has sent her little one up
here, and now it is well provided for."

"I told thee from the beginning it would be all well," said the mother
stork. "Turn thy thoughts now to thine own family. It is almost time
for our long journey; I begin now to tingle under the wings. The
cuckoo and the nightingale are already gone, and I hear the quails
saying that we shall soon have a fair wind. Our young ones are quite
able to go, I know that."

How happy the Viking's wife was when, in the morning, she awoke and
found the lovely little child lying on her breast! She kissed it and
caressed it, but it screeched frightfully, and floundered about with
its little arms and legs: IT evidently seemed little pleased. At last
it cried itself to sleep, and as it lay there it was one of the most
beautiful little creatures that could be seen. The Viking's wife was
so pleased and happy, she took it into her head that her husband, with
all his retainers, would come as unexpectedly as the little one had
done; and she set herself and the whole household to work, in order
that everything might be ready for their reception. The coloured
tapestry which she and her women had embroidered with representations
of their gods--ODIN, THOR, and FREIA, as they were called--were hung
up; the serfs were ordered to clean and polish the old shields with
which the walls were to be decorated; cushions were laid on the
benches; and dry logs of wood were heaped on the fireplace in the
centre of the hall, so that the pile might be easily lighted. The
Viking's wife laboured so hard herself that she was quite tired by the
evening, and slept soundly.

When she awoke towards morning she became much alarmed, for the little
child was gone. She sprang up, lighted a twig of the pine tree, and
looked about; and, to her amazement, she saw, in the part of the bed
to which she stretched her feet, not the beautiful infant, but a great
ugly frog. She was so much disgusted with it that she took up a heavy
stick, and was going to kill the nasty creature; but it looked at her
with such wonderfully sad and speaking eyes that she could not strike
it. Again she searched about. The frog gave a faint, pitiable cry. She
started up, and sprang from the bed to the window; she opened the
shutters, and at the same moment the sun streamed in, and cast its
bright beams upon the bed and upon the large frog; and all at once it
seemed as if the broad mouth of the noxious animal drew itself in, and