INTRODUCTION.
We Travel.
IT is a delightful spring: the birds warble,
but you do not understand their song? Well,
hear it in a free translation.
"Get on my back," says the stork, our
green island’s sacred bird, "and I will carry
thee over the Sound. Sweden also has fresh
and fragrant beech woods, green meadows and
corn-fields. In Scania, with the flowering
apple-trees behind the peasant’s house, you will
think that you are still in Denmark."
"Fly with me," says the swallow; "I fly
over Holland’s mountain ridge, where the
beech-trees cease to grow; I fly further towards
the north than the stork. You shall see the
vegetable mould pass over into rocky ground;
see snug, neat towns, old churches and
mansions, where all is good and comfortable,
where the family stand in a circle around the
table and say grace at meals, where the least
of the children says a prayer, and, morning and
evening, sings a psalm. I have heard it, I
have seen it, when little, from my nest under
the eaves."
"Come with me! come with me!" screams
the restless sea-gull, and flies in an expecting
circle. "Come with me to the Skjärgaards,
where rocky isles by thousands, with fir and
pine, lie like flower-beds along the coast;
where the fishermen draw the well-filled
nets!"
"Rest thee between our extended wings," sing
the wild swans. "Let us bear thee up to the
great lakes, the perpetually roaring elvs (rivers),
that rush on with arrowy swiftness; where the
oak forest has long ceased, and the birch-tree
becomes stunted. Rest thee between our
extended wings: we fly up to Sulitelma, the
island’s eye, as the mountain is called; we fly
from the vernal green valley, up over the
snow-drifts, to the mountain’s top, whence thou
canst see the North Sea, on yonder side of
Norway.
"We fly to Jemteland, where the rocky
mountains are high and blue; where the Foss
roars and rushes; where the torches are lighted
as budstikke,[1] to announce that the ferryman
is expected. Up to the deep, cold-running
waters, where the midsummer sun does not
set; where the rosy hue of eve is that of
morn."
That is the birds’ song. Shall we lay it to
heart? Shall we accompany them? -- at least
a part of the way. We will not sit upon the
stork’s back, or between the swans’ wings. We
will go forward with steam, and with horses --
yes, also on our own legs, and glance now and
then from reality, over the fence into the region
of thought, which is always out near neighbourland;
pluck a flower or a leaf, to be placed in
the note-book -- for it sprung out during our
journey’s flight: we fly and we sing. Sweden,
thou glorious land! Sweden, where, in ancient
times, the sacred gods came from Asia’s
mountains! land that still retains rays of their
lustre, which streams from the flowers in the name
of "Linnæus;" which beams for thy chivalrous
men from Charles the Twelfth’s banner; which
sounds from the obelisk on the field of Lutzen!
Sweden, thou land of deep feeling, of heart-felt
songs! home of the limpid elvs, where the
wild swans sing in the gleam of the Northern
Lights! Thou land, on whose deep, still lakes
Scandinavia’s fairy builds her colonnades, and
leads her battling, shadowy host over the icy
mirror! Glorious Sweden! with thy fragrant
Linnæus, with Jenny’s soul-enlivening songs!
To thee will we fly with the stork and the
swallow, with the restless sea-gull and the wild
swans. Thy birch-woods exhale refreshing
fragrance under their sober, bending branches;
on the tree’s white stem the harp shall hang:
the North’s summer wind shall whistle
therein !
[1] A chip of wood in the
form of a halberd, circulated for the purpose of
convening the inhabitants of a district in Sweden and Norway.
The above contents can be inspected in scanned images:
1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Project Runeberg, Sat Dec 15 19:52:25 2012
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