The Marsh King's Daughter Page #5

"The Marsh King's Daughter" is a captivating story by Hans Christian Andersen that draws the reader into a world of Norse mythology and ancient Egypt. The story revolves around a Marsh King who kidnaps a princess and has a child with her named Helga. Helga, who is beautiful by day but horrible at night, sets upon a journey of transformation. With compelling themes of love and redemption, the story encapsulates the struggle of good versus evil through the life of Helga and her journey to find her true self. It is a tale filled with symbolism, fantasy, and vivid imagery characteristic of Hans Christian Andersen's works.

• Children

								

himself, and that to the loved ones at home she is forever dead. One
of the wisest of them said, as the stork-mamma also said, "That in
some way she would, after all, manage to succeed;" and so at last they
comforted themselves with this hope, and would wait patiently; in
fact, they could do nothing better.

"I should like to get away the swan's feathers from those two
treacherous princesses," said the papa stork; "then, at least, they
would not be able to fly over again to the wild moor, and do more
wickedness. I can hide the two suits of feathers over yonder, till
we find some use for them."

"But where will you put them?" asked the mamma stork.

"In our nest on the moor. I and the young ones will carry them
by turns during our flight across; and as we return, should they prove
too heavy for us, we shall be sure to find plenty of places on the way
in which we can conceal them till our next journey. Certainly one suit
of swan's feathers would be enough for the princess, but two are
always better. In those northern countries no one can have too many
travelling wrappers."

"No one will thank you for it," said stork-mamma; "but you are
master; and, excepting at breeding time, I have nothing to say."

In the Viking's castle on the wild moor, to which the storks
directed their flight in the following spring, the little maiden still
remained. They had named her Helga, which was rather too soft a name
for a child with a temper like hers, although her form was still
beautiful. Every month this temper showed itself in sharper
outlines; and in the course of years, while the storks still made
the same journeys in autumn to the hill, and in spring to the moors,
the child grew to be almost a woman, and before any one seemed aware
of it, she was a wonderfully beautiful maiden of sixteen. The casket
was splendid, but the contents were worthless. She was, indeed, wild
and savage even in those hard, uncultivated times. It was a pleasure
to her to splash about with her white hands in the warm blood of the
horse which had been slain for sacrifice. In one of her wild moods she
bit off the head of the black cock, which the priest was about to slay
for the sacrifice. To her foster-father she said one day, "If thine
enemy were to pull down thine house about thy ears, and thou shouldest
be sleeping in unconscious security, I would not wake thee; even if
I had the power I would never do it, for my ears still tingle with the
blow that thou gavest me years ago. I have never forgotten it." But
the Viking treated her words as a joke; he was, like every one else,
bewitched with her beauty, and knew nothing of the change in the
form and temper of Helga at night. Without a saddle, she would sit
on a horse as if she were a part of it, while it rushed along at
full speed; nor would she spring from its back, even when it
quarrelled with other horses and bit them. She would often leap from
the high shore into the sea with all her clothes on, and swim to
meet the Viking, when his boat was steering home towards the shore.
She once cut off a long lock of her beautiful hair, and twisted it
into a string for her bow. "If a thing is to be done well," said
she, "I must do it myself."

The Viking's wife was, for the time in which she lived, a woman of
strong character and will; but, compared to her daughter, she was a
gentle, timid woman, and she knew that a wicked sorcerer had the
terrible child in his power. It was sometimes as if Helga acted from
sheer wickedness; for often when her mother stood on the threshold
of the door, or stepped into the yard, she would seat herself on the
brink of the well, wave her arms and legs in the air, and suddenly
fall right in. Here she was able, from her frog nature, to dip and
dive about in the water of the deep well, until at last she would
climb forth like a cat, and come back into the hall dripping with
water, so that the green leaves that were strewed on the floor were
whirled round, and carried away by the streams that flowed from her.

But there was one time of the day which placed a check upon Helga.
It was the evening twilight; when this hour arrived she became quiet
and thoughtful, and allowed herself to be advised and led; then also a
secret feeling seemed to draw her towards her mother. And as usual,
when the sun set, and the transformation took place, both in body
and mind, inwards and outwards, she would remain quiet and mournful,
with her form shrunk together in the shape of a frog. Her body was
much larger than those animals ever are, and on this account it was
much more hideous in appearance; for she looked like a wretched dwarf,
with a frog's head, and webbed fingers. Her eyes had a most piteous
expression; she was without a voice, excepting a hollow, croaking
sound, like the smothered sobs of a dreaming child.

Then the Viking's wife took her on her lap, and forgot the ugly
form, as she looked into the mournful eyes, and often said, "I could
wish that thou wouldst always remain my dumb frog child, for thou
art too terrible when thou art clothed in a form of beauty." And the
Viking woman wrote Runic characters against sorcery and spells of
sickness, and threw them over the wretched child; but they did no
good.

"One can scarcely believe that she was ever small enough to lie in
the cup of the water-lily," said the papa stork; "and now she is grown
up, and the image of her Egyptian mother, especially about the eyes.
Ah, we shall never see her again; perhaps she has not discovered how
to help herself, as you and the wise men said she would. Year after
year have I flown across and across the moor, but there was no sign of
her being still alive. Yes, and I may as well tell you that you that
each year, when I arrived a few days before you to repair the nest,
and put everything in its place, I have spent a whole night flying
here and there over the marshy lake, as if I had been an owl or a bat,
but all to no purpose. The two suit of swan's plumage, which I and the
young ones dragged over here from the land of the Nile, are of no use;
trouble enough it was to us to bring them here in three journeys,
and now they are lying at the bottom of the nest; and if a fire should
happen to break out, and the wooden house be burnt down, they would be
destroyed."

"And our good nest would be destroyed, too," said the mamma stork;
"but you think less of that than of your plumage stuff and your
moor-princess. Go and stay with her in the marsh if you like. You
are a bad father to your own children, as I have told you already,
when I hatched my first brood. I only hope neither we nor our children
may have an arrow sent through our wings, owing to that wild girl.
Helga does not know in the least what she is about. We have lived in
this house longer than she has, she should think of that, and we
have never forgotten our duty. We have paid every year our toll of a
feather, an egg, and a young one, as it is only right we should do.
You don't suppose I can wander about the court-yard, or go
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