And the stork took the little girl and flew to the log house. He pecked a hole with his beak in the pig bladder window, laid the child at the Viking woman’s breast, and flew home to stork mother and told her about it. Indeed the children listened too, for they were old enough to hear it.
“You see, the princess isn’t dead. She has sent the little one up here, and I’ve placed her.”
“It’s what I said from the beginning,” said stork mother. “Now think a little bit about your own! It’s almost time to travel. Every now and then I feel a tickle in my wings. The cuckoo and the nightingale have already left, and I heard the quails saying that we will soon have a good tail wind. Our kids will manage the maneuvers just fine, if I know them.”
Well, how happy the Viking woman was when she woke up in the morning and found the lovely little child at her breast! She kissed and patted it, but the child cried terribly and flailed her arms and legs. She didn’t seem at all happy. Finally she cried herself to sleep, and the sight of the sleeping child was the most beautiful thing you could imagine. The Viking woman was so happy and light-hearted, and it occurred to her that now perhaps her husband with all his men would return just as unexpectedly as the child had come. So she and the others got busy to have everything ready. They hung up the long, colored tapestries that the woman and her maids had woven themselves with the representations of their idols: Odin, Thor, and Freya. The slaves had to scrub the old shields that decorated the walls. Cushions were placed on the benches and dry firewood piled in the fireplace in the middle of the hall so the fire could quickly be lit. The Viking woman worked too so that in the evening she was very tired and slept well.
When she woke up towards morning, she was totally aghast because the little child was gone. She leapt up, lit a pine tar torch, and looked around. There, lying by her feet when she stretched them out in bed, lay not the little child, but a big hideous frog. She was disgusted, took a big pole, and was going to kill the frog, but it looked at her with such strange sad eyes that she couldn’t do it. Once again she looked around. The frog uttered a faint, pitiful croak. The woman gave a start and sprang from the bed over to the shutter and opened it. The sun came out at the same time and cast its rays right into the bed onto the big frog, and all at once it was as if the beast’s wide mouth pulled together and became little and red. The limbs stretched out and turned into small, lovely shapes. It was her own lovely little child lying there, and not an ugly frog.
“What’s this?” she said. “Have I dreamed a bad dream? It’s my own lovely fairy child lying there!” And she kissed it and pressed it to her breast, but it scratched and bit and acted like a wild kitten.
The Viking didn’t come home that day or the next, although he was on his way. The wind was against him, and blew towards the south for the sake of the storks. A tail wind for one is head wind for another.
After a few days and nights it was clear to the Viking woman what was happening with her little child. The child was bewitched. During the day it was as lovely as a fairy but had an evil, wild disposition. At night, in contrast, it was an ugly frog, quiet and whimpering, with sorrowful eyes. There were two natures that shifted back and forth, both internally and externally. It was because the little girl that the stork had brought had her mother’s exterior during the day combined with her father’s disposition. At night she resembled her father in her bodily shape, but her mother’s mind and heart were evident within. Who could break this black magic spell? The Viking woman was sad and worried about it, but she still loved the poor little creature, whose condition she didn’t dare tell her husband about. Now that he would soon be home, he would undoubtedly, as the custom was, lay the child outside on the highway to be taken by whomever wanted it. The kind woman didn’t want that to happen and decided that her husband should only see the child by daylight.
One morning the whistling of stork wings was heard over the roof. More than a hundred stork couples had rested there that night after the big maneuvers. Now they flew upwards to start heading south.
“Everyone ready!” came the shout. “Wives and children too!”
“I’m so light,” said one of the young storks. “There’s crawling and creeping way out in my legs as if they were full of living frogs. Oh, how lovely it is to be traveling abroad!”
“Stay with the flock,” said father and mother, “and don’t chatter too much, it saps your breathing.”
And they flew off.
At the very same moment a horn was heard across the heath. The Viking had landed with all his men. They turned towards home with rich booty from the Gallic coast, where the people, like in Wales, prayed in their fright:
Now what life and merriment there was in the Viking house by the wild bog! The mead vat was brought into the hall. The fire was lit, and horses were slaughtered. This was going to be a real feast! The sacrificial priest sprayed the horse blood on the slaves as a consecration. The fire crackled, the smoke drifted up to the ceiling, and soot dripped from the beams, but they were used to that. Guests were invited, and they received good gifts. Intrigues and deceitfulness were forgotten. They drank and threw gnawed bones in each other’s faces—that was a sign of being in a good mood. The skald—he was a kind of musician who was also a warrior—had been with them and knew what he was singing about. He sang a ballad in which they heard all about their heroic deeds and remarkable events in battle. After each stanza he sang the same refrain:
And then they all pounded on their shields and hammered with their knives or bones on the table. They made a lot of noise.
The Viking woman sat on the cross-bench in the open banquet hall. She was wearing a silk dress and gold arm-rings and big amber beads. She was wearing her best clothes, and the skald also mentioned her in his song. He talked about the golden treasure she had brought her rich husband. And the Viking was truly fond of the lovely child. He had only seen it in daylight, but he liked her wild disposition. He said that she could become a formidable valkyrie who would conquer a warrior. Her eyes wouldn’t blink when a practiced hand, in jest, cut off her eyebrows with a sharp sword.
The mead vat was emptied, and a new one brought in. They drank copiously. They were people who could hold their liquor. In those days the saying was: “The herds know when it’s time to go home and give up grazing, but a foolish man will always forget the size of his stomach.”3 They knew that, all right, but do as I say, not as I do! They also knew that “love turns to loathing if you sit too long on someone else’s bench,”4 but still they stayed. Meat and mead are good things! They had a good time, and at night the slaves slept in the warm ashes, dipped their fingers in the greasy soot, and licked them. It was a glorious time!
The Viking went out on a raid again that year although the fall storms had started. He traveled with his men to
