and walnut trees thrive down here; and they grow so big that they tower
above the church-roofs. Here lie also the largest grain-fields; but the
people have not only timber and farming to live upon, but they are also
occupied with fishing and trading and seafaring. For this reason you
will find the most costly residences and the prettiest churches here;
and the parishes have developed into villages and cities.

"But this is not all that is said of the three steps. For one must
realise that when it rains on the roof of the big Smaland house, or when
the snow melts up there, the water has to go somewhere; and then,
naturally, a lot of it is spilled over the big stairway. In the
beginning it probably oozed over the whole stairway, big as it was; then
cracks appeared in it, and, gradually, the water has accustomed itself
to flow alongside of it, in well dug-out grooves. And water is water,
whatever one does with it. It never has any rest. In one place it cuts
and files away, and in another it adds to. Those grooves it has dug into
vales, and the walls of the vales it has decked with soil; and bushes
and trees and vines have clung to them ever since--so thick, and in such
profusion, that they almost hide the stream of water that winds its way
down there in the deep. But when the streams come to the landings between
the steps, they throw themselves headlong over them; this is why the
water comes with such a seething rush, that it gathers strength with
which to move mill-wheels and machinery--these, too, have sprung up by
every waterfall.

"But this does not tell all that is said of the land with the three
steps. It must also be told that up in the big house in Smaland there
lived once upon a time a giant, who had grown very old. And it fatigued
him in his extreme age, to be forced to walk down that long stairway in
order to catch salmon from the sea. To him it seemed much more suitable
that the salmon should come up to him, where he lived.

"Therefore, he went up on the roof of his great house; and there he
stood and threw stones down into the East sea. He threw them with such
force that they flew over the whole of Blekinge and dropped into the
sea. And when the stones came down, the salmon got so scared that they
came up from the sea and fled toward the Blekinge streams; ran through
the rapids; flung themselves with high leaps over the waterfalls, and
stopped.

"How true this is, one can see by the number of islands and po