frame of mind she scratched the same sign into the earth around the grave, fenced around it so neatly—and as she formed the sign of the cross with both hands, the webbing fell off like a torn glove, and when she washed herself in the water of the spring, and wondered at her fine, white hands, she again made the sign of the cross in the air between herself and the dead man. Then her lips moved, and her tongue moved and that name that she most often had heard sung and spoken on the ride through the forest came audibly from her mouth. She said it: “Jesus Christ!”
Then the frog skin fell. She was the beautiful young girl, although her head bowed in fatigue. Her limbs needed rest, and she slept.
But her sleep was short. She was awakened at midnight. In front of her stood the dead horse, so radiant and full of life. Its eyes were shining, and radiance shone out from its wounded neck. Right beside him was the murdered Christian priest. “More handsome than Balder!” the Viking woman would have said, but yet he appeared luminous.
There was a seriousness in the big, gentle eyes; a righteous judgment, such a penetrating glance that it seemed to illuminate into every corner of her heart. Little Helga trembled from it, and her memory was awakened with a power as if on the Day of Judgment. Every good done for her, every loving word spoken to her became as if living in her again. She understood that it was love that had sustained her in these days of trial, in which the offspring of soul and clay was fermenting and striving. She acknowledged that she had only followed feelings and impulses and not done anything for herself. Everything had been given to her. Everything had been guided somehow. She bowed her head, humble and humiliated, shameful in front of him who could read each fold of her heart, and in this moment she perceived the blaze of the Holy Spirit in a flash of purification’s flame.
“You child of the bog,” the Christian priest said. “From earth, from the soil you were taken—from the earth you will again be resurrected! The sunlight that is incarnate in you will return to its creator—not a ray from the sun, but from God! No soul will be lost, but temporal time is long. It is life’s flight into eternity. I come from the land of the dead. One day you too will travel through the deep valley into the luminous mountainous country where mercy and perfection live. I can’t lead you to Hedeby for a Christian baptism. First you must shatter the shield of water over the deep bog bottom and drag up the living root of your conception and cradle. You must fulfill this deed before you can be consecrated.”
And he lifted her up on the horse and handed her a gilded censer like the one she had seen in the Viking house. There was a fragrance so sweet and strong coming from it. The open wound in his forehead shone like a radiant diadem. He took the cross from the grave and lifted it high in the air, and they flew away through the air, over the whispering forest, over the mounds where Viking kings were buried sitting on their horses. And the powerful figures rose up, rode out, and stopped on their mounds. The wide golden bands with gold clasps shone on their foreheads in the moonlight. Their capes whipped in the wind. The great snake—the lind-snake—that broods over treasure, lifted its head and looked after them. The dwarves peered out from mounds and furrows. They swarmed with red, blue and green lights. It looked like sparks in the ashes of burning paper.
Over the woods and heath, rivers and ponds they flew, up towards the great wild bog. They floated over it in a vast circle. The Christian priest lifted the cross high. It shone like gold, and from his lips came the chanting of the mass. Little Helga sang along as a child follows its mother’s song. She swung the censer, and there was a fragrance of the altar so strong and miraculous that the reeds and rushes of the bog bloomed because of it. All sprouts shot up from the deep bottom. Everything living arose. A profusion of water lilies spread out as if it were a woven carpet of flowers, and lying on it was a sleeping woman, young and beautiful. Little Helga thought she was looking at herself, her mirror image in the still water, but it was her mother she saw, the bog king’s wife, the princess from the land of the Nile.
The dead Christian priest commanded that the sleeping woman be lifted onto the horse, but it sank under the weight as if its body was only a shroud flying in the wind. But the sign of the cross strengthened the mirage, and all three rode to firm ground.
Then the rooster crowed in the Viking house, and the visions dissolved in fog and were carried away in the wind, but standing there facing each other were the mother and daughter.
“Is it myself I see in the deep water?” asked the mother.
“Is it myself I see in the shiny shield?” exclaimed the daughter and they moved closer to each other. Breast to breast, they embraced. The mother’s heart beat strongest, and she understood why.
“My child! My own heart’s flower! My lotus from the deep waters!”
And she clasped her child in her arms and cried. The tears were a new life and baptism of love for little Helga.
“In the shape of a swan I came here and then threw it off,” said the mother. “I sank down through the swirling marsh mud, deep down in the morass of the bog where it was like a wall closing around me. But I soon perceived a fresher current, and I was drawn deeper and ever deeper by some power. I felt sleep pressing on my eyelids, and I fell asleep. I dreamed. It seemed that I was once again in Egypt’s pyramid, but in front of me was the rocking alder stump that had startled me on the surface of the bog. I observed the cracks in the bark, and they lit up in colors and became hieroglyphics. I was looking at a mummy case. It burst, and from it stepped the thousand year old king, the mummy figure. He was black as pitch, glistening black like the forest snails or the greasy black mud. The bog king or the mummy of the pyramid? I didn’t know which. He threw his arms around me, and I felt I had to die. I didn’t perceive life again until I felt a warmth on my breast. There was a little bird sitting there flapping his wings, chirping and singing. It flew from my breast high up towards the heavy darkness above, but it was still tied to me by a long green ribbon. I heard and understood its notes of longing: Freedom! Sunshine! To the Father! Then I thought about my father in the sunlit land of home, my life and my love! And I loosened the ribbon and let it flutter away—home to father. Since that time I haven’t dreamed. I slept a deep and heavy sleep, until this hour when the sounds and scents lifted and released me!”
The green ribbon tied from the mother’s heart to the wings of the bird—where was it fluttering now? Where was it left lying? Only the stork had seen it. The ribbon was the green stalk, the bow the shining flower, cradle for the child who now had grown so beautiful, and who once again rested by her mother’s heart.
And as they stood there with their arms around each other, stork father flew in circles above them and then flew to his nest, fetched the swan-skins that had been hidden there for years, and threw one to each of them. The skins folded around them, and they lifted from the earth as two white swans.
“Let’s talk!” said stork father. “Now we understand each other’s language, even if the beak of one is different from that of the other! It is the luckiest thing imaginable that you came tonight because tomorrow we would be off, mother, the children, and I. We’re flying south. Well, look at me! I’m an old friend from Egypt, you know, and so is mother. But it’s in her heart rather than her neb. She always thought that the princess would take care of herself. The children and I carried the swan-skins up here. Oh, how happy I am! And how fortunate it is that I’m still here. We’ll be off at daybreak. A big flock of storks. We’ll fly in front, you can follow us. Then you won’t get lost. The
