The Wonderful Adventures of Nils 1732 Studios

Swedish · The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

Hos lapparna

Among the Lapps

224 sentences · 18 notes

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  1. 1

    The funeral was over.

    Begravningenfuneralbegravning · noun, nominative, common gender, singularsubject of var
    varwasvara · auxiliary verb, past, indicative, activecopula linking to över
    överoveröver · adverbhead of the phrase

  2. All of Åsa the goose girl's guests had gone, and she was alone in the little cabin that belonged to her father.

  3. She had shut the door, so that she could sit quite in peace and think about her brother.

  4. She recalled everything little Mats had said and done, one thing after another, and there was so much of it that she never got around to lying down, but sat up the whole evening and a good part of the night.

  5. The more she thought about her brother, the better she understood how hard it would be to live without him, and at last she laid her head down on the tabletop and wept bitterly.

  6. "What am I to do, now that I no longer have little Mats?" she sobbed.

  7. 2

    It was already late at night, and Åsa the goose girl had had a wearying day, so it was no wonder that sleep crept over her the moment she lowered her head.

  8. Nor was it any wonder that she dreamed of the one she had just been sitting and thinking about.

  9. She thought that little Mats came, alive as life itself, into the room to her.

  10. "Now, Åsa, you must go and find out about father," he said.

  11. — "How am I to do that, when I don't even know where he is?" she seemed to answer.

  12. — "Don't worry about that!" said little Mats briskly and cheerfully, as was his way.

  13. "I'll send you someone who will help you."

  14. 3

    At the very moment that Åsa the goose girl dreamed that little Mats said this, there came a knock on the door of her chamber.

  15. This was a real knock, and not something she only heard in the dream.

  16. But she was so deep in her dream that she could not tell what was real and what was fancy, and as she went to open it, she thought: "Now surely comes the one little Mats promised to send to me."

  17. 4

    Had it been Sister Hilma or some other real person standing on the threshold when Åsa the goose girl opened the door, the girl would no doubt at once have understood that the dream was over, but now it was not so, for the one who had knocked was a little gnome no taller than the breadth of a hand.

  18. Although it was so late at night, it was as bright as day, and Åsa saw at once that it was the same little fellow she and little Mats had come upon a couple of times while they had wandered through the country.

  19. Then she had been frightened of him, and she would have been frightened now too, had she been fully awake.

  20. But she still believed she was dreaming, and so she stood there calmly.

  21. "I was just expecting it would be the one little Mats said he would send to help me find father," she thought.

  22. 5

    And she was not so far wrong in this, for the little fellow had indeed come to speak with her about her father.

  23. When he saw that she was not afraid of him, he told her in a few words both where her father was to be found, and how she should go about reaching him.

  24. 6

    While he spoke, Åsa the goose girl gradually woke to full awareness, and by the time he finished, she was wide awake.

  25. And then she grew so frightened, because she was standing there talking with one who did not belong to her world, that she could say neither thanks nor anything else to him, but only ran inside and pulled the door hard shut.

  26. She thought she saw that the little fellow's face took on a very grieved look when she did so, but she could not help it.

  27. She was quite beside herself with fear, and hurried to creep into bed and pull the covers over her eyes.

  28. 7

    But although she was so afraid of the little fellow, she understood that he meant her well, and the next day she hastened to do just as he had advised her.

  29. 8

    On the western shore of Luossajaure, a small lake lying many miles farther north than Malmberget, there was a little Lapp camp.

  30. At the southern end of the lake rose a mighty mass of rock called Kirunavara, which was said to consist of almost nothing but iron ore.

  31. On the northeastern side lay another mountain, called Luossavara, and that too was a rich iron mountain.

  32. Up to these mountains they were building a railway from Gellivare, and near Kirunavara there was being built a railway station, a hotel for travelers, and a great many dwellings for all the workers and engineers who were to live there once the ore mining had properly got under way.

  33. It was quite a little town of bright, pleasant houses that was being raised in a region so far to the north that the small stunted birches covering the ground could not push their leaves out of the buds until after midsummer.

  34. 9

    West of the lake the ground lay open and free, and there, as has been said, a couple of Lapp families had pitched their camp.

  35. They had come there some month before, And it had not taken them long to get their dwelling in order.

  36. They had neither blasted nor built with stone to get a good, even foundation, but once they had picked out a dry and pleasant spot near the lake, they had only had to cut away a couple of willow bushes and level a few tussocks to get the site ready.

  37. Nor had they had to timber and hew for long days to raise sturdy walls of wood, nor had they had any trouble with roof-raising and roof-covering, with boarding and window-setting, with doors and locks.

  38. They had only needed to drive the tent poles firmly into the ground and hang the tent cloth over them to have their dwelling as good as ready.

  39. Nor had they gone to much trouble over furnishing and decorating.

  40. The main thing was to spread out a little spruce brush and a few hides on the floor, and to hang up the big kettle, in which they used to boil their reindeer meat, on a chain fastened up at the top of the tent poles.

  41. 10

    The settlers on the eastern side of the lake, who worked with the greatest eagerness to get their houses finished before the harsh winter should begin, marveled at the Lapps,

  42. 11

    who had roamed about up here in the far north for many, many hundreds of years without thinking that better shelter against cold and storm was needed than thin tent walls.

  43. And the Lapps wondered at the settlers, who made themselves so much heavy toil, when it takes no more than owning a few reindeer and a tent to be able to live.

  44. 12

    One afternoon in July it rained something terrible up at Luossajaure, and the Lapps, who otherwise were not much indoors during the summer, had, as many of them as there were, crept into one of the tents and sat around the fire drinking coffee.

  45. 13

    While the Lapps were chatting away over their coffee, a boat came rowing from the Kiruna side and put in at the Lapp camp.

  46. Out of the boat stepped a workman and a girl, who might have been between thirteen and fourteen years old.

  47. The Lapp dogs rushed at them barking loudly, and one of the Lapps stuck his head out through the tent opening to see what was going on.

  48. He was glad when he caught sight of the workman.

  49. He was a good friend of the Lapps, a friendly, talkative man who could speak Lappish, and the Lapp called out to him to crawl into the tent.

  50. "Now here you come as if sent for, Söderberg," he said.

  51. "The coffee pot is standing over the fire.

  52. No one can do anything in this rainy weather.

  53. Come in here and tell us something new!"

  54. 14

    The workman crept in among the Lapps, and with much effort and amid much laughter and joking, room was made for him and the girl in the little tent, which was already quite filled with people.

  55. The man at once began chatting in Lappish with the hosts.

  56. The girl, who had come along with him, understood nothing of the conversation, but sat silent and looked in wonder at the pot and the coffee kettle, at fire and smoke, at Lapp men and women, at children and dogs, at walls and floor, at coffee cups and tobacco pipes, at gaily colored clothes and carved tools.

  57. It was all new to her.

  58. Nothing was such as she was used to.

  59. 15

    But all at once she had to stop looking and had to lower her eyes, because she noticed that everyone in the hut was looking at her.

  60. Söderberg must have said something about her, for now the Lapp men and women took the short pipe out of their mouths and stared in her direction.

  61. The Lapp sitting next to her patted her on the shoulder, nodded, and said in Swedish: "Good, good."

  62. A Lapp woman poured out a large cup of coffee, which was handed to her with much difficulty, and a Lapp boy, who might have been about as old as she, crept and wound his way among those sitting there, until he came to her side.

  63. And there he lay and just looked at her.

  64. 16

    The girl understood that Söderberg was telling the Lapps how she had held a great funeral for her brother, little Mats, but she wished he had not talked so much about her, but instead had asked the Lapps whether they knew where her father was.

  65. The gnome had said that he was staying with the Lapps who had pitched camp west of Luossajaure, and she had asked permission to travel up here with a gravel train, for no real trains yet ran on this line, and to search for him.

  66. Everyone, both workmen and foremen, had helped her in the best way, and an engineer in Kiruna had sent Söderberg, who could speak Lappish, with her across the lake to ask after her father.

  67. She had hoped that she would meet him as soon as she arrived here.

  68. She had glanced from one face to another inside the tent, but everyone there belonged to the Lapp people.

  69. Her father was not there.

  70. 17

    She saw that the Lapps and Söderberg grew ever more serious the longer they talked together, and that the Lapps shook their heads and tapped their foreheads, as if they had been talking about someone who was not quite in his right mind.

  71. Then she grew so anxious that she could no longer bear to sit silent and wait, but asked Söderberg what the Lapps knew about her father.

  72. 18

    "They say he has gone out fishing," said the workman.

  73. "They don't know whether he can come back to the camp tonight, but as soon as the weather turns better, one of them will go and look for him."

  74. 19

    Then he turned to the Lapps and eagerly went on talking with them.

  75. He did not want Åsa to have the chance to ask him any more questions about Jon Assarsson.

  76. 20

    It was morning, and the weather was fine.

  77. Ola Serka himself, the foremost among the Lapps, had said that he would go and find Åsa's father, but he was in no hurry about it, and sat crouched down in front of the hut thinking about Jon Assarsson, wondering how he should break to him the news that his daughter had come to seek him out.

  78. It was important to do this in such a way that Jon Assarsson would not be alarmed and flee, for he was a strange man who was afraid of encountering children.

  79. He used to say that such dark thoughts came over him when he saw them that he could not bear it.

  80. 21

    While Ola Serka was pondering, Åsa the goose girl and Aslak, the young Lapp boy who had stared at her the evening before, sat in front of the tents talking.

  81. Aslak had been to school and could speak Swedish.

  82. He told Åsa about the life of the Sami people and assured her that they had it better than anyone else.

  83. Åsa thought they had it terribly, and said so too.

  84. "You don't know what you're talking about," said Aslak.

  85. "Just stay with us a week, and you'll see that we are the happiest people on the whole earth!"

  86. — "If I stayed here a week, I'd surely be choked by all the smoke inside the hut," said Åsa.

  87. — "Don't say that!" said the Lapp boy.

  88. "You know nothing about us.

  89. I'm going to tell you something that may make you understand that the longer you stayed among us, the better you would like it here."

  90. 22

    Then Aslak began to tell Åsa how it had been in the days when a sickness called the Black Death had passed through the land.

  91. He did not know whether it had raged up in the true Sameland, where they now were, but in Jämtland it had swept through so cruelly that among the Sami people living there in the forests and mountains, all had died except one boy of fifteen, and of the Swedes living in the river valleys, none had been left alive except one girl, who was also fifteen years old.

  92. 23

    "The boy and the girl had wandered about in the desolate land a whole winter searching for people, and toward spring they had at last met," Aslak went on to tell.

  93. "Then the Swedish girl begged the Lapp boy to go south with her, so that she might come to people of her own kind.

  94. She no longer wanted to stay in Jämtland, where there was nothing but abandoned farms.

  95. 'I'll take you wherever you wish,' said the boy, 'but not until winter comes.

  96. It is spring now, and my reindeer are heading west up toward the mountains, and you know that we, who belong to the Sami people, must go where our reindeer take us.'

  97. 24

    The Swedish girl was the child of rich parents.

  98. She was used to living under a roof, sleeping in a bed, and eating at a table.

  99. She had always despised the poor mountain folk, and thought that those who lived under the open sky were very unfortunate.

  100. But she was afraid to return to her farm, where there was now nothing but the dead.

  101. 'Then at least let me travel with you up into the mountains,' she said to the boy, 'so that I need not go about here alone without hearing a human voice!'

  102. The boy readily agreed to this, and so the girl came to follow the reindeer on their journey up into the mountains.

  103. The herd longed for the good mountain pasture and covered long stretches every day.

  104. There was no time to pitch a tent.

  105. They had to throw themselves down and sleep on the snow during the moments when the reindeer stopped to graze.

  106. The animals felt the south wind stirring in their fur; they knew that within a few days it would sweep the snow off the mountain slopes.

  107. The girl and the boy had to hurry after them through snow that was beginning to melt, and over cracking ice.

  108. When they had climbed so high up the mountains that the conifer forest gave out and the stunted birches took its place, they rested for a few weeks, waiting for the snow to melt on the upper mountain plateaus.

  109. Then they moved up onto these.

  110. The girl complained and panted and said many times that she was so tired she must turn back down to the valleys, but she went along all the same, rather than be left alone without a living soul near her.

  111. 25

    When they had come up onto the mountain plateaus, the boy raised a tent for the girl on a lovely green spot sloping down toward a mountain stream.

  112. When evening came, he caught the reindeer cows with a lasso, milked them, and gave her milk to drink.

  113. He sought out dried reindeer meat and reindeer cheese, which his people had stored up there on the heights when they had been there the summer before.

  114. The girl complained constantly and was never satisfied.

  115. She wanted neither to eat dried reindeer meat nor reindeer cheese, nor to drink reindeer milk.

  116. She could not accustom herself to sitting crouched under the tent, or to lying on the ground with only a reindeer hide and a little brush for a bed.

  117. But the mountain folk's son laughed at her whining and went on being good to her.

  118. 26

    After a few days the girl came to the boy while he was milking the reindeer cows, and asked to help him.

  119. She also took it upon herself to make a fire under the kettle where the reindeer meat was to be cooked, to fetch water, and to make cheese.

  120. They had a good time now.

  121. The weather was warm, and it was easy to get food.

  122. They went together to set snares for the birds, fished for trout in the rapids, and gathered cloudberries on the marsh.

  123. 27

    When summer was over, they moved so far down the mountains that they reached the line between conifer forest and deciduous woods, and there they made camp anew.

  124. It was now slaughtering time, and they had hard work every day, but it was also a good time, with an even better supply of food than in summer.

  125. When the snow came and the ice began to form over the lakes, they moved farther east down into the dense spruce forest.

  126. As soon as they had gotten the tent up, they set to work on the winter tasks.

  127. The boy taught the girl to twist thread from reindeer sinews, to prepare hides, to sew clothes and shoes from skins, to make combs and tools from reindeer horn, to run on skis and travel behind reindeer in a sledge.

  128. When they had lived through the dark part of winter and the sun shone almost the whole day, the boy said to

  129. 28

    the girl that now he could take her south, so that she might find people of her own kind.

  130. But then the girl looked at him in astonishment.

  131. 'Why do you want to send me away?' she said.

  132. 'Do you long to be alone with your reindeer?'

  133. — 'I thought it was you who longed for it,' said the boy.

  134. — 'I have now lived the life of the Sami people for nearly a year,' said the girl.

  135. 'I cannot go back to my own people and live in cramped dwellings, now that I have for so long wandered free on the mountain and in the forest.

  136. Do not drive me away, but let me stay here!

  137. Your way of living is better than ours.'

  138. 29

    The girl stayed with the boy her whole life and never longed to go back to the valleys.

  139. And if you, Åsa, stayed here just one month, you would never again be able to part from us."

  140. 30

    With these words Aslak the Lapp boy finished his story, and at that same moment his father, Ola Serka, took the pipe from his mouth and rose.

  141. Old Ola understood more Swedish than he cared to let anyone know, and he had grasped his son's words.

  142. And while he had been listening, it had suddenly become clear to him how he should go about telling Jon Assarsson that his daughter had come to seek him.

  143. 31

    Ola Serka went down to Luossajaure and followed the shore a way, until he came upon a man sitting on a stone and fishing.

  144. The fisherman had graying hair and a stooped bearing.

  145. His eyes looked weary, and there was something slack and helpless about him.

  146. He looked like one who had tried to carry something that had been too heavy for him, or to work out something that had been too hard for him, and had been broken and disheartened by his failure to succeed.

  147. 32

    "You must be having good luck fishing, Jon, since you've been sitting here angling all night?" said the mountain man in Lappish, as he came walking up.

  148. 33

    The other man started and looked up.

  149. The bait on his hook was gone, and not a single fish lay beside him on the shore.

  150. He hurried to put on new bait and cast out the hook again.

  151. Meanwhile the mountain man sat himself down in the grass beside him.

  152. 34

    "There's something I wanted to talk to you about," said Ola.

  153. "You know I had a daughter who died last year, and we have always missed her in the hut."

  154. — "Yes, I know," said the fisherman shortly, and a shadow passed over his face, as if he had not liked being reminded of a dead child.

  155. He spoke good Lappish.

  156. — "But it's no use ruining one's life with grief," said the Lapp.

  157. — "No, that it is not."

  158. — "And now I've been thinking of taking another child to myself.

  159. Don't you think that would be wise?"

  160. — "That depends on what sort of child it is, Ola."

  161. 35

    "I want to tell you what I know about the girl, Jon," said Ola, and now told the fisherman that around midsummer a couple of strange children, a boy and a girl, had come walking to Malmberget to search for their father, and that, since the father was away, they had stayed on to wait for him.

  162. But while they went about waiting, the boy had been killed by a blasting shot, and then the girl had wanted to hold a great funeral for him.

  163. Then Ola described most beautifully how the poor little girl had managed to get everyone to help her, and that she had been so brave that she herself had gone and spoken with the manager.

  164. 36

    "Is that the girl you want to take in with you, Ola?" asked the fisherman.

  165. — "Yes," said the Lapp.

  166. "When we heard this, none of us could keep from weeping, and we said to one another that so good a sister would also make a good daughter, and that we wished she would come to us."

  167. The other man sat silent a while.

  168. It was clear that he kept up the conversation only to please his friend the Lapp.

  169. "She's of your own kind, this girl, I suppose?"

  170. — "No," said Ola, "she is not one of the Sami people."

  171. — "Perhaps she's the daughter of some settler, so that she's used to life up here in the north?"

  172. — "No, she's from far in the south," said Ola, and looked as though this had nothing at all to do with the matter.

  173. But now the fisherman grew more interested.

  174. "Then I don't think you can take her," he said.

  175. "She surely won't be able to stand living in a hut through the winter, when she isn't raised to it."

  176. — "She will have good parents and good brothers and sisters in the hut," said Ola Serka stubbornly.

  177. "It's worse to be alone than to be cold."

  178. 37

    But the fisherman seemed to grow ever more eager to prevent the matter.

  179. It was as though he could not bear the thought that a child with Swedish parents should be taken in among the Lapps.

  180. "You said she had a father at Malmberget, didn't you?"

  181. — "He's dead," said the Lapp curtly.

  182. — "Have you really made sure of that, Ola?"

  183. — "What need is there to ask about that?" said the Lapp scornfully.

  184. "I ought surely to know.

  185. Would the girl and her brother have had to wander alone through the whole country, if they had had a living father?

  186. Would two children have had to fend for themselves, if they had had a father?

  187. Would the little girl have had to go alone to speak with the manager, if her father had been alive?

  188. Would she be alone for a single moment, now that all of Sameland is talking of what a fine girl she is, unless her father were already dead?

  189. The girl herself believes he's alive, but I say he must be dead."

  190. 38

    The man with the weary eyes turned toward Ola.

  191. "What is the girl's name, Ola?" he said.

  192. The mountain man pondered.

  193. "That I don't remember.

  194. I'll have to ask her."

  195. — "Are you going to ask her?

  196. Is she here already, then?"

  197. — "She's up there in the hut, yes."

  198. — "What, Ola?

  199. Have you taken her in with you before you know what her father wants?"

  200. — "I need not concern myself with her father.

  201. If he isn't dead, he must be one who doesn't want to know his own child.

  202. Let him be glad that someone else is taking care of it."

  203. The fisherman threw down his fishing rod and stood up.

  204. There was a briskness about him, as if new life had come into him.

  205. "I think the father can't be like other people," the mountain man went on.

  206. "He may be one who's haunted by dark thoughts, so that he can't hold out at his work.

  207. What kind of father would that be for her to get?"

  208. 39

    While Ola was saying this, the fisherman had walked up onto the bank.

  209. "Where are you going?" asked the Lapp.

  210. — "I'm going to have a look at your foster daughter, Ola."

  211. — "That's good," said the Lapp.

  212. "Come and look at her!

  213. I think you'll agree it's a good daughter I'm getting."

  214. 40

    The Swede walked on at such a pace that the Lapp could scarcely keep up with him.

  215. After a while Ola said to his companion: "I can just recall that her name is Åsa Jonsdotter, the girl I want to take in."

  216. The other man only hurried his steps, and old Ola Serka was so pleased that he could have burst out laughing.

  217. When they had gone so far that they could see the huts, Ola said a few more words.

  218. "She has come here to the Sami people to look for her father and not to become my foster daughter, but if she doesn't find her father, then I would gladly keep her in the hut."

  219. The other man hurried on with even greater haste.

  220. "I could well believe he'd be afraid, when I threatened to take up his daughter among the Sami people," said Ola to himself.

  221. 41

    When the man from Kiruna, who had rowed Åsa the goose girl over to the Lapp camp, returned later in the day, he had with him in the boat two people who sat close together on the thwart, holding each other's hands faithfully, as if they never wished to be parted again.

  222. They were Jon Assarsson and his daughter.

  223. Both were changed from what they had been a couple of hours before, for Jon Assarsson looked less bent and weary, and his eyes shone clear and kind, as if he had now got the answer to what had so long troubled him, and Åsa the goose girl no longer looked around so wisely and warily as she had been used to do.

  224. She had found someone great to lean on and trust in, and it seemed as though she were about to become a child again.

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.
Words
Every word of the text, by letter.
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Two whoopie pies and a pine. An inside joke.