Nils Holgersson 39;s Wonderful Journey Across Sweden
Francisco Harner
"THE Wonderful Adventures of Nils" was written for use in schools as "supplementary reading," with the special idea of introducing such subjects as would be educative as well as entertaining to the minds of children from the ages of nine to eleven. The book has been adopted in the public schools of Sweden, but older people have found in it a book of permanent value.
She devoted three years to Nature study and to familiarizing herself with animal and bird life. She has sought out hitherto unpublished folklore and legends of the different provinces. These she has ingeniously woven into her story.
One reviewer has said: "Since the days of Hans Christian Andersen we have had nothing in Scandinavian juvenile literature to compare with this remarkable book." Another reviewer wrote: "Miss Lagerlf has the keen insight into animal psychology of a Rudyard Kipling."
Stockholm's Dagblad said among other things: "The great author stands as it were in the background. The prophetess is forgotten for the voices that speak through her. It is as though the book had sprung direct from the soul of the Swedish nation."
Sydsvenska Dagbladet writes: "The significant thing about this book is: while one follows with breathless interest the shifting scenes and adventures, one learns many things without being conscious of it . . . . The author's imagination unfolds an almost inexhaustible wealth in invention of new and ever-changing adventures, told in such a convincing way that we almost believe them. . . . As amusement reading for the young, this book is a decided acquisition. The intimate blending of fiction and fact is so subtle that one finds it hard to distinguish where one ends and the other begins. It is a classic. . . . A master-work."
Another critic says: "Beyond all doubt, 'The Wonderful Adventures of Nils' is one of the most noteworthy books ever published in our language. I take it, that no other nation has a book of this sort. One can make this or that comment on one and another phase of it, but as a whole it impresses one as being so masterful, so great, and so Swedish, that one lays the book down with a sense of gratitude for the privilege of reading such a thing. There is a deep undercurrent of Swedish earnestness all through this tale of Nils. It belongs to us. It is a part of us. "
From Gteborg Morgon Posten: "The fame of her literary greatness goes forward without a dissenting voice; it fills her own land, and travels far and wide outside its borders. . . . Just as modestly as she points a moral, just so delicately and unobtrusively does she give information. Everything comes to you through the adventures, or through the concrete images of imagination's all-compelling form. . . . No one who has retained a particle of his child mind can escape the genuine witchery of the poesy in 'Nils.'"
A new history of literature, entitled "Frauen der Gegenwart," by Dr. Theodore Klaiber, mentions Miss Lagerlf as the foremost woman writer of our time, and says thatshe is receiving the same affectionate homage for her art inother lands that has been accorded her in Sweden. Dr.Klaiber does not see in her merely "a dreaming poetess farremoved from the world." He finds her too forceful andcourageous for this.
"But she sees life with other eyes than do our up-to-date people. All her world becomes saga and legend.More than all other modern authors, she has that all-embracing love for every thing which never wanes and never wearies," says Dr. Klaiber.
Torsten Fagelqvist, a well-known Swedish writer, ends his review of the book with these remarks: "Our guide is clear-visioned, many-sided, and maternal. She can speak all languages: the language of animals, and the language of flowers; but first and last, childhood's language. And the best of all is, that under her spell all are compelled to become children,"VELMA SWANSTON HOWARD.
It was a Sunday morning and the boy's parents were getting ready for church. The boy, in his shirt sleeves, sat on the edge of the table thinking how lucky it was that both father and mother were going away so the coast would be clear for a couple of hours. "Good! Now I can take down pop's gun and fire off a shot, without anybody's meddling interference," he said to himself.
But it was almost as if father should have guessed the boy's thoughts, for just as he was on the threshold and ready to start, he stopped short, and turned toward the boy: "Since you won't come to church with mother and me," he said, "the least you can do is to read the service at home. Will you promise to do so?" "Yes, that I can do easy enough," said the boy, thinking, of course, that he wouldn't read any more than he felt like reading.
The boy sat thinking that his mother was giving herself altogether too much trouble with this spread; for he had no intention of reading more than a page or so. But now, for the second time, it was almost as if his father were able to see right through him. He walked up to the boy, and said in a severe tone: "Now remember that you are to read carefully! For when we come back, I shall question you thoroughly; and if you have skipped a single page, it will not go well with you."
With that they departed. And as the boy stood in the doorway, watching them, he felt that he had been caught in a trap. "There they go congratulating themselves, I suppose, in the belief that they've hit upon something so good that I'll be forced to sit and hang over the sermon the whole time that they are away," thought he.
It was the most beautiful weather outside! It was only the twentieth of March; but the boy lived in West Vemmenhg Parish, down in Southern Skne, where the spring was already in full swing. It was not as yet green, but fresh and budding. There was water in all the trenches, and the colt's-foot at the edge of the ditch was in bloom. All the weeds that grew in among the stones were brown and shiny. The beech-woods in the distance seemed to swell and grow thicker with every second. The skies were high, and a clear blue. The cottage door stood ajar, and the lark's trill could be heard in the room. The hens and geese pattered about in the yard; and the cows, who felt the spring air away in their stalls, lowed their approval every now and then.
On the window-sill, facing the boy, stood a small looking-glass; and almost the entire cottage could be seen in it. As the boy raised his head, he happened to look in the glass; and then he saw that the cover to his mother's chest had been opened.
His mother owned a great, heavy, iron-bound oak chest, which she permitted no one but herself to open. Here she treasured all the things she had inherited from her mother, and of these she was especially careful. Here lay a couple of old-time peasant dresses, of red homespun with short bodice and plaited shirt, and a pearl-bedecked breast-pin. There were starched white linen headdresses, and heavy silver ornaments and chains, Folks don't care to go about dressed like that in these days, and several times his mother had thought of getting rid of the old things; but somehow, she hadn't the heart to do it.
The boy was somewhat surprised to see the elf, but, on the other hand, he was not exactly frightened. It was impossible to be afraid of one who was so little. And since the elf was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he neither saw nor heard, the boy thought it would be great fun to play a trick on him; to push him over into the chest and shut the lid on him, or something of that kind.
At the first moment the boy hadn't the least idea as to what he should do with his catch; but he was only careful to swing the snare backward and forward, to prevent the elf from getting a foothold and clambering up.
The elf began to speak, and begged, oh! so pitifully, for his freedom. He had brought them good luck these many years, he said, and deserved better treatment. Now, if the boy would set him free, he would give him an old penny, a silver spoon, and a gold coin, as big as the case on his father's silver watch.
The boy didn't think that this was much of an offer; but it so happened that after he had got the elf into his power, he was afraid of him. He felt that he had entered into an agreement with something weird and uncanny; something which did not belong to his world; and he was only too glad to rid himself of the horrid creature.
For this reason he agreed at once to the bargain, and held the snare still, so the elf could crawl out of it. But when the elf was almost out of the snare, the boy happened to think that he should have bargained for large estates, and all sorts of good things. He should at least have made this stipulation: that the elf conjure the sermon into his head. "What a fool I was to let him go!" thought he, and began to shake the snare violently, so the elf would tumble down again.
When he awoke he was alone in the cottage. There was not a sign of the elf! The chest-lid was down, and the butterfly-snare hung in its usual place by the window. If he had not felt how the right cheek burned from that box on the ear, he would have been tempted to believe the whole thing a dream. "At any rate, father and mother will be sure to insist that it was nothing else," thought he. "They are not likely to make any allowances for that old sermon, on the elf's account. It's best for me to get at that reading again," thought he.
But as he walked toward the table, he noticed something remarkable. It couldn't be possible that the cottage had grown. But why did he have to take so many more steps than usual to get to the table? And what was wrong with the chair? It looked no bigger than it did a while ago; but now he had to step on the rung first, and then clamber up in order to reach the seat. It was the same with the table. He could not look across the top without climbing to the arm of the chair.
The Commentary lay on the table and, to all appearances, it was not changed; but there must have been something queer about that too, for he could not manage to read a single word of it without actually standing right in the book itself.
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