it was hardly a path. Sharp brambles grew everywhere and scratched the travelers as they forced their way through them. They followed a stream that soon became a swamp and they had difficulty finding their way around it.
The young priest talked while they rode. His words were not without power, for his faith in the mild God of love, Whom he followed, was great, and he was earnest in his wish to save this young girl’s soul. Drops of water will hollow out the hardest stone and the surf of the ocean will wear down the sharpest reefs. Now the dew of God’s grace was wearing down the hardness in Helga’s soul. She did not know it, any more than the seed in the earth knows that the warm sun and the rain are bringing forth its green sprouts and its flower.
As the mother’s lullaby enters the baby’s mind and the child can repeat the sounds without understanding their meaning, so did the young priest’s words enter Helga’s soul.
The forest gave way to open country but not for long; the green woods soon closed around them again. Just before sunset they met a band of robbers.
“Where have you stolen that beautiful maid!” one of them cried as he grabbed the bridle, while the others forced the riders down from their horse.
They were many and the priest had no other weapon than the knife he had taken from Helga. He defended himself well with it; one of the robbers flung an ax at him but he sprang aside and the ax made a deep wound in the neck of the horse. The blood spouted out of the gash and the animal fell to the ground. Then Helga, who had seemed to be in a trance, suddenly awoke and threw herself upon the dying beast. The young priest stood in front of her to protect her, but one of the robbers swung his heavy iron hammer and hit the young man’s head so hard that his skull was split. Blood and brain spattered all around him as he fell to the ground, dead.
The robbers grabbed Helga’s white arms, but just at that moment the sun set; the last ray of its light disappeared and she changed into an ugly frog. A whitish-green mouth covered her whole face, her arms became thin and slimy, her fine hands became broad with webs between the fingers. The robbers let go of her in horror; there she stood as an ugly monster in their midst. True to her frog nature, she jumped high above the robbers’ heads and disappeared in the greenery. The robbers thought that what they had seen was the secret magic of the evil demigod Loke, and they hurried away.
The full moon had risen in the sky when Helga in her pitiful frog shape climbed out of the thicket. She stopped by the bodies of the priest and the dead horse and looked down at them with eyes in which there almost were tears. She made the same sobbing sound a child makes just before starting to cry, and threw herself down over one and then the other of the still bodies. She carried water from a nearby stream and sprayed it on them in the hope of reviving them. But dead they were and dead they would remain. The thought that the wild animals of the woods would eat them was too horrible to bear. She began to dig in the earth, but she had no spade, only a stick: a thick branch of a tree. The webs between her fingers burst and bled.
Soon she realized that she would never be able to dig a hole deep enough. She washed the blood from the dead priest’s face and covered it with fresh leaves; then she took the biggest branches she could find and piled them over the bodies of the man and the horse. She knew that even this would not keep the wolves or foxes away, and therefore she looked for the biggest stones that she could carry, and placed them on top of the branches. When the mound was finished she stuffed moss between the stones, and only then did she believe that the grave would be undisturbed.
It had taken her the whole night to finish her work. Now the sun rose, and in its first rays Helga stood as beautiful as ever, but her fine hands were bleeding and for the first time tears ran down her blushing, youthful cheeks.
Now the two natures within her fought. She trembled as if she had had a fever. She looked about with fear and wonder in her eyes. She appeared like a person that had just awakened from a nightmare. She rushed over to a birch tree and held onto it to support herself; then suddenly she climbed up the tree agilely as a squirrel. There in the top of the tree she remained all day sitting perfectly motionless.
All around her reigned the stillness of the forest—thus it is often described, although if one listens carefully and looks closely enough, nature is never still. Two butterflies flew in circles around each other: were they fighting or playing? At the foot of the tree in which the frightened Helga sat were some anthills, and hundreds of tiny creatures moved unceasingly in and out of their homes. In the air danced clouds of little flies and mosquitoes, and big dragonflies flew about on their golden wings. Earthworms crawled out of the wet ground, and moles emptied the earth from their burrows, making little hills. But no one saw little Helga or paid any attention to her, except for a couple of magpies. They landed on the branch on which Helga was sitting. She did not move and the birds, as filled with curiosity as only magpies can be, hopped a little closer to her. The girl blinked and that was enough to frighten the birds. They flew away no wiser than they had come.
When the sun was near setting, Helga felt herself beginning to transform and she slid down the trunk of the tree. When the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, she stood as an ugly frog once more, her webbed hands still torn from the work of the night before. But her eyes had changed, they were not a frog’s but the lovely eyes of a young girl, the mirror of a human soul.
Near the grave lay the cross that the young priest had made, the last work of his own hands. Helga picked it up and planted it among the stones that covered the dead priest and the horse. The act brought back the memory of the day before, and she burst into tears. In grief, she decided to make a border of crosses around the graves to decorate them. As she drew the crosses the webs between her fingers fell off: like a torn glove, they lay in the dust. She walked down to the stream and washed; with wonder she looked at her fine w
hite hands. She made the sign of the Cross in the air in the direction of the grave. Her broad frog mouth quivered; her tongue tried to form a word, and that name she had heard so often on that ride through the forest came from her lips. Clearly and distinctly she spoke: “Jesus Christ.”
The frog skin fell from her body and there she stood in all her youthful, girlish beauty. But her head was bent; she was tired and she lay down on the moss by the stream and slept.
Toward midnight she awoke. In front of her stood the dead horse; little flames played in the wound on its neck and its eyes glowed. Close by the horse stood the young priest. “More beautiful than Balder,” would the Viking woman have said, if she had seen him. Like the horse, he was strangely luminous.
He looked at Helga with eyes so sad and serious and yet so gentle, she felt that she was being judged justly and that there was no corner of her heart that he did not see. With that sharpness of memory that the souls will have on the Day of Judgment, Helga remembered her life. Every kindness performed toward her, every loving word spoken to her, became terribly real. She understood that it was love that had fought and been victorious in the struggle within her, between her soul and the mire from the bog. She realized that she had followed a will greater than her own and that she herself had not been the maker of her own fate. She had been guided and led. She bent her head humbly in front of Him who can see into the most secret compartment of our hearts. And in that moment she felt a flame that purified her, the flame of the Holy Ghost.
“You, daughter of the bog,” said the ghost of the priest, “of earth were you made and from the earth you shall be resurrected. The sunbeam within you shall return to its Maker, not to the sun but to God. No soul is doomed, but earthly life can be long and the flight into eternity can seem endless. I come from the land of the dead, where the radiant mountains are, and where all perfection lives. You, too, shall one day travel through the dark valleys to that land. I cannot lead you to Hedeby and a Christian baptism now, for you have a duty to perform back in the bog. You must return and break the shield of water that covers and hides the living root from which you grew.”
He lifted her up on the horse and gave her a golden censer to hold like the ones she had seen in the Vikings’ hall. A strong, sweet fragrance came from it. The wound in the young priest’s head shone like a jewel as he picked up the cross and, holding it high, mounted the horse. The horse galloped but not along the paths—no, they flew through the air, high above the forest. Far down below them, Helga could see the mounds where Viking chiefs had been buried mounted on their horses. Now they rose, these giant specters of man and horse, and stood on top of their grave-hills. In the moonlight the golden bands around their foreheads shone, while their capes fluttered in the wind. The monstrous lind-worm that guards buried treasure stuck its ugly head out of its cave and looked about. Tiny dwarfs ran back and forth carrying lanterns; they looked like sparks from the ashes of burned paper.
Above the heath, the forest, the lakes, and streams they flew, toward the great bog. They circled it and the priest held high the cross, and in the moonlight the two sticks looked like gold. He chanted the mass, and when he sang a hymn, Helga sang too, like a child copying her mother. She swung the censer, and the fragrance of incense spread across the bog and became so strong that the reeds in the swamp shot forth blossoms, and from the muddy depth water lilies sprouted and grew. Everything alive responded, and the dark waters of the bog became covered by a colorful tapestry of water lilies. In the center of it lay a sleeping woman, young and beautiful. Helga thought that she was seeing her own reflection in the water; but it was the bog king’s wife, the princess from Egypt.
The dead priest ordered that the sleeping woman be lifted up on the horse, but the burden was too great, the body of the horse was now like a shroud in the wind. The priest made the sign of the Cross and the phantom horse gained strength enough to carry all three of them onto the shore.
Just as they reached solid ground the cock crowed. The priest and the horse became a mist that was borne away by the wind. Helga and her mother stood facing each other, alone.
“Is this my own image I see, reflected in the deep waters?” asked the mother.
“Is that myself I see mirrored in the lake’s shiny shield?” exclaimed the daughter.
The two drew near to each other and embraced. The mother understood who it was she held in her arms. “My daughter, the flower of my heart! The lotus of the deep waters,” she said, and cried. Her tears were like a baptism of love for Helga.
“In a swanskin I came here and I shed it by the dark lake,” the mother explained. “Then I sank down into the deep mire of the bog and it closed around me like a dark wall. Something drew me down, ever downward. I felt a pressure on my eyes, as if sleep were closing them. And I did sleep, I dreamed. I was back in Egypt in the stone chamber of the pyramid. In front of me stood the trunk of the alder tree that had frightened me so, when I stood on the shores of this lake. I looked closely at the cracks and clefts in its bark, and they gained color and became the hieroglyphic writing on a casket such as mummies are laid in. As I stared at it, it opened and out stepped the ancient king: a mummy, black as pitch, glittering like the black slugs that creep in the forest. Whether it was the bog king or the mummy from the pyramids, I did not know. He flung his arms around me, and I felt that now I would die. But life did not desert me. I felt a warmth in my chest. The bog king was gone and a little bird was singing and flapping its wings. It flew from my chest up toward the dark ceiling: a long green string connected the bird to me. I heard its song and understood its message: ‘Freedom! Sunshine!’ A longing for the father of things! I thought of my own father, far away in the sun-drenched land of Egypt. I loosened the string and freed the bird, let it fly home to my father. A deep, heavy sleep came over me and I dreamed no more, until a fragrance and chanting voices woke me and drew me up from the dark.”
The green string from the mother’s heart to the bird’s wing, where was it now? Thrown away among other useless things. Only the stork had seen it. It was the green stalk that had shot up through the water to form the flower that had made a cradle for the child who now stood beside her mother.
While they stood there embracing, the stork saw them and flew in circles above them. Then he flew back to the nest to get the swanskins he had kept there so faithfully. He threw one to each of the women. The feathery skins covered them, and they rose from the ground as two white swans.
“Now we can talk together,” said the stork, flying beside them. “True, we have not the same shaped bills, but we will understand each other. It was lucky that you came this morning. If you had waited a day longer we would have been gone. My wife and I and the young ones will be going south today.… Yes, look at me, I am an old friend of yours from the Nile. So is my wife. Her heart is softer than her bill; she was always of the opinion that the princess would take care of herself. My children and I have carried the swanskins up here.… Oh, it makes me happy to see you! It is so lucky that we are still here. As soon as the sun is high in the sky we will be gone. We are not flying alone, there is a whole party of storks going. We will fly ahead and you can follow, then you won’t lose your way; but don’t worry, my youngsters and I will keep an eye on you.”
“The lotus flower that I was to bring will fly beside me,” said the Egyptian princess. “The flower of my heart I bring and the riddle has been solved. Homeward! Homeward!”
But Helga insisted that she could not leave before she had bade good-by to her foster mother, the Viking chieftain’s wife. She remembered every kind word, every tear her foster mother had shed because of her; and at that moment she loved her more than she loved her real mother.
“Yes,” said the stork. “Let us fly to the Vikings’ hall. There my wife and children are waiting. They will open their eyes wide and clatter their bills when they see you. Not that my wife is one for idle clatter; she talks in short sentences, but she means every word she says. I will make a clatter so they
know we are coming.”
And the stork clattered loudly with his long bill, and away they flew to the Viking hall.
There everybody was still asleep. Helga’s foster mother had lain awake until late, worrying about what could have happened to her daughter who had disappeared together with the Christian priest three days before. She realized that Helga must have helped him to escape, for it was her horse that was missing in the stable. What strange powers had been the cause of this? The Viking woman had pondered long about it. She had heard that Christ had performed miracles for those who followed him. These thoughts stayed with her in her sleep and became real in her dreams. She dreamed that she was awake, sitting up in her bed; outside the world was dark and a horrible storm was brewing. Now the winds gathered, she could hear the surf breaking on the beaches; the great Midgard-worm which encircles the earth was racked by convulsions. The days of the old gods were over, their night had come: Ragnarok, the last battle of the gods, was being fought. The end of the world was near; now the gods would die. The horns blew, and over the rainbow rode the gods, clad in armor, on their way to fight their last battle. In front of them flew the valkyries and behind them walked the Viking chiefs, whom fame had brought to Odin’s hall. The northern lights glittered as they illuminated the sky and yet darkness was victorious. It was a fearful sight.
Close to the frightened woman sat little Helga in her frog shape; she also seemed filled with fear, she drew closer to her foster mother. And the Viking woman dreamed that she took the frog on her lap and held it close; in spite of its horrible shape she pressed it with love to her heart. Outside the hall the sound of a furious battle could be heard. The arrows flew like hailstones. The time had come when the earth and the heavens would burst and the stars fall from the sky. All would be destroyed in the great fire, but from its ashes a new earth and heaven would rise. She knew it would come, and that grain would grow where now the waves of the salt sea rolled over the desolate sand. Balder, the gentle loving God, would be released from the Kingdom of the Shadows and rise into the heavens. He came! In her dream the Viking woman saw him, and she recognized him. Balder the God was the Christian priest.
The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories Page 65