One autumn day an eagle on a pyramid saw a stately caravan of richly laden camels. There were expensively dressed, armed men on snorting Arabian horses, shining white like silver and with red, trembling nostrils, whose manes were big and thick and hung down between their delicate legs. Rich guests, a royal prince from Arabia, handsome as a prince should be, came to the proud house where the stork nest stood empty. Those who lived there were in a northern country, but they would soon be back. And it so happened that they returned that very day, when there was so much joy and happiness there. There was a wedding party, and little Helga was the bride, dressed in silk and jewels. The bridegroom was the young prince from Arabia. They sat at the head of the table between mother and grandfather.
But she didn’t look at the bridegroom’s brown, manly cheek, where a black beard curled. She didn’t look at the ardent dark eyes that were fastened on her. She looked out and up at the twinkling, sparkling stars shining down from the sky.
Then came the rushing sound of strong wings in the air. The storks were coming back, and the old stork couple, no matter how tired they were from the trip, and how much they needed to rest, flew right down on the railing by the veranda. They knew what the celebration was for. They had already heard at the border that little Helga had had them depicted on the wall. They were part of her story.
“That was very thoughtful,” said stork father.
“It’s not much,” said stork mother, “It was the least she could do!”
When Helga saw them, she got up and went out on the veranda to clap them on the back. The old stork couple curtsied with their necks, and the youngest children watched and felt honored.
And Helga looked up at a gleaming star that was shining more and more clearly, and between it and her a figure moved, clearer even than the air and therefore visible. It swayed quite close to her. It was the dead Christian priest. He too came on her day of celebration, came from heaven.
“The glory and splendor there surpasses anything known on earth,” he said.
And little Helga, asked so sweetly and sincerely, as she never had begged for anything before, if she could for just a single minute look in—just cast one glance into the heavenly kingdom, to the Father.
And he lifted her up in glory and splendor, in a stream of tones and thoughts. And there was light and sound not just outside of her, but inside too. Words cannot describe it.
“Now we must return. You are missed!” he said.
“Just a glance yet,” she asked, “only a single short minute!”
“We must get back to earth. All the guests are leaving!”
“Only a glance—the last!”
And little Helga stood on the veranda again, but all the torches there had been put out, and all the lights in the banquet hall were out too. The storks were gone, and there were no guests to be seen, no bridegroom. Everything had vanished in three short minutes.
Then Helga felt afraid. She walked through the big empty hall, and into the next chamber. Foreign soldiers were sleeping there. She opened the side door that led to her room, but when she went in there, she was standing outside in the garden. It wasn’t like this here before! The sky was glimmering red. It was almost dawn.
Only three minutes in heaven, and an entire earthly night was gone!
Then she saw the storks. She called to them, spoke their language, and stork father turned his head, listened and came closer.
“You speak our language!” he said. “What do you want? And why have you come here—a foreign woman?”
“But it’s me! It’s Helga! Don’t you know me? Three minutes ago we were speaking together over there on the veranda.”
“You’re mistaken,” said the stork. “You must have dreamed all of it.”
“No, no!” she said and reminded him of the Viking log house and the great bog, and the trip down there!
Then stork father blinked his eyes. “That’s an old story that I heard from my great, great, great grandmother’s time! Of course, there was such a princess from Denmark here in Egypt, but she disappeared on her wedding night many hundreds of years ago and never came back. You can read it yourself on the monument in the garden. There are both swans and storks carved on it, and on top you’re standing there yourself in white marble.”
That’s how it was. Little Helga saw it and understood and fell to her knees.
The sun shone forth, and as in days of old when the frog skin fell because of its rays, and the lovely creature came to light, so now by the baptism of light rose a beautiful figure clearer and purer than the air—like a beam of light—to the Father.
Her body fell to dust. A withered lotus flower lay where she had been standing.
“That was a new ending to the story,” said stork father. “I hadn’t expected that! But I liked it quite well.”
“I wonder what the children will say about it?” asked stork mother.
“Well, that’s the most important thing, of course,” said stork father.
NOTES
1 Prayer attributed to Celtic monks of the eighth and ninth centuries, but unverifiable.
2 Stanza from
3 From
