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Swedish · The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

Trappan med de tre trappstegen

The Staircase with the Three Steps

61 sentences · 17 notes

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  1. 1

    The next day the wild geese meant to travel north through Allbo Hundred in Småland.

    Nästanextnästa · adjective, nominativemodifies dag
    dagdaydag · noun, nominative, common gender, singularoblique complement of ämnade
    ämnadeintendedämna · verb, past, indicative, activemodifies fara
    vildgässenthe wild geesevildgässe · noun, nominative, common gender, singularsubject of ämnade

    attested only in the plural surface vildgässen; the collective noun for the wild-goose flock.

    faragofara · noun, nominative, common gender, singularhead of the phrase

    some listed surfaces (fara, far) are actually forms of the unrelated verb fara 'to travel/go'; gloss the noun sense danger for the noun-tagged type.

    norrutnorthwardnorrut · adverbmodifies fara
    genomthroughgenom · prepositionpreposition marking Allbo
    AllboAllboAllbo · proper noun, nominativemodifies fara
    häradhundred (district)härad · adjective, nominative, common gender, singularmodifies fara

    'Härad' is a historical Swedish administrative district, not an adjective; mistagged by the parser.

    iini · prepositionpreposition marking Småland
    SmålandSmålandSmåland · proper noun, nominativemodifies fara

  2. They sent Yksi and Kaksi ahead to scout, but when they came back, they said that all the water was frozen and all the ground covered with snow.

  3. "Then let us just as well stay where we are!" said the wild geese.

  4. "We cannot travel across a land where there is neither water nor grazing."

  5. — "If we stay where we now are, we may have to wait a whole month," Akka said then.

  6. "It is better to travel east through Blekinge and try whether we cannot then get across Småland through Möre Hundred, which lies near the coast and has an early spring."

  7. 2

    Thus it came about that the boy traveled across Blekinge the next day.

  8. Now that it was daylight, he had come back to his right mind again and could not understand what had come over him the evening before.

  9. Now he certainly did not want to give up the journey and the wild life.

  10. 3

    A thick haze of rain lay over Blekinge.

  11. The boy could not see what it looked like down there.

  12. "I wonder whether this is a good or a poor land that I'm riding over," he thought, and tried to dig out of his memory what he had learned about the region in school.

  13. But at the same time he knew well enough that this would be of no use, since he had never been in the habit of studying his lessons.

  14. 4

    All at once the boy saw the whole schoolroom before him.

  15. The children sat at their little desks and stretched up their hands, the teacher sat at his desk looking displeased, and he himself stood up front at the map and was supposed to answer some question about Blekinge, but had not a word to say.

  16. The schoolmaster's face grew darker with every second that passed, and the boy thought about how the teacher cared more about their knowing their geography than anything else.

  17. Now he also came down from his desk, took the pointer from the boy, and sent him back to his seat.

  18. "This isn't going to end well," the boy had thought then.

  19. 5

    But the schoolmaster had walked over to a window and stood there a while looking out, and then he had whistled a bit.

  20. After that he had gone up to his desk and said that he would tell them something about Blekinge.

  21. And what he had talked about then had been so entertaining that the boy had listened.

  22. If he only thought about it, he remembered every word.

  23. 6

    "Småland is a tall house with fir trees on the roof," said the teacher, "and out in front of it lies a broad staircase with three great steps, and that staircase is called Blekinge.

  24. 7

    It is a staircase built on a truly grand scale.

  25. It stretches eight miles along the front of the Småland house, and whoever wants to walk all the way down the staircase to the Baltic Sea has four miles to travel.

  26. 8

    It is also quite a long time indeed since the staircase was built.

  27. Both days and years have passed since the first steps were hewn out of gray stone and laid down even and smooth to make a comfortable passage between Småland and the Baltic Sea.

  28. 9

    Since the staircase is so old, one can well understand that it does not look the same now as when it was new.

  29. I don't know how much people cared about such things in those days, but as great as it was, no broom could in any case have managed to keep it clean.

  30. After a couple of years moss and lichen began to grow on it, dry grass and dry leaves blew down over it in the autumns, and in the springs it was covered with tumbling stones and gravel.

  31. And since all this was allowed to lie there and rot, so much soil finally gathered on the staircase that not only herbs and grass, but even bushes and great trees could take root there.

  32. 10

    But at the same time a great difference has arisen between the three steps.

  33. The topmost one, which lies closest to Småland, is for the most part covered with poor soil and small stones, and there hardly any trees will grow but the silver birch and the bird cherry and the fir, which can bear the cold up there in the heights and are content with little.

  34. One understands best of all how barren and poor it is there when one sees how small the little fields are that have been broken out of the forest land, and how small the cottages are that the people build for themselves, and how far it is between the churches.

  35. 11

    On the middle step, on the other hand, there is better soil, and it is not bound under such severe cold either; one can see that at once from the fact that the trees are both taller and of a finer kind.

  36. There grow maple and oak and linden, weeping birch and hazel, but hardly any conifers at all.

  37. And one notices it even better from the fact that there is a great deal of cultivated land, as well as from the fact that the people have built themselves beautiful, large houses.

  38. Many churches stand on the middle step, and large villages lie around them, and in every way it looks better and more splendid than the upper step.

  39. 12

    But the very lowest step is nonetheless the best of all.

  40. It is covered with good, rich soil, and lying there bathing in the sea, it has not the slightest touch of the Småland cold.

  41. Down here beeches and chestnuts and walnut trees thrive, and they grow so large that they reach above the church roofs.

  42. Here also lie the largest fields, but the people do not have only forestry and farming to live by, for they also occupy themselves with fishing and trade and shipping.

  43. That is why the costliest homes and the most beautiful churches are found here too, and the church villages have grown into market towns and cities.

  44. 13

    But not everything has been said about the three steps with this.

  45. For one must consider that when it rains up on the roof of the great Småland house, or when the snow melts up there, the water must find its way somewhere, and then, of course, part of it plunges down the great staircase.

  46. At first it probably flowed across the whole staircase, broad as it was, but then cracks arose in it, and gradually the water has now grown accustomed to flowing down it in a few well-worn channels.

  47. And water is water, wherever one puts it.

  48. It never has any rest.

  49. In one place it digs and files and carries away, and in another it deposits.

  50. Those channels it has dug into valleys, the valley walls it has covered with soil, and then bushes and vines and trees have clung fast to them so thickly and so richly that they almost hide the stream of water running down in the depths.

  51. But when the streams reach the ledges between the steps, they must throw themselves headlong down them, and from this the water gathers such foaming speed that it gains the power to turn mill wheels and machines, and such have indeed sprung up at every rapids.

  52. 14

    But even with this, not everything has been said about the land with the three steps.

  53. For it must also be told that up there in Småland, in the great house, there once lived a giant who had grown old.

  54. And it vexed him that in his great old age he should be forced to go down the long staircase to fish for salmon in the sea.

  55. It seemed to him far more fitting that the salmon should come up to him, where he lived.

  56. 15

    So he went up onto the roof of his great house, and there he took his stand and hurled great stones down into the Baltic Sea.

  57. He threw them with such force that they flew clear across Blekinge and fell into the sea.

  58. And when the stones fell, the salmon grew so frightened that it rose up out of the sea, fled up the Blekinge rivers, raced away through the rapids, flung itself in high leaps up the falls, and did not stop until it was far inside Småland with the old giant.

  59. 16

    How true this is can be seen from the many islands and skerries that lie off the coast of Blekinge, and that are nothing other than the many great stones the giant threw.

  60. 17

    It is also shown by the fact that the salmon still swims up the Blekinge rivers and, through rapids and still waters, works its way all the way to Småland.

  61. 18

    But that giant deserves much thanks and honor from the people of Blekinge, because salmon fishing in the rivers and stone-quarrying in the archipelago are work that still provides food for many of them to this very day."

The particulars

The text
Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige, Selma Lagerlöf. The Wonderful Adventures of Nils.
Translation
Public-domain Swedish (Lagerlöf, d. 1940; published 1906–07). English translation © 2026 1732 Studios, LLC.
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Two whoopie pies and a pine. An inside joke.