Journeys Through Bookland Volume Ii Part 13

We may see now all things are-- Seas and cities, near and far, And the flying fairies' looks-- In the picture story-books.

How am I to sing your praise, Happy chimney-corner days, Sitting safe in nursery nooks, Reading picture story-books!

What we like about so fine a little poem as this is that it sets our thoughts to flying. As we read it, we see autumn coming on, with the red and the gold and the orange tinting the leaves. We can hear the last notes of the birds as they wing their way through the soft blue sky to gayer places in the warm southland. The cold comes fast, and in the morning, as we try to play ball or gather the ripe nuts from the hazel bushes, our thumbs tingle with the frost.

The little Scotch boy sees his robin, a little bird with a reddish- yellow breast, come to his window, and hears the cawing of the rooks. We in the United States can hear the rough voice of the blue-jay, or perhaps see the busy downy woodp.e.c.k.e.r tapping industriously at the suet we have hung in the tree for him.

A few days later the water in the pond becomes hard as stone, and we can walk over its smooth, glittering surface, or, if we are old enough, can make our way back and forth in widening circles to the music of our ringing skates. When the cold grows too severe and our cheeks burn in the wind, we can run inside, curl up in a big chair where it is warm and cheery, and, burying our faces in our favorite books, can see once more the little waves dancing on the pebbly sh.o.r.e of the pond, and hear the babble of the brook.

What can we find in the books? Everything that makes life merry, and everything that helps us to be true and manly. Out in the pasture the sheep are grazing, and among them walk the shepherds, singing gaily to the wide sky and the bright sun. When, perchance, a frisking lamb strays near the woods where perils lie, the shepherd follows, and with the crook at the end of his staff draws the wanderer back to safety.

These wonderful books of ours will carry us across the seas, even. We, for instance, might go to Scotland and play with the boy Stevenson. What a delight it would be; for the man who can write so charmingly about children must have been a wonderfully interesting boy to play with. And the cities we should see--quaint old Edinburgh, with its big, frowning castle on the top of that high rugged hill, and in the castle yard, old Mons Meg, the big cannon that every Scotch lad feels that he must crawl into.

If that is too far away from us, we will come back to Boston, and walk through the Common, and hear again the Yankee boys bravely complaining to General Gage because the British soldiers have trampled down the snow fort the youngsters have built.

But those are only real things; the more wonderful things are the flying fairies whose deeds we may read in this very book.

But how can we write in prose the praise of the picture story-books when Stevenson thinks he cannot do it in his pretty rhymes? Moreover, we have just found out that the poet's chimney corner is filled with the little ones who can read only the simplest things, and need big, fine pictures and easy words. He was not writing for us at all--but that does not matter. His little poem pleases us just the same.

Let us turn back and read it again--I suspect that, after all, we are all of us small enough to sit in a chimney corner; and perhaps every book is but a picture story-book to the man or woman who is old enough and big enough to read it rightly.

HOW THE WOLF WAS BOUND

Adapted by Anna McCaleb

It seems strange that any one who might have lived with the G.o.ds in their beautiful city of Asgard [Footnote: The Norse peoples believed that their G.o.ds lived above the earth in a wonderful city named Asgard.

From this city they crossed to the earth on a bridge, which by people on earth was known as the rainbow.] and have shared in their joys and their good works should have preferred to a.s.sociate with the ugly, wicked giants. But that was the case with Loki--Red Loki, as he was called, because of his red hair. He was handsome like a G.o.d; he was wise and clever like a G.o.d--more clever than any of the other G.o.ds. In one way, however, he differed from the others; he had a bad heart, and liked much better to use his cleverness in getting G.o.ds and men into trouble than in making them happy. Besides this, he was very proud, and could not bear to submit even to Odin, the king of the G.o.ds.

"Who is Odin," [Footnote: Odin, chief of the Norse G.o.ds, had been induced to part with one eye in exchange for wisdom.] he muttered, "that he should be set over me? Is he more clever than I am? Is he more handsome, with his one eye and his gray beard?" And Loki held his handsome head high.

Proud as he was, however, he was not too proud to do a disgraceful thing. He went off to the home of the giants and married the ugliest and fiercest of all the giantesses. Just why he did it does not seem very clear, for he certainly could not have loved her. Perhaps he did it just to spite the other G.o.ds and to show them that he cared nothing for what they thought.

But he must have repented of his act when he saw the children which the giantess bore him, for they were certainly the most hideous and frightful children that were ever born into the world. The daughter, Hela, was the least awful, but even she was by no means a person one would care to meet. She was half white and half blue, and she had such gloomy, angry eyes that any one who looked at her sank into unconquerable sadness and finally into death. But the other two! One was a huge, glistening, scaly serpent, with a mouth that dripped poison, and glaring, beady eyes; and the other was a white-fanged, red-eyed wolf.

These two monsters grew so rapidly that the king of the G.o.ds, looking down from his throne in the heavens, was struck with fear.

"The G.o.ds themselves will not be safe if those monsters are allowed to go unchecked," he said. "Down there in the home of the giants they will be taught to hate the G.o.ds, and at the rate they're growing, they'll soon be strong enough to shake our very palaces."

He sent, therefore, the strongest of his sons to fetch the children of Loki before him. Well was it for those gathered about Odin's throne that they were G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, else would the eyes of Hela have sent them to their death. Upon her, Odin looked more in pity than in anger--she was not all bad.

"You, Hela," he said, "although it is not safe to allow you to remain above ground, where you may do great harm to men, are not all wicked.

Honor, therefore, shall be yours, and ease; but happiness shall be far from you. I shall make you queen over the regions of the dead--that kingdom which is as large as nine worlds."

Then it was believed that the only honorable form of death was death in battle; and the bravest of the heroes who died in battle were brought by Odin's messengers, the Valkyries, who always hovered on their cloud- horses above battlefields, to the great palace of Valhalla. Therefore only the cowards or the weak, who died in their beds, went to the underground realm, and Hela knew that they were not subjects of whom she could be proud. Nevertheless, she went without a word.

Odin, then, without speaking, suddenly stooped and seized in his strong arms the wriggling, slippery serpent. Over the wall of the city he threw it, and the G.o.ds watched it as it fell down, down, down, until at last it sank from sight into the sea. This was by no means the last of the serpent, however; under the water it grew and grew until it was so large that it formed a girdle about the whole earth, and could hold its tail in its mouth.

The question as to what should be done with the great wolf, Fenris, was not so easily answered. It seemed to all the G.o.ds that he had grown larger and fiercer in the brief time he had stood before them, and none of them dared touch him. At length some one whispered, "Let us kill him," and the wolf turned and showed his teeth at the speaker; for as he was the son of Loki, he could understand and speak the language of the G.o.ds.

"That cannot be," said Odin. "Have we not sworn that the streets of our city shall never be stained with blood? Let us leave the matter until another time."

So the wolf was permitted to roam about Asgard, and the G.o.ds all tried to be kind to him, for they thought that by their kindness they might tame him. However, he grew stronger and stronger and more and more vicious, until only Tyr, [Footnote: Tyr was the Norse war-G.o.d.] the bravest of all the G.o.ds, dared go near him to give him food. One day, as the G.o.ds sat in their council hall, they heard the wolf howling through the streets.

"How long," said Odin, "is our city to be made hideous by such noises?

We must bind Fenris the wolf."

Silence followed his words, for all knew what a serious thing it was that Odin proposed. Fenris must be bound--that was true; but who would dare attempt the task? And what chain could ever hold him? At length Thor [Footnote: Thor, G.o.d of thunder, was the strongest of all the G.o.ds]

arose, and all sighed with relief; for if any one could bind the wolf, it was Thor. "I will make a chain," he said, "stronger than ever chain was before, and then we shall find some way to fasten it upon him."

Thor strode to his smithy, and heaped his fire high. All night he worked at his anvil; whenever any of the G.o.ds awakened they could hear the clank! clank! clank! of his great hammer, and could see from their windows the sparks from his smithy shining through the gloom. In the morning the chain was finished, and all wondered at its strength, Then Thor called to the huge wolf and said:

"Fenris, you are stronger than any of the G.o.ds. We cannot break this chain, but for you it will be mere child's play. Let yourself be bound with it, that we may see how great your strength really is."

Now the wolf knew his might better than any of them did, and he suffered himself to be bound fast. Then he arose, stretched himself as if he were just waking from a nap, and calmly walked off, leaving the fragments of the chain on the ground. The amazed G.o.ds looked at each other with fright in their eyes--what could they do?

"I will make a stronger chain," said Thor, undiscouraged. And again he went to his smithy, where he worked all day and all night.

"This is the strongest chain that can ever be made," he said, when he presented it to the G.o.ds. "If this will not hold him, nothing can."

Calling the wolf, they flattered him and praised his strength, and finally persuaded him to let himself be bound with this chain, "just for a joke." You may be sure, however, that they said nothing about its being the strongest chain that could ever be made.

Fenris pretended to lie helpless for a time; then he struggled to his feet, shook his mighty limbs, tossed his hideous head--and the chain snapped, and fell into a hundred pieces! Then indeed there was consternation among the G.o.ds; but Odin, the all-wise, had a sudden helpful thought. Calling his swiftest messenger, he said:

"Go to the dwarfs in their underground smithy. Tell them to forge for us a chain which cannot be broken; and do you make all haste, for the wolf grows stronger each moment."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE G.o.dS WERE AMAZED]

Off hastened the messenger, and in less time than it takes to tell it he was with the dwarfs, giving them the message from Odin. The little men bustled about here and there, gathering up the materials of which the chain was to be made; and when these were all collected and piled in a heap, you might have looked and looked, and you would have seen nothing!

For this extraordinary chain was made of such things as the roots of mountains, the sound of a cat's footsteps, a woman's beard, the spittle of birds and the voice of fishes. When it was finished the messenger hurried back to Asgard and displayed it proudly to the anxious G.o.ds. It was as fine and soft as a silken string, but the G.o.ds knew the workmanship of the dwarfs, and had no fear.

"It will be easy," they said, "to persuade Fenris to let himself be bound with this."

But they were mistaken. The wolf looked at the soft, shining cord suspiciously, and said:

"If that is what it looks to be, I shall gain no honor from breaking it; if it has been made by magic, I shall never free myself."

"But we will free you," cried the G.o.ds. "This is but a game to test your strength."

"Not you," growled the wolf. "I've lived here long enough to know that if I don't look out for myself, no one else will look out for me."

"All right, if you are afraid," said Thor, with a shrug of his shoulders. And the wolf replied, "To show that I am no more cowardly than the G.o.ds, I will suffer myself to be bound if one of you will put his hand into my mouth."

To refuse to do this was, as the G.o.ds knew, to admit that they had meant trickery, and thus to make Fenris hate them worse than ever. But what one of them was willing to sacrifice his hand? Thor was no coward, but he knew that he was the chief defender of the G.o.ds, and he could not let himself be maimed. However, they did not have to wait long, for Tyr came forward, and thrust his hand into the wolf's mouth.