Page:Hans Andersen's fairy tales (Robinson).djvu/65

 HANS ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES name on it, beckoned to the stork-father, placed the golden circlet about his neck, and asked him to bear it to the Viking's wife, by which she would understand that her foster-daughter was alive, and that she was happy, and thought of her.

'That is heavy to carry!' thought the father-stork when it was placed around his neck; 'but one does not throw gold and honour on the high-road. They will find it true up there that the stork brings fortune!'

'You lay gold, and I lay eggs!' said the mother-stork; 'but you only lay once, and I lay every year! But it vexes me that neither of us is appreciated.'

'But we are quite aware of it ourselves, mother!' said father-stork.

'But you can't hang that on you,' said mother-stork. 'It neither gives us fair wind nor food.'

And so they flew.

The little nightingale, that sang in the tamarind-bush, also wished to start for the north immediately. Little Helga had often heard him up there near the moor; she wished to give him a message, for she understood the speech of birds when she flew in the swan's skin, and she had often since that time used it with the stork and the swallow. The nightingale would understand her, and she asked him to fly to the beech-forest on the peninsula of Jutland, where she had erected the grave of stones and boughs; there she asked him to bid all the small birds to protect the grave, and always to sing their songs around it. And the nightingale flew—and time flew also.

The eagle stood on the pyramid in the autumn, and saw a magnificent array of richly laden camels, with armed men in 46