The Wonderful Adventure of Nils Holgersson Page 5

  Between the cowshed and the horse stable at that farm there was a broad, covered entrance gate, which was also lit up. And as the night advanced, the old woman saw that out of the archway a little imp, no more than a hand’s breadth tall but in wooden clogs and leather trousers like any labourer, came slowly and carefully sneaking into the farm. The old woman understood at once that it was the gnome, and she was not the least bit scared. She had always heard that he lived there on the farm, although she had never seen him before, and a gnome brought luck with him, wherever he appeared.

  As soon as the gnome had entered the stone-paved yard, he ran right up to the squirrel cage, and as it was hanging so high that he could not reach it, he went to the tool shed for a switch, leaned it against the cage, and then swung up, the same way a sailor climbs up a rope. When he got to the cage he tugged at the door of the little green house, as if he wanted to open it, but the old woman sat quietly, because she knew that the children had put a padlock on the door, out of fear that the neighbour boys would try to steal the squirrel. The old woman saw that when the gnome could not open the door, the squirrel came out into the wheel. There she and the gnome had a long discussion. And when the gnome had heard all that the captured animal had to tell him, he rode the switch down to the ground and ran out through the farm gate.

  The old woman did not think that she would see the gnome any more that night, but in any event she lingered by the window. After some time had passed, he came back. He was in such a hurry that she thought his feet hardly touched the ground, and he rushed up to the squirrel cage. The old woman saw him clearly with her far-sighted eyes, and she even saw that he was carrying something in his hands, but what it was she could not make out. What he had in his left hand, he set down on the pavement, but what he was holding in his right hand he brought with him up to the cage. Here he kicked the little window with his wooden shoe so that the pane broke, then he gave what he had in his hand to the squirrel. Then he rode down again, took what he had set on the ground and climbed up to the cage with this too. And right after that he rushed off again in such haste that the old woman could barely follow him with her eyes.

  But now it was the old woman who no longer sat quietly in the room. She went out on the farmyard and placed herself in the shadow of the pump to await the gnome. And there was one other who had also noticed him and become curious. It was the farm cat. He came slowly sneaking and stopped by the wall, just a couple of steps outside the brightest streak of light.

  Both of them stood and waited a long time in the cold March night, and the old woman was thinking about going in again, when she heard clattering against the stone pavement and saw that the little impish gnome came trudging in again. As before, he had a load in both hands, and what he was carrying peeped and struggled. And now a light came on for the old woman. She realized that the gnome had run over to the hazel grove and fetched the squirrel’s babies, and that he was carrying them to her so they wouldn’t starve to death.

  The old woman stood quietly so as not to disturb, and the gnome didn’t seem to notice her either. He was about to set the one baby down on the ground to be able to swing himself up to the cage with the other, when he caught sight of the farm cat’s green eyes glistening right beside him. He stood there, quite puzzled, a baby squirrel in each hand.

  He turned around, looking in all directions, and now became aware of the old woman. He did not reflect for long, but instead approached her and handed up one of the baby squirrels.

  And the old woman did not want to show herself unworthy of the confidence, so she leaned down and took the baby squirrel and stood and held it, until the gnome had swung himself up to the cage with the other and came and retrieved the one he had entrusted to her.

  The next morning, when the people on the farm gathered for breakfast, it was impossible for the old woman to keep from telling them about what she had seen the night before. Everyone laughed at her, of course, and said that she had only been dreaming. There were no squirrel babies this early in the year.

  But she was sure of herself and asked them to look in the squirrel cage, which they did. And there on the bed of leaves were four small, half-naked and half-blind babies, which were at least a couple of days old.

  When the farmer saw the babies, he said, ‘Be that as it may, but it is certain that we here on the farm have conducted ourselves shamefully before both animals and humans.’ And with that he picked the squirrel and all the babies out of the cage and set them in the old woman’s apron. ‘Go out to the hazel grove with them,’ he said, ‘and give them back their freedom!’

  This incident was what was so much discussed and even got into the newspapers, but which most did not want to believe, because they could not explain how something like that could happen.

  VITTSKÖVLE

  Saturday, 26 March

  A few days later another such peculiar incident happened. A flock of wild geese came one morning and landed on a field over in eastern Skåne, not far from a large farm called Vittskövle. In the flock were thirteen geese of ordinary grey colour and a white gander, who was carrying a little imp on his back, dressed in yellow leather trousers, a green vest and a white knitted cap.

  They were now quite close to the Baltic Sea, and on the field where the geese had landed the earth was mixed with sand, as it often is by sea coasts. It seemed as if in that area there must have been shifting sands before that needed to be secured, because in several places you could see that extensive pine forests had been planted.

  When the wild geese had grazed awhile, some children came walking on the headland. The goose that was standing guard threw herself up in the air at once with resounding wing strokes, so that the whole flock would hear that danger was imminent. All the wild geese flew up, but the white one walked calmly on the ground. When he saw the others flee, he raised his head and called after them, ‘You don’t need to fly away from them. It’s just some kids.’

  The little imp who had been riding on his back was sitting on a tuft of grass at the forest edge and picking apart a pine cone to get at the seeds. The children were so close to him that he did not dare run across the field up to the white one. He hid quickly under a large, dry thistle leaf and at the same time let out a warning call.

  But the white one had evidently made up his mind not to be frightened. He was still walking on the field and did not once look for where the children were headed.

  They turned off the road, however, walked across the field and approached the gander. When he finally looked up, they were right next to him, and now he was so disturbed and confused that he forgot he could fly and hurried away from them, running. The children followed, chased him down into a ditch and caught him there. The oldest one stuck him under his arm and carried him away.

  When the imp under the thistle leaf saw this, he ran up, as if he wanted to take the gander from the children. But then he remembered how little and powerless he was and instead threw himself down on the tuft of grass and hammered furiously on the ground with his fists.

  The gander called for help with all his strength. ‘Thumbkin! Come and help me! Thumbkin! Come and help me!’ But at this the boy started to laugh in the midst of his anxiety. ‘Sure, I’m just the right one to help anybody,’ he said.

  He got up and followed the gander anyway. ‘I can’t help him,’ he said, ‘but at least I want to see what they do with him.’

  The children had a good lead, but the boy had no difficulty keeping them in sight, until he came to a hollow in the ground, where a spring creek rushed past. It was neither wide nor mighty, but in any event he had to run along the edge, before he found a place where he could jump over.

  When he came out of the hollo
w, the children were gone. He could still see their tracks on a narrow path that led into the forest and he continued to follow them.

  Soon he came to a crossroads and here the children must have separated, because there were tracks in two directions. Now the imp looked completely abandoned.

  But just then he saw a little white feather on a tuft of heather. He realized that the gander had dropped it by the side of the road to show him in which direction he had been carried, and for that reason he continued his journey. He then followed the children through the whole forest. He did not see the gander, but wherever he might lose the way, a little white feather was lying there to guide him.

  The imp continued faithfully to follow these feathers. They led him out of the forest, across a couple of fields, up on to a road and at last down the lane to an estate. At the end of the lane gables and towers of red brick could be seen, adorned with light edges and decorations. When the imp saw that this was an estate, he thought he understood what had become of the gander. ‘The children must have brought the gander up to the estate and sold him there, so he is probably already slaughtered,’ he said to himself. But he wanted to find out for sure and ran ahead with renewed eagerness. He met no one on the whole lane, which was good, because someone like him is usually anxious about being seen by humans.

  The estate that he came to was a grand, old-fashioned building and consisted of four wings that surrounded a courtyard. On the east side was a deep archway, which led into the courtyard. So far the imp ran without hesitation, but when he got there, he stopped. He did not dare go farther, so here he remained standing and wondered what he should do next.

  The imp was still standing with his finger on his nose, thinking, when he heard steps behind him. He turned around and saw a whole crowd of humans come walking up the lane. Quickly he slipped behind a water barrel that happened to be standing beside the archway and hid himself.

  The arrivals were two dozen young men from a folk high school, who were out on a hike. They were followed by a teacher, and when they had made it to the archway, the teacher asked them to wait there for a moment, while he went in and asked if they could take a look at the old stronghold of Vittskövle.

  The new arrivals were hot and tired, as if they had been on a long hike. One of them was so thirsty that he went over to the water barrel and leaned down to drink. He had a tinplate specimen case hanging around his neck, and he must have thought it was in the way, because he threw it down on the ground. With that the cover opened, so that you could see there were spring flowers in it.

  The specimen case fell down right in front of the imp, and now he must have thought that this presented an excellent occasion to get into the stronghold and find out what had become of the gander. He quickly slipped down into the specimen case and hid, as best he could, under wildflowers and coltsfoot.

  He was hardly hidden before the young man picked up the specimen case, hung it around his neck and snapped the lid shut.

  The teacher now returned and said that they had received permission to come into the stronghold. To start with he led them in no farther than the courtyard. There he stopped and started talking with them about the old building.

  He reminded them that the first people here in the country had to live in cliff grottos and holes in the earth, in animal-hide tents and lean-tos, and that a long time had passed before they discovered how to construct houses out of tree trunks. And then, how long they must have had to work and strive before they had progressed from a one-room log cabin to erecting a castle with a hundred rooms like Vittskövle!

  It was three hundred and fifty years ago that the rich and powerful built such castles for themselves, he said. It was apparent that Vittskövle was erected at a time when war and robbers made it unsafe in Skåne. Around it there was a water-filled moat, and over this in times past was a bridge that could be hoisted up. Today there was still a watchtower over the archway; along the sides of the castle ran guard passages, and in the corners were solid towers with walls a metre thick. But even so, this castle was not erected in the very wildest time of war, because Jens Brahe, who built it, had also taken pains to make it a grand and richly decorated building. If they were to see the large, solid stone building at Glimminge, erected only a generation earlier, they would easily notice that Jens Holgersen Ulfstand, who was its builder, had not asked for anything other than to build big and solid and strong without giving a thought to making it beautiful or comfortable. If, on the other hand, they saw castles such as Marsvinsholm and Svenstorp and Övedskloster, which were built a century or two later than Vittskövle, then they would find that the times were more peaceful then. The lords who built these places had not equipped them with fortifications, but instead only endeavoured to have large, magnificent residences.

  The teacher spoke slowly and exhaustively, and the imp, who was enclosed in the specimen case, was probably impatient. But he must have been lying very quietly, because the owner of the specimen case did not even notice he was carrying him.

  Finally the whole company went into the castle, but if the imp had hoped that he would get an opportunity to slip out of the specimen case, he was deceived, because the student kept it on him and the imp had to follow along through all the rooms.

  It was a slow tour. The teacher stopped at every moment to explain and instruct.

  In one room was an old hearth and the teacher halted in front of it to talk about the various fireplaces that people had used throughout time. The first indoor hearth had been a stone slab in the middle of the floor with an opening for smoke up in the ceiling, which let in both rain and wind; the second had been a large, brick oven without a chimney, and it probably made the room warm, but also filled it with smoke and cooking odours. When Vittskövle was built, people had just advanced as far as the open hearth, which had a wide chimney for the smoke.

  If that imp had ever been eager and impatient, that day he got some good practice in patience. Now it was already a good hour that he had been lying there motionless.

  In the next room the teacher arrived at, he stopped in front of an old bed with a high canopy and plush curtains. And at once he started talking about beds and bedsteads of the past.

  The teacher was in no hurry. But he didn’t know either that there was a poor little thing enclosed in a specimen case, just waiting for him to stop. When he came to a room with gilt leather tapestries, he talked about how, ever since the earliest times, people had decorated their walls; when he came to an old family portrait, he talked about the varied fortunes of fashion; and in the banquet rooms he described ways of celebrating weddings and funerals in times past.

  After that the teacher also talked a little about the many capable men and women who had inhabited the castle: about the old Brahes and the old Barnekows; about Kristian Barnekow, who had given the king his horse in the midst of flight; about Margareta Ascheberg, who had been married to Kjell Barnekow and as a widow ran the estate and the whole area for fifty-three years; about the financier Hagerman, who was the son of a crofter from Vittskövle and became so rich he bought the whole estate; and about the Stjernsvärds, who obtained better ploughs for the people in Skåne, so that they could abandon the old troublesome wooden ploughs, which three pairs of oxen could barely budge.

  During all this the imp lay still. If he had ever been naughty and closed the cellar door on Mother or Father, now he got to learn how they had felt, because it took hours before the teacher stopped.

  At last the teacher went out on to the courtyard again, and there he talked about the long labour of the human race to acquire tools and weapons, clothing and houses, furniture and decorative objects. He said that such an old castle like Vittskövle was
a milestone on the way. There you could see how far humans had come three hundred and fifty years ago and judge for yourself whether things had progressed or gone backwards for them since then.

  But the imp escaped listening to this, because the student who was carrying him was thirsty again and slipped into the kitchen to ask for a drink of water. Now when the imp was carried into the kitchen, he must have tried to look around for the gander. He started moving and in doing so he happened to press too hard against the cover, so that it sprang open. Specimen-case lids always spring open, and the student did not give it any more thought, but instead simply closed it again. But then the cook asked if he had a snake in the specimen case.

  ‘No, I just have some plants,’ the student answered.

  ‘Something moved in there,’ the cook persisted.

  The student then opened the lid to show her that she was mistaken. ‘See for yourself if—’

  But he got no further, because now the imp did not dare stay in the specimen case any longer, but instead sprang to the floor and rushed out. The maids hardly had time to see what it was that was running, but they hurried after it anyway.