Top of the World Stories for Boys and Girls Part 9

The woman became confused. "Now, he must ask about everything, that boy," she thought to herself. "Why do I stand here and talk about such things so that he can hear? But at least I will frighten him away from Rastekais!"

And so she said: "Dear Lappelil, never go to Rastekais, for there lives Hiisi, the great mountain king who eats a reindeer in a mouthful, and swallows boys like gnats."

Sampo began to wonder when he heard this; but he said nothing. He thought to himself: "It must be good fun to see such a horrid creature as the mountain king,--but only from a long way off!"

It was now already three or four weeks after Christmas, and it was still dark in Lapland. There was no morning, noon, nor evening. It was always night; and the moon shone, and the Northern Lights crackled, and the stars twinkled brightly all the time. Sampo began to feel dull. It was so long since he had seen the sun that he had almost forgotten what it looked like; and when any one talked of summer Sampo only remembered it was the time when the gnats were so bad and tried to eat him up.

Therefore he did not care if the summer stayed away forever, if only it would grow light enough to go about easily on snow-shoes.

One day about noon the Lapp said: "Come here, and you shall see something!" Sampo crept out of the hut in the dark, and looked toward the south, for it was in that direction that his father pointed. There he saw a little red streak way down on the horizon.

"Do you know what that is?" asked the Lapp.

"That is Southern Lights," said the boy. He had a good idea of the points of the compa.s.s, and knew very well that you could not see Northern Lights in the south.

"No," said his father, "that is the forerunner of the sun. To-morrow or the day after we shall see the sun itself. Only look how strangely the red light shines on the top of Rastekais."

Sampo turned to the west and saw how the snow was colored red far away on the dark, wild top of Rastekais. Immediately it came into his mind how very pleasant it would be to see the mountain king--from a long way off.

Sampo thought about this all day and half the night. He tried to sleep, but could not. "Yes," he thought, "it would be fun to see the mountain king once!" He kept thinking about it, until at last he crept quite softly out from the reindeer-skin under which he lay, and out through the door. It was so cold that the stars snapped and the snow crackled under his feet. But Sampo Lappelil was not afraid of cold. Besides he had a leather jacket, leather trousers, Lapp shoes, and a fur cap and mittens. Thus fortified, he looked at the stars, and did not know exactly what he should do next.

Then he heard his little reindeer scratching in the snow not far off.

"What if I took a drive?" thought Sampo.

No sooner said than done. Sampo harnessed the reindeer before the pulk as he usually did, and started off over the great bare snow-field. "I will drive a little way toward Rastekais, only a little way," he thought to himself. So he drove down over the frozen river and up on the other side of the Tana, and then was in the kingdom of Norway, for the Tana River is the boundary. But that Sampo did not know.

You, who are reading this story of Sampo Lappelil, did you ever sing: "Run, my brave reindeer"? Do you know the beautiful songs of the dear, good Bishop Franzen, whom all Sweden and all Finland love, and have you ever seen the t.i.tle-page of the fourth volume of his songs? There you can see a Lapp boy driving with his reindeer over the snow, and that is just Sampo Lappelil. So he sat and sang to himself:

"So short is the day, The road is so long, Oh! hark to my song: Let us hurry away!

The wolf pack lives here, Rest not, little deer!"

As he sang he saw in the dark the wolves running like gray dogs around the pulk, and barking after the reindeer; but he did not mind that; he knew that no wolf could run as fast as his swift reindeer. Ha, how they went over stones and hills! The wind whistled in their ears! Sampo Lappelil only rushed on. The reindeer's hoofs snapped, and the moon in the sky raced with him, and the high mountains seemed to rebound, but Sampo Lappelil only rushed on. It was pleasant to drive; he thought of nothing else. Then it happened that in a sudden turn over a hill, the pulk upset and Sampo fell out and was left lying in a snow-drift.

But the reindeer did not notice that; it thought that he still sat in the pulk, and so ran on, and Sampo had got his mouth so full of snow that he could not call. There he lay, like a lemming that had lost a foot, in the dark night, in the midst of the desolate wilderness where no one lived for many miles around.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAMPO WAS LEFT LYING IN A SNOW-DRIFT.--_Page 114_.]

Sampo was frightened at first--that you cannot wonder at. He worked himself out of the snow, and found he was not hurt in the least, but what good would that do? As far as he could see in the pale moonlight, there were only snow-drifts and snow-fields and high mountains. But one mountain reached high above all the others, and Sampo guessed that he was now near Rastekais. Here lived the horrible mountain king, who ate a reindeer in one mouthful, and swallowed boys like gnats! Now Sampo Lappelil grew frightened indeed. Ah! how gladly would he have been at home with his father and mother in the warm hut. But how should he get there? Would not the mountain king come and swallow him with his trousers and mittens, as if he were but a poor little gnat?

Well, there sat Sampo Lappelil in the snow and the dark, on Lapland's barren mountain. It was so strange, so frightful to see the high black shadow of Rastekais, where the mountain king lived! But it did not help him to sit there and cry, for his tears froze in a moment, and ran like peas down on his furry reindeer-skin jacket. So Sampo got up from the snow-drift to run himself warm.

"If I stand here I shall freeze," said he to himself. "No, rather will I go to the mountain king. If he eat me, then he will eat me. But I will tell him that it would be better that he should eat the wolves here on the mountain; they are fatter than I, and he will have less trouble with their skin than he would with my furs."

Sampo began to climb up the high mountain. He had not gone far before he heard something come stealthily over the snow, and immediately afterward a great furry wolf sprang out close to his side. Sampo started, his little Lapp heart beat loud, but he determined to behave as if he were not afraid. "Don't jump in my way," he called to the wolf. "I have an errand to the mountain king, and if you wish to keep your skin don't do me any harm!"

"Well, well, take it easy," said the wolf, for on Rastekais all the animals could talk. "Who are you, little fellow, working yourself through the snow?"

"My name is Sampo Lappelil," answered the boy. "And who are you?"

"I am the mountain king's highest master-wolf," answered the monster, "and have been running from mountain to mountain to bring his people to the great Sun Festival. Since you are coming my way, you can sit up on my back and ride to the king."

Sampo climbed up on the wolf's furry coat, and they rushed away over clefts and precipices.

"Sun Festival--what does that mean?" asked Sampo.

"Don't you know?" said the wolf. "After it has been dark in Lapland all winter, and the sun for the first time rises in the sky, then we celebrate. All the animals and all the trolls collect here on Rastekais, and on that day no one is allowed to do any harm. That is lucky for you, Sampo Lappelil, for otherwise, you see, I should have eaten you up a long time ago."

"Is there the same law for the king, too?" asked Sampo.

"Of course," said the wolf. "For one hour before the sun rises and for one hour after it sets, the mountain king dare not touch a hair of your head; but you must take care, after that time; for if you are still on the mountain, then a hundred thousand wolves and a thousand bears will rush upon you, and the mountain king will seize the first one he can get hold of, and then it will soon be over with Sampo Lappelil."

"Perhaps you will be so kind as to help me back, as soon as there is danger?" asked Sampo with a beating heart.

The wolf began to laugh, for on Rastekais the wolves can laugh. "Don't imagine that, dear Sampo," said he; "I will be the first to stick my claws into you. You are a fine fat boy; I see that you have been fattened on reindeer's milk and reindeer cheese. You will taste very good for an early breakfast."

Sampo wondered if it would not be as well to jump down from the wolfs back immediately, but it was too late; they had come to the top of the mountain, and he saw a wonderful sight. There sat the great mountain king on his throne of sky-high rocks, looking far out over mountains and valleys into the dark night. On his head he wore a cap of white snow-clouds; his eyes were like the full moon when it rises over the woods, his nose like a mountain top, his mouth like a mountain cleft, his beard like long icicles; his arms were as thick as the thickest fir-tree, his hands were like pine branches, his legs were like coasting-hills in winter, and his great fur coat like a snow mountain.

If you ask how any one could see the mountain king and his people in the middle of the night, then you must know that the snow cast a light upon everything, and that over the sky the most beautiful Northern Lights played.

Around the mountain king sat millions of gray mountain trolls and brownies, so small that when they ran on the frozen snow they left no more trace after them than a squirrel leaves. They had collected here from the farthest ends of the earth, from Nova Zembla and Spitsbergen and Greenland and Iceland--yes, from the North Pole itself, to worship the sun, as savages from fear worship the devil; for the trolls do not like the sun and would prefer that it should never rise again after it has once set behind the barren mountains. Farther away stood all the animals of Lapland in long close rows--a thousand and again a thousand bears, wolves, and lynxes, the good reindeer, the little lemming, and the lively reindeer-fleas; but the gnats had not been able to come--they were frozen to death.

All this Sampo Lappelil saw with wonder. He climbed down quietly from the master-wolf's back and hid himself behind a great stone to see what would happen.

The mountain king raised his high head so that the snow flew around him; and the beautiful Northern Lights stood like a halo about his forehead, and shot in long star-shaped, pale-red rays out over the blue night sky; there was a crackling and a roaring like that a forest fire makes when its flames leap up against the crowns of the pine-trees; now the Lights spread themselves out, now they drew together again; now the brightness was very dazzling, now it grew pale, then one gleam of light after another shot like a sudden shower out over the snow-covered mountain.

This pleased the mountain king. He clapped his icy hands, and the echo from the mountains sounded like thunder, and the trolls whistled with joy, and the animals round about screamed with fear. This pleased the mountain king still more, so that he called out, loud, over the wilderness:

"So shall it be! So shall it be! Forever winter and forever night! That is what I like."

"Yes, so shall it be, so shall it be!" cried the trolls as loud as they could, for they all liked winter and night better than summer and sunshine.

But among the animals there arose a murmur of talking, for all the beasts of prey and the lemmings thought as the trolls did, while the reindeer and the other animals would have found no fault with the summer, if they had not suddenly happened to think of the gnats in Lapland. It was only the little reindeer-flea who really wanted the summer; he cried as loud as he could: "Your Majesty, we came here to wait for the sun!"

"Will you be quiet, you wretched insect!" growled the white bear, close beside it. "It is only an old custom that makes us collect together here. But it will be pleasant; the sun will stay away forever. The sun is put out! The sun is dead!"

"The sun is put out! The sun is dead!" murmured all the animals, and a shiver went through all nature.

The trolls from the North Pole laughed so that their caps flew off, and the great mountain king raised his voice of thunder and called out over the wilderness: "So shall it be! So shall it be! The sun is dead. The whole earth shall fall down and worship me, Hiisi, the king of everlasting winter and of everlasting night."

That provoked Sampo Lappelil, as he sat behind the stone, and he came out and shouted with his little saucy voice: "You are lying, mountain king! you are lying, as tall as you are! Yesterday I saw the forerunner of the sun in the sky, and the sun is not dead! Your beard will still melt when it comes midsummer."

At these words the mountain king's brow grew as dark as a black cloud, and he forgot the law and stretched out his terrible long arm to crush Sampo Lappelil. But at that moment the Northern Lights grew pale, and a red ray sprang up in the sky and shone straight into the mountain king's ice-cold face, so that he was suddenly dazzled and let his arm fall.

And now the sun's golden rim could be seen lifting itself slowly and majestically up over the horizon, and it lighted up the mountains and wildernesses, the snow-drifts and clefts, the trolls and beasts and the brave little Sampo Lappelil. Then all at once a glow spread over the snow, as if many million of roses had rained down upon it, and the sun shone into all their eyes, yes, and into all their hearts, too. Even those who had rejoiced because the sun was dead were now really glad to see it again. It was funny to witness the trolls' surprise. They stared at the sun with their little gray eyes, from under their red caps, and while it stayed they became against their will so beside themselves with joy that they stood on their heads in the snow. The terrible mountain king's beard began to melt and to drip down like a running brook over his great white coat.

While they all stood looking at the sun with feelings so different, the first hour had almost slipped away, and Sampo Lappelil heard one of the reindeer say to its little one: "Come, come, dear child! We must go now or we shall be eaten up by the wolves!"

Then Sampo, too, remembered what he had to expect if he waited there any longer. And as he saw by his side a reindeer with beautiful golden horns, he jumped up on its back, and they rushed off at a gallop over the steep mountain.

"What can that strange noise be that we hear behind us?" asked Sampo after a while, when he had got a little used to the violent ride.