Page:Fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen (Walker).djvu/282

240 take flight to the north, little Helga took off her gold bracelet, and, scratching her name on it, beckoned to Father Stork and put it round his neck. She told him to take it to the Viking's wife, who would see by it that her foster-daughter still lived, was happy, and had not forgotten her.

"It is a heavy thing to carry!" thought Father Stork, as it slipped on to his neck; "but neither gold nor honour are to be thrown upon the highway! The stork brings good luck, they say up there!"

"You lay gold, and I lay eggs," said Mother Stork; "but you only lay once and I lay every year. But no one appreciates us; I call it very mortifying!"

"One always has the consciousness of one's own worth, though, mother!" said Father Stork.

"But you can't hang it outside," said Mother Stork; "it neither gives a fair wind nor a full meal!" And they took their departure.

The little nightingale singing in the tamarind bushes was also going north soon; Helga had often heard it singing by the Wild Bog, so she determined to send a message by it, too. She knew the bird language from having worn a swan's plumage, and she had kept it up by speaking to the storks and the swallows. The nightingale understood her quite well, so she begged it to fly to the beechwood in Jutland, where she had made the grave of stones and branches; she bade it tell all the other little birds to guard the grave and to sing over it. The nightingale flew away—and time flew away too.

In the autunm an eagle perched on one of the Pyramids, saw a gorgeous train of heavily laden camels and men clad in armour riding fiery Arab steeds as white as silver with quivering red nostrils and flowing manes reaching to the ground. A royal prince from Arabia, as handsome as a prince should be, was arriving at the stately mansion where now even the stork's nest stood empty; its inhabitants were still in their northern home; but they would soon now return—nay, on the very day