birds were singing in strolling trees. Both tame and wild
beasts were racing, and amongst all this people moved along--some with
spades and scythes, others with axes, and others, again, with fishing
nets.

The procession marched with gladness and gayety, and he did not wonder
at that when he saw who was leading it. It was nothing less than the Sun
itself that rolled on like a great shining head with hair of many-hued
rays and a countenance beaming with merriment and kindliness!

"Forward, march!" it kept calling out. "None need feel anxious whilst I
am here. Forward, march!"

"I wonder where the Sun wants to take us to?" remarked the boy. A rye
blade that walked beside him heard him, and immediately answered:

"He wants to take us up to Lapland to fight the Ice Witch."

Presently the boy noticed that some of the travellers hesitated, slowed
up, and finally stood quite still. He saw that the tall beech tree
stopped, and that the roebuck and the wheat blade tarried by the
wayside, likewise the blackberry bush, the little yellow buttercup, the
chestnut tree, and the grouse.

He glanced about him and tried to reason out why so many stopped. Then
he discovered that they were no longer in southern Sweden. The march had
been so rapid that they were already in Svealand.

Up there the oak began to move more cautiously. It paused awhile to
consider, took a few faltering steps, then came to a standstill.

"Why doesn't the oak come along?" asked the boy.

"It's afraid of the Ice Witch," said a fair young birch that tripped
along so boldly and cheerfully that it was a joy to watch it. The crowd
hurried on as before. In a short time they were in Norrland, and now it
mattered not how much the Sun cried and coaxed--the apple tree stopped,
the cherry tree stopped, the rye blade stopped!

The boy turned to them and asked:

"Why don't you come along? Why do you desert the Sun?"

"We dare not! We're afraid of the Ice Witch, who lives in Lapland," they
answered.

The boy comprehended that they were far north, as the procession grew
thinner and thinner. The rye blade, the barley, the wild strawberry, the
blueberry bush, the pea stalk, the currant bush had come along as far as
this. The elk and the domestic cow had been walking side by side, but
now they stopped. The Sun no doubt would have been almost deserted if
new followers had not happened along. Osier bushes and a lot of brushy
vegetation joined the procession. Laps and r