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Updated: June 5, 2025
"I think I shall steal their swan garbs from the two wicked princesses," said the stork-father; "then they will not be able to go to 'the wild morass' and do mischief. I shall leave the swan disguises themselves up yonder till there is some use for them." "Where could you keep them?" asked the old female stork. "In our nest near 'the wild morass," he replied.
All this was well known to the stork-father and the stork-mother; and now, though rather late, we also know it. We know that the mud-king dragged her down with him, and that, as far as regarded her home, she was dead and gone; only the wisest of them all said, like the stork-mother, "She can take care of herself;" and, knowing no better, they waited to see what would turn up.
And as they stood there embracing each other the stork-father flew in circles round them, hastened back to his nest, took from it the magic feather disguises that had been hidden away for so many years, cast one down before each of them, and then joined them as they raised themselves from the ground like two white swans.
"One knows, however, that one has done one's duty," said the stork-father. "But that can't be hung up to be seen and lauded; and if it could be, fine words butter no parsnips." So they flew away. The little nightingale that sang upon the tamarind tree would also soon be going north, up yonder near "the wild morass."
Thou shouldst have left her lying in the water-lily, and there would have been an end of her." "Thy words are much harder than thy heart," said the stork-father. "I know thee better than thou knowest thyself." And then he made a hop, flapped his wings twice, stretched his legs out behind him, and away he flew, or rather sailed, without moving his wings, until he had got to some distance.
In the early spring, when the storks were about to go north again, Helga took from her arm a golden bracelet, scratched her name upon it, beckoned to the stork-father, hung the gold band round his neck, and bade him carry it to the Viking's wife, who would thereby know that her adopted daughter lived, was happy, and remembered her.
"I could almost wish that thou wert always my dumb fairy-child, for thou art more fearful to look at when thy form resumes its beauty." And she wrote Runic rhymes against enchantment and infirmity, and threw them over the poor creature; but there was no change for the better. "One could hardly believe that she was once so small as to lie in the calyx of a water-lily," said the stork-father.
Then they expounded their meaning in this manner: "The warm sunbeam was the Egyptian princess; she descended to the mud-king, and from their meeting sprang a flower " "I cannot exactly repeat the words," said the stork-father, who had been listening to the discussion from the roof, and was now telling in his nest what he had heard.
"Now thou wilt be somebody," whispered the stork-mother; "it is only reasonable to expect that." "Oh! what should I be?" said the stork-father. "And what have I done? Nothing!" "Thou hast done more than all the others put together. Without thee and the young ones the two princesses would never have seen Egypt again, or cured the old man. Thou wilt be nothing!
The learned only babbled about the matter. But so it is always." Late at night, when the now happy household reposed in peaceful slumbers, there was one who was still awake; and that was not the stork-father, although he was standing upon his nest on one leg, and dozing like a sentry.
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