Selma Lagerlöf - The Greatest Works of Selma Lagerlöf

The wild geese were up at daybreak, so they should have time to get themselves a bite of food before starting out on the journey toward Östergötland. The island in Goosefiord, where they had slept, was small and barren, but in the water all around it were growths which they could eat their fill upon. It was worse for the boy, however. He couldn't manage to find anything eatable.

As he stood there hungry and drowsy, and looked around in all directions, his glance fell upon a pair of squirrels, who played upon the wooded point, directly opposite the rock island. He wondered if the squirrels still had any of their winter supplies left, and asked the white goosey-gander to take him over to the point, that he might beg them for a couple of hazelnuts.

Instantly the white one swam across the sound with him; but as luck would have it the squirrels had so much fun chasing each other from tree to tree, that they didn't bother about listening to the boy. They drew farther into the grove. He hurried after them, and was soon out of the goosey-gander's sight—who stayed behind and waited on the shore.

The boy waded forward between some white anemone-stems—which were so high they reached to his chin—when he felt that someone caught hold of him from behind, and tried to lift him up. He turned round and saw that a crow had grabbed him by the shirt-band. He tried to break loose, but before this was possible, another crow ran up, gripped him by the stocking, and knocked him over.

If Nils Holgersson had immediately cried for help, the white goosey-gander certainly would have been able to save him; but the boy probably thought that he could protect himself, unaided, against a couple of crows. He kicked and struck out, but the crows didn't let go their hold, and they soon succeeded in raising themselves into the air with him. To make matters worse, they flew so recklessly that his head struck against a branch. He received a hard knock over the head, it grew black before his eyes, and he lost consciousness.

When he opened his eyes once more, he found himself high above the ground. He regained his senses slowly; at first he knew neither where he was, nor what he saw. When he glanced down, he saw that under him was spread a tremendously big woolly carpet, which was woven in greens and reds, and in large irregular patterns. The carpet was very thick and fine, but he thought it was a pity that it had been so badly used. It was actually ragged; long tears ran through it; in some places large pieces were torn away. And the strangest of all was that it appeared to be spread over a mirror floor; for under the holes and tears in the carpet shone bright and glittering glass.

The next thing the boy observed was that the sun unrolled itself in the heavens. Instantly, the mirror-glass under the holes and tears in the carpet began to shimmer in red and gold. It looked very gorgeous, and the boy was delighted with the pretty colour-scheme, although he didn't exactly understand what it was that he saw. But now the crows descended, and he saw at once that the big carpet under him was the earth, which was dressed in green and brown cone-trees and naked leaf-trees, and that the holes and tears were shining fiords and little lakes.

He remembered that the first time he had travelled up in the air, he had thought that the earth in Skåne looked like a piece of checked cloth. But this country which resembled a torn carpet—what might this be?

He began to ask himself a lot of questions. Why wasn't he sitting on the goosey-gander's back? Why did a great swarm of crows fly around him? And why was he being pulled and knocked hither and thither so that he was about to break to pieces?

Then, all at once, the whole thing dawned on him. He had been kidnapped by a couple of crows. The white goosey-gander was still on the shore, waiting, and to-day the wild geese were going to travel to Östergötland. He was being carried southwest; this he understood because the sun's disc was behind him. The big forest-carpet which lay beneath him was surely Småland.

"What will become of the goosey-gander now, when I cannot look after him?" thought the boy, and began to call to the crows to take him back to the wild geese instantly. He wasn't at all uneasy on his own account. He believed that they were carrying him off simply in a spirit of mischief.

The crows didn't pay the slightest attention to his exhortations, but flew on as fast as they could. After a bit, one of them flapped his wings in a manner which meant: "Look out! Danger!" Soon thereafter they came down in a spruce forest, pushed their way between prickly branches to the ground, and put the boy down under a thick spruce, where he was so well concealed that not even a falcon could have sighted him.

Fifty crows surrounded him, with bills pointed toward him to guard him. "Now perhaps I may hear, crows, what your purpose is in carrying me off", said he. But he was hardly permitted to finish the sentence before a big crow hissed at him: "Keep still! or I'll bore your eyes out."

It was evident that the crow meant what she said; and there was nothing for the boy to do but obey. So he sat there and stared at the crows, and the crows stared at him.

The longer he looked at them, the less he liked them. It was dreadful how dusty and unkempt their feather dresses were—as though they knew neither baths nor oiling. Their toes and claws were grimy with dried-in mud, and the corners of their mouths were covered with food drippings. These were very different birds from the wild geese—that he observed. He thought they had a cruel, sneaky, watchful and bold appearance, just like cut-throats and vagabonds.

"It is certainly a real robber-band that I've fallen in with," thought he.

Just then he heard the wild geese's call above him. "Where are you? Here am I. Where are you? Here am I."

He understood that Akka and the others had gone out to search for him; but before he could answer them the big crow who appeared to be the leader of the band hissed in his ear: "Think of your eyes!" And there was nothing else for him to do but to keep still.

The wild geese may not have known that he was so near them, but had just happened, incidentally, to travel over this forest. He heard their call a couple of times more, then it died away. "Well, now you'll have to get along by yourself, Nils Holgersson," he said to himself. "Now you must prove whether you have learned anything during these weeks in the open."

A moment later the crows gave the signal to break up; and since it was still their intention, apparently, to carry him along in such a way that one held on to his shirt-band, and one to a stocking, the boy said: "Is there not one among you so strong that he can carry me on his back? You have already travelled so badly with me that I feel as if I were in pieces. Only let me ride! I'll not jump from the crow's back, that I promise you."

"Oh! you needn't think that we care how you have it," said the leader. But now the largest of the crows—a dishevelled and uncouth one, who had a white feather in his wing—came forward and said: "It would certainly be best for all of us, Wind-Rush, if Thumbietot got there whole, rather than half, and therefore, I shall carry him on my back." "If you can do it, Fumle-Drumle, I have no objection," said Wind-Rush. "But don't lose him!"

With this, much was already gained, and the boy actually felt pleased again. "There is nothing to be gained by losing my grit because I have been kidnapped by the crows," thought he. "I'll surely be able to manage those poor little things."

The crows continued to fly southwest, over Småland. It was a glorious morning—sunny and calm; and the birds down on the earth were singing their best love songs. In a high, dark forest sat the thrush himself with drooping wings and swelling throat, and struck up tune after tune. "How pretty you are! How pretty you are! How pretty you are!" sang he. "No one is so pretty. No one is so pretty. No one is so pretty." As soon as he had finished this song, he began it all over again.