The Marsh King's Daughter

								
The storks relate to their little ones a great many stories, and
they are all about moors and reed banks, and suited to their age and
capacity. The youngest of them are quite satisfied with "kribble,
krabble," or such nonsense, and think it very grand; but the elder
ones want something with a deeper meaning, or at least something about
their own family.

We are only acquainted with one of the two longest and oldest
stories which the storks relate--it is about Moses, who was exposed by
his mother on the banks of the Nile, and was found by the king's
daughter, who gave him a good education, and he afterwards became a
great man; but where he was buried is still unknown.

Every one knows this story, but not the second; very likely
because it is quite an inland story. It has been repeated from mouth
to mouth, from one stork-mamma to another, for thousands of years; and
each has told it better than the last; and now we mean to tell it
better than all.

The first stork pair who related it lived at the time it happened,
and had their summer residence on the rafters of the Viking's house,
which stood near the wild moorlands of Wendsyssell; that is, to
speak more correctly, the great moorheath, high up in the north of
Jutland, by the Skjagen peak. This wilderness is still an immense wild
heath of marshy ground, about which we can read in the "Official
Directory." It is said that in olden times the place was a lake, the
ground of which had heaved up from beneath, and now the moorland
extends for miles in every direction, and is surrounded by damp
meadows, trembling, undulating swamps, and marshy ground covered
with turf, on which grow bilberry bushes and stunted trees. Mists
are almost always hovering over this region, which, seventy years ago,
was overrun with wolves. It may well be called the Wild Moor; and
one can easily imagine, with such a wild expanse of marsh and lake,
how lonely and dreary it must have been a thousand years ago. Many
things may be noticed now that existed then. The reeds grow to the
same height, and bear the same kind of long, purple-brown leaves, with
their feathery tips. There still stands the birch, with its white bark
and its delicate, loosely hanging leaves; and with regard to the
living beings who frequented this spot, the fly still wears a gauzy
dress of the same cut, and the favorite colors of the stork are white,
with black and red for stockings. The people, certainly, in those
days, wore very different dresses to those they now wear, but if any
of them, be he huntsman or squire, master or servant, ventured on
the wavering, undulating, marshy ground of the moor, they met with the
same fate a thousand years ago as they would now. The wanderer sank,
and went down to the Marsh King, as he is named, who rules in the
great moorland empire beneath. They also called him "Gunkel King," but
we like the name of "Marsh King" better, and we will give him that
name as the storks do. Very little is known of the Marsh King's
rule, but that, perhaps, is a good thing.

In the neighborhood of the moorlands, and not far from the great
arm of the North Sea and the Cattegat which is called the
Lumfjorden, lay the castle of the Viking, with its water-tight stone
cellars, its tower, and its three projecting storeys. On the ridge
of the roof the stork had built his nest, and there the stork-mamma
sat on her eggs and felt sure her hatching would come to something.

One evening, stork-papa stayed out rather late, and when he came
home he seemed quite busy, bustling, and important. "I have
something very dreadful to tell you," said he to the stork-mamma.

"Keep it to yourself then," she replied. "Remember that I am
hatching eggs; it may agitate me, and will affect them."

"You must know it at once," said he. "The daughter of our host
in Egypt has arrived here. She has ventured to take this journey,
and now she is lost."

"She who sprung from the race of the fairies, is it?" cried the
mother stork. "Oh, tell me all about it; you know I cannot bear to
be kept waiting at a time when I am hatching eggs."

"Well, you see, mother," he replied, "she believed what the
doctors said, and what I have heard you state also, that the
moor-flowers which grow about here would heal her sick father; and she
has flown to the north in swan's plumage, in company with some other
swan-princesses, who come to these parts every year to renew their
youth. She came, and where is she now!"

"You enter into particulars too much," said the mamma stork,
"and the eggs may take cold; I cannot bear such suspense as this."

"Well," said he, "I have kept watch; and this evening I went among
the rushes where I thought the marshy ground would bear me, and
while I was there three swans came. Something in their manner of
flying seemed to say to me, 'Look carefully now; there is one not
all swan, only swan's feathers.' You know, mother, you have the same
intuitive feeling that I have; you know whether a thing is right or
not immediately."

"Yes, of course," said she; "but tell me about the princess; I
am tired of hearing about the swan's feathers."

"Well, you know that in the middle of the moor there is
something like a lake," said the stork-papa. "You can see the edge
of it if you raise yourself a little. Just there, by the reeds and the
green banks, lay the trunk of an elder-tree; upon this the three swans
stood flapping their wings, and looking about them; one of them
threw off her plumage, and I immediately recognized her as one of
the princesses of our home in Egypt. There she sat, without any
covering but her long, black hair. I heard her tell the two others
to take great care of the swan's plumage, while she dipped down into
the water to pluck the flowers which she fancied she saw there. The
others nodded, and picked up the feather dress, and took possession of
it. I wonder what will become of it? thought I, and she most likely
asked herself the same question. If so, she received an answer, a very
practical one; for the two swans rose up and flew away with her swan's

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