nd then it would be
revealed to her where life and health for her father were to be found.

All this she had performed, and in a dream had been instructed that
from the deep morass high up in the Danish land--the place was
minutely described to her--she might bring home a certain lotus
flower, which beneath the water would touch her breast, that would
cure him.

And therefore she had flown, in the magical disguise of a swan, from
Egypt up to "the wild morass." All this was well known to the
stork-father and the stork-mother; and now, though rather late, we
also know it. We know that the mud-king dragged her down with him, and
that, as far as regarded her home, she was dead and gone; only the
wisest of them all said, like the stork-mother, "She can take care of
herself;" and, knowing no better, they waited to see what would turn
up.

"I think I shall steal their swan garbs from the two wicked
princesses," said the stork-father; "then they will not be able to go
to 'the wild morass' and do mischief. I shall leave the swan
disguises themselves up yonder till there is some use for them."

"Where could you keep them?" asked the old female stork.

"In our nest near 'the wild morass,'" he replied. "I and our eldest
young ones can carry them; and if we find them too troublesome, there
are plenty of places on the way where we can hide them until our next
flight. One swan's dress would be enough for her, to be sure; but two
are better. It is a good thing to have abundant means of travelling at
command in a country so far north."

"You will get no thanks for what you propose doing," said the
stork-mother; "but you are the master, and must please yourself. I
have nothing to say except at hatching-time."

* * * * *

At the Viking's castle near "the wild morass," whither the storks were
flying in the spring, the little girl had received her name. She was
called Helga; but this name was too soft for one with such
dispositions as that lovely creature had. She grew fast month by
month; and in a few years, even while the storks were making their
habitual journeys in autumn towards the Nile, in spring towards "the
wild morass," the little child had grown up into a big girl, and
before any one could have thought it, she was in her sixteenth year,
and a most beautiful young lady--charming in appearance, but hard and
fierce in temper--the most savage of the savage in that gloomy, cruel
time.

It wa