terfly
had been wise enough to remain on the hillside. But it wasn't; it
ventured out over the East sea. And it hadn't gotten very far before the
storm came along and began to tear at its wings. Well, it's easy to
understand, Eric, how things would go when the East sea storm commenced
to wrestle with frail butterfly-wings. It wasn't long before they were
torn away and scattered; and then, of course, the poor butterfly fell
into the sea. At first it was tossed backward and forward on the
billows, and then it was stranded upon a few cliff-foundations outside
of Smaland. And there it lay--as large and long as it was.

"Now I think, Eric, that if the butterfly had dropped on land, it would
soon have rotted and fallen apart. But since it fell into the sea, it
was soaked through and through with lime, and became as hard as a stone.
You know, of course, that we have found stones on the shore which were
nothing but petrified worms. Now I believe that it went the same way
with the big butterfly-body. I believe that it turned where it lay into
a long, narrow mountain out in the East sea. Don't you?"

He paused for a reply, and the other one nodded to him. "Go on, so I may
hear what you are driving at," said he.

"And mark you, Eric, that this very Oeland, upon which you and I live, is
nothing else than the old butterfly-body. If one only thinks about it,
one can observe that the island is a butterfly. Toward the north, the
slender fore-body and the round head can be seen, and toward the south,
one sees the back-body--which first broadens out, and then narrows to a
sharp point."

Here he paused once more and looked at his companion rather anxiously to
see how he would take this assertion. But the young man kept on eating
with the utmost calm, and nodded to him to continue.

"As soon as the butterfly had been changed into a limestone rock, many
different kinds of seeds of herbs and trees came travelling with the
winds, and wanted to take root on it. It was a long time before anything
but sedge could grow there. Then came sheep sorrel, and the rock-rose
and thorn-brush. But even to-day there is not so much growth on Alvaret,
that the mountain is well covered, but it shines through here and there.
And no one can think of ploughing and sowing up here, where the
earth-crust is so thin. But if you will admit that Alvaret and the
strongholds around it, are made of the butterfly-body, then you may well
have the right to question wher