The Wonderful Adventure of Nils Holgersson

by Selma Lagerlof

  Shortly after that the crows continued. So far the boy had thought to himself that Småland was not such a poor country as he had heard. To be sure it was woody and full of ridges, but along rivers and lakes was cultivated land, and he had not encountered any real desolation. But as they came farther into the country, there were fewer and fewer villages and cottages. At last he thought that he was travelling over a real desert, where he saw nothing other than marshes and moors and juniper-clad hills.

  The sun had gone down, but it was still light out when the crows reached the large heather moor. Wind-Ile sent one crow in advance to report that he had had success, and when it became known, Wind-Kåra took off with several hundred crows from Kråkåsen to meet the arrivals. In the middle of the deafening cawing raised by the reception of the crows, Fumle-Drumle now said to the boy, ‘You’ve been so amusing and happy during the journey that I really like you. For that reason I’ll give you some good advice. As soon as we set down, you will be asked to perform a task that may seem very easy to you. But be careful about doing it!’

  Right after that Fumle-Drumle set Nils Holgersson down on the bottom of a sandpit. The boy threw himself down and remained lying there, as if he were exhausted. So many crows flapped around him that the air was roaring like a storm, but he did not look up.

  ‘Thumbkin!’ said Wind-Ile. ‘Get up now! Now you will help us with something that will be very easy for you.’

  But the boy did not move. Instead, he pretended to be asleep. Then Wind-Ile took him by the arm and dragged him across the sand to an old-fashioned clay pot in the middle of the pit. ‘Get up, Thumbkin,’ he said, ‘and open this pot!’

  ‘Why can’t you let me sleep?’ the boy said. ‘I’m too tired to do anything tonight. Wait till tomorrow!’

  ‘Open the pot!’ Wind-Ile said, shaking him. The boy then sat up and carefully examined the pot. ‘How can I, a poor child, open such a pot? It’s as big as I am.’

  ‘Open it!’ Wind-Ile ordered again. ‘Otherwise you’ll be in big trouble.’

  The boy stood up, staggered over to the pot, felt the lid and dropped his arms. ‘I’m not usually this weak,’ he said. ‘If you’ll just let me sleep until tomorrow, I think I can probably manage the lid.’

  But Wind-Ile was impatient, and he rushed over and nipped the boy on the leg. The boy would not tolerate such treatment from a crow. He quickly pulled himself loose, ran a couple of steps backwards, pulled his knife from its sheath and held it stretched out in front of him. ‘Watch out now!’ he called to Wind-Ile.

  Wind-Ile was nevertheless so embittered that he did not dodge the danger. As if he had been blind, he rushed towards the boy and ran right against the knife so that it penetrated through his eye into his brain. The boy quickly pulled the knife back, but Wind-Ile only flapped his wings. Then he sank down dead.

  ‘Wind-Ile is dead! The stranger has killed our chieftain, Wind-Ile!’ the crows closest by called and then a terrible racket arose. Some wailed, others called for revenge. All of them ran or flapped towards the boy, with Fumle-Drumle in the lead. But as usual he behaved crazily. He just flapped with outspread wings over the boy and prevented the others from coming up and drilling their beaks into him.

  Now the boy really thought that he was in a bad way. He could not run away from the crows and there was no place where he could hide. But then he happened to think about the clay pot. He took a firm hold on the lid and pulled it off. Then he jumped up into the pot to hide himself in it. But it was a bad hiding place, because it was almost filled to the brim with small, thin silver coins. The boy could not get deep enough down into it. Then he leaned over and started throwing out the coins.

  So far the crows had been flapping around him in a dense swarm, hacking at him, but when he threw out the coins they suddenly forgot their desire for revenge and hurried to gather them. The boy threw out fistfuls of coins and all the crows – yes, even Wind-Kåra – caught them up. And each and every one of them who managed to get hold of a coin, went off in the greatest haste to their nest to hide it.

  When the boy had thrown all the silver coins out of the pot, he looked up. Not more than a single crow was still in the sandpit. It was Fumle-Drumle with the white feather in his wing, the one who had carried him. ‘You’ve done me a greater service, Thumbkin, than you yourself understand,’ the crow said in a quite different voice and tone than before. ‘And I want to save your life. Get up on my back, then I will carry you to a hiding place where you will be safe tonight! Tomorrow I will arrange it so that you get back to the wild geese.’

  THE COTTAGE

  Thursday, 14 April

  The next morning when the boy woke up he was in a bed. When he saw that he was indoors with four walls around him and a roof over him, he thought he was home.

  ‘I wonder if Mother is coming with coffee soon?’ he mumbled, half-asleep. But then he remembered that he was in an abandoned cottage on Kråkåsen, and that Fumle-Drumle with the white feather had carried him there the night before.

  The boy’s whole body was sore after the journey he had made the day before and he thought it was nice to lie still while he waited for Fumle-Drumle, who had promised to come and get him.

  Chequered cotton curtains were hanging in front of the bed, and he pushed them to the side to see out into the cottage. It was clear to him at once that he had never seen the likes of a building like this. The walls consisted of only a few rows of logs; then the roof started. There was no ceiling; he could see all the way to the roof ridge. The whole cottage was so small that it seemed to be made for someone like him rather than for real people, but even so the stove and hearth were larger than any he had ever seen. The entry door was on the end wall beside the stove and was so narrow it was more like a hatch. On the wall at the other end he saw a low, wide window with many small panes. There was almost no movable furniture in the cottage. The bench on the one long side and the table under the window were built-in, as was the motley cupboard and the big bed where he was lying.

  The boy could not help wondering who owned the cottage and why it was abandoned. To be sure, it looked as if the people who had lived there intended to come back. The coffee kettle and porridge pot were still on the stove, and there was a little wood in the stove corner. The oven rake and bread peel were standing in a corner, the spinning wheel had been moved on to a bench, on the shelf above the window were flax and tow, a couple of skeins of yarn, a tallow candle and a bundle of matches.

  Yes, it certainly appeared as if those who owned the cottage intended to come back. There was bedding on the bed and on the wall there were still long strips of fabric, where three men on horseback, whose names were Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, were painted. The same horses and the same riders were depicted many times. They rode around the whole cottage and continued their journey even up the roof beams.

  But by the ceiling the boy caught sight of something that got him on his feet in no time. It was a couple of dry loaves of bread that were hanging there on a spit. To be sure, they looked mouldy and old, but it was still bread. He gave them a hit with the bread peel, so that one fell to the floor. He ate and filled his bag. It was incredible how good bread was in any event.

  He looked around the cottage once again to try to discover if there was anything else that might be useful for him to take along. ‘I guess I can take what I need, when no one else cares about it,’ he thought. But most of what was there was too big and heavy. The only thing he could manage would be a few matches.

  He climbed up on the table, then swung up on the window shelf with the help of the curtain. While he stood there, putting matches into his bag, the crow with the white feather came in through the window.

&n
bsp; ‘See, here I am now!’ Fumle-Drumle said, landing on the table. ‘I wasn’t able to come earlier, because today we crows have elected a new chieftain after Wind-Ile.’

  ‘So who have you elected?’ the boy said.

  ‘Well, we have elected one who will not allow robbery and injustice. We have elected Garm White-Feather, who was called Fumle-Drumle before,’ he answered and stretched so that he looked quite majestic.

  ‘That was a good choice,’ the boy said, congratulating him.

  ‘Yes, you probably should wish me luck,’ said Garm, who started telling the boy about how he was treated before by Wind-Ile and Kåra.

  In the midst of this the boy heard a voice outside the window, which he thought he recognized. ‘Is this where he is?’ Smirre Fox asked.

  ‘Yes, he’s hiding in here,’ a crow voice answered.

  ‘Be on your guard, Thumbkin!’ Garm called. ‘Wind-Kåra is standing outside with that fox who wants to eat you up.’ He did not have time to say more, because Smirre made a leap towards the window. The rotten old window casements gave way, and the next moment Smirre was standing on the table by the window. Garm White-Feather did not have time to fly away and he bit him to death at once. After that he jumped down on the floor and looked around for the boy.

  The boy tried to hide behind a large blue morning glory, but Smirre had already seen him and curled up to get ready for a leap. And as little and low as the cottage was, the boy understood that the fox could reach him without the slightest difficulty. But at this moment the boy was not without defensive weapons. Quickly he lit a match, guided it up to the flax, and when it flared up he threw it down on to Smirre Fox. When the fire came over the fox, he was seized by an insane terror. He thought no more about the boy, but instead frantically fled the cottage.

  But it appeared as if the boy had escaped one danger by casting himself into an even greater one. From the tuft of flax he had thrown at Smirre, the fire had managed to spread to the bed curtain. He ran down and tried to put it out, but it was already flaming far too intensely. The cottage was suddenly filled with smoke and Smirre Fox, who had stopped outside the window, started to understand what was going on inside. ‘Well, Thumbkin,’ he called, ‘which do you choose now, letting yourself be cooked or coming out to me? To be sure, I would probably prefer to eat you, but whatever way death befalls you is fine by me.’

  The boy began to think that the fox was right, because the fire spread terribly quickly. The whole bed was already burning, smoke rose up from the floor, and along the painted fabric borders the fire crept from rider to rider. The boy had jumped up on the stove and was trying to open the cover to the baking oven, when he heard a key in the lock slowly turning. It must be humans that were coming, and in such distress as he now found himself, he was not afraid, but only happy. He was already at the threshold when the door finally opened. He saw a couple of children in front of him. He did not take time to look at their expressions when they saw the cottage all ablaze, but instead rushed past them and out into the open.

  He did not dare run far. He knew that Smirre Fox was waiting for him, and he realized that he had to stay near the children. He turned around to see what kind of people they were, but he had not observed them for a second before he rushed towards them and shouted, ‘Good day to you, Åsa the Goose-girl! Good day to you, Little Mats!’

  Because when the boy saw those children, he completely forgot where he was. Crows and a burning cottage and talking animals disappeared from his memory. He was on a stubble field in Västra Vemmenhög tending a flock of geese, and on the adjacent field those Småland children were walking with their geese. And as soon as he saw them, he ran up on the stone wall and called, ‘Good day to you, Åsa the Goose-girl! Good day to you, Little Mats!’

  But when the two children saw such a little imp come towards them with outstretched hand, they grabbed each other, took a few steps backwards and looked mortally terrified.

  When the boy saw their terror, he came to and remembered who he was. And then he thought that nothing worse could happen to him than for just those children to see that he had been enchanted. Shame and sorrow that he was no longer human overwhelmed him. He turned around and fled. He did not know where.

  But the boy made a good encounter when he came down to the moor. For there in the heather he glimpsed something white, and towards him the white gander came in the company of Downy. When the white gander saw the boy come running at such speed, he thought that dangerous enemies were pursuing him. He threw him quickly up on his back and took off with him.

  Seventeen

  The Old Farmwoman

  Thursday, 14 April

  Three tired travellers were out late in the evening, looking for lodging. They were travelling in a poor, desolate part of northern Småland, but they should have been able to find a suitable place to rest, because they weren’t weaklings who asked for soft beds or cosy rooms. ‘If one of these long ridges had a top so steep and high that a fox could not climb up it from any side, then we’d have a good place to sleep,’ said one of them.

  ‘If just one of the big marshes was thawed out and so swampy and wet that a fox would not venture out on to it, then that would be really good accommodation too,’ said the other.

  ‘If the ice on one of the frozen lakes that we are passing was separate from the land, so that a fox could not get out on to it, then we would have found just what we’re looking for,’ said the third.

  The worst thing was that once the sun had gone down two of the travellers got so sleepy that at any moment they were about to drop to the ground. The third, who could keep himself awake, became more worried as night approached. ‘It was unfortunate,’ he thought, ‘that we’ve come to a country where lakes and marshes are frozen, so that the fox can get across everywhere. The ice has thawed away in other places, but now we’re well up in the very coldest part of Småland, where spring has not yet arrived. I don’t know how I’m going to find a good place to sleep. If I don’t find a place that’s well protected, we’ll have Smirre Fox on us before morning.’

  He peered in all directions, but he did not see a lodging where he could enter. And a dark and chilly evening it was, with wind and pouring rain. The surroundings got more awful and more unpleasant with every moment.

  It may sound peculiar, but the travellers did not seem to have any desire at all to ask for shelter at a farm. They had already gone past many villages without knocking on a single door. Small crofts at the forest’s edge, which all poor wanderers are happy to encounter, they pretended not to see either. You might almost be tempted to say that they deserved to have a hard time, as they did not ask for help where it was at hand.

  But at long last, when it was so dark there was hardly a sliver of daylight left in the sky, and the two who needed to sleep were shuffling along half-awake, they happened upon a farm that stood alone, far from any neighbours. And not only was it isolated, but also it appeared to be completely uninhabited. No smoke rose from the chimney, no candlelight shone from the windows, no one was moving on the farmyard. When the one of the three who could keep awake saw the place, he thought, ‘Now things will turn out as they will, but we have to try to go into this farm. We’re not likely to find anything better.’

  Right after that all three of them were standing in the farmyard. The two fell asleep the moment they stopped, but the third looked eagerly around to figure out where he could come in under a roof. It was not a small farm. Besides the dwelling house and stable and cowshed there were long rows with barns and bins and storehouses and tool sheds. But everything looked dreadfully poor and dilapidated. The buildings had grey, moss-covered, leaning walls that seemed about to fall dow
n. In the roofs were gaping holes and the doors were hanging crooked on broken hinges. It was evident that no one had bothered to hammer a nail in the wall here for a long time.

  However, the one who was awake had figured out which building was the cowshed. He shook his travelling companions out of their slumber and led them up to the cowshed door. Fortunately it was closed with nothing but a hook, which he could easily poke up with a twig. He was already heaving a sigh of relief at the thought that they would soon be safe. But when the cowshed door swung open with a shrill screech, he heard a cow start mooing. ‘Are you finally coming, mistress?’ the cow said. ‘I thought you weren’t going to give me any food this evening.’

  The one who was awake stopped at the door in terror when he noticed that the cowshed was not empty. But he soon saw that there was no more than a single cow and three or four hens, and then he plucked up courage again. ‘We are three poor travellers who wish to come in to a place where no fox can attack us and no human can catch us,’ he said. ‘We wonder whether this might be a good place for us.’

  ‘I can’t see why not,’ the cow answered. ‘To be sure, the walls are poor, but the fox can’t walk through them anyway, and no one lives here but an old woman who is certainly unable to take anyone captive. But what sort of thing are you?’ she continued, as she twisted in the stall to catch sight of the new arrivals.

  ‘Yes, I am Nils Holgersson from Västra Vemmenhög, who has been turned into a gnome,’ he answered, the first of those entering, ‘and I have with me a domestic goose that I ride on and a grey goose.’

  ‘Such delightful strangers have not been within my walls before,’ said the cow, ‘and you are welcome, although I would have preferred it to be my mistress coming to give me my supper.’