The Wonderful Adventures of Nils 1732 Studios

Swedish · The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

En liten herrgård

A Little Manor House

180 sentences · 20 notes

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  1. 1

    The wild geese followed the Klarälven as far as Munkfors, the great ironworks.

    Vildgässenthe wild geesevildgässe · proper noun, nominativesubject of följde
    följdefollowedföljde · verb, past, indicative, activemain verb of the sentence
    Klarälventhe KlarälvenKlarälven · proper noun, nominativedirect object of följde

    Name of the river Klarälven in Värmland.

    såasså · adverbmodifies bruk
    långtfarlångt · adverbpart of the phrase så
    somassom · subordinating conjunctionintroduces the clause of bruk
    tilltotill · prepositionpreposition marking Munkfors
    MunkforsMunkforsMunkfors · proper noun, genitivepossessor of bruk
    storabigstor · adjective, nominative, pluralmodifies bruk
    brukironworksbruk · noun, nominative, neuter, pluraloblique complement of följde

  2. Then they turned west toward Fryksdalen.

  3. Before they had even reached Lake Fryken, it began to grow dark, and they settled down in a marshy bog up on a wooded ridge.

  4. The bog was a decent enough night's lodging for wild geese, but the boy thought it was raw and dismal there, and wanted a better bed.

  5. While he was still up in the air, he had seen that there were some farms below the ridge, and he set off in a great hurry to find them.

  6. 2

    It was a longer way than he had thought, and more than once he was tempted to turn back.

  7. But at last the forest thinned out around him, and he came to a country road running along the edge of the woods.

  8. From the road a handsome birch avenue led down to a farm, and he set his course straight for it.

  9. 3

    The boy first came into a back yard, as big as a town square and lined with long, red rows of outbuildings.

  10. When he had crossed it, he saw another yard, where the manor house stood with a sanded walk and a broad forecourt in front of it, a wing at the side, and a leafy garden behind.

  11. The main building itself was small and unassuming, but the forecourt was bordered by a row of enormously tall rowan trees, standing so close together that they formed a proper wall around it, and the boy felt as though he had stepped into a splendid, high-vaulted room.

  12. The sky rested beautifully pale blue above it, the rowans were golden with big red clusters of berries, the lawns were still fairly green, but it was bright, radiant moonlight that evening, and it fell on the grass with such a glow that the grass turned white as silver.

  13. 4

    Not a soul was to be seen, so the boy could roam about freely wherever he liked, and when he came into the garden, he noticed something that very nearly put him in a good mood.

  14. He had climbed up into a small rowan to eat rowanberries, but before he had reached a cluster, he caught sight of a bird-cherry bush that was likewise full of berries.

  15. He slid down the rowan trunk and climbed up into the bird-cherry, but he had scarcely gotten there when he discovered a currant bush still hung with long red clusters.

  16. And now he saw that the whole garden was filled with gooseberries and raspberries and rose hips.

  17. There were turnips and rutabagas out on the vegetable beds, there were berries on every bush, seeds on the herbs, small grain-filled ears on the grass stalks.

  18. And there on the path — no, he certainly wasn't mistaken — there lay a big, splendid apple, gleaming in the moonlight!

  19. 5

    The boy sat himself down on a grassy verge with the big apple in front of him and began cutting small pieces out of it with his sheath knife.

  20. "It wouldn't be so hard to be a tomte your whole life, if it were always this easy to get good food as it is at this place," he thought.

  21. 6

    He sat and pondered as he ate, and at last he wondered whether it might not be just as well if he stayed right where he was and let the wild geese fly on south without him.

  22. "I really don't know how I'll explain to Father Gander Morten that I can't come home," he thought.

  23. "It's better that I simply part ways with him.

  24. I could gather myself a winter store, just as well as the squirrels do, and if I lived in some dark corner of the stable or the cowshed, I wouldn't have to freeze to death."

  25. 7

    Just as he was thinking this, he heard a light rustling over his head, and the next moment something resembling a short birch stump stood on the ground beside him.

  26. The stump twisted and turned, and two bright points up at its top glowed like embers.

  27. This looked like real sorcery, but the boy soon noticed that the stump had a hooked beak and great feathered rings around its glowing eyes, and then he calmed down.

  28. 8

    "It was quite a pleasure to meet a living creature," he said.

  29. "Perhaps you, Mrs. Tawny Owl, would care to tell me what this place is called, and what sort of people live here?"

  30. 9

    The tawny owl had, that evening as on every other autumn evening, been sitting on a rung of the tall ladder propped against the roof of the house, looking down at the gravel paths and lawns to watch for rats.

  31. But to her surprise, not a single gray hide had shown itself.

  32. Instead she saw that something resembling a human being, though very, very much smaller, was moving about in the garden.

  33. "Here, surely, is the one scaring off the rats," the tawny owl had thought.

  34. "Whatever in the world can this be?"

  35. 10

    "It's not a squirrel, not a kitten, not a weasel," she thought further.

  36. "I thought that a bird who has lived as long as I have on an old manor house would know all there is to know in the world.

  37. But this is beyond my understanding."

  38. 11

    She had stared at the thing moving on the sanded paths until her eyes glowed.

  39. At last curiosity had gotten the better of her, so that she had flown down to the ground to get a closer look at the stranger.

  40. 12

    When the boy began to speak, the owl leaned forward and studied him.

  41. "He has neither claws nor spines," she thought, "but who can know whether he doesn't have a poison fang, or some other, still more dangerous weapon?

  42. I'd better try to find out a little more about what he's made of before I risk myself against him."

  43. 13

    "The place is called Mårbacka," said the owl, "and gentlefolk used to live here, once upon a time.

  44. But what sort of creature are you yourself?"

  45. — "I'm thinking of moving here," said the boy, without answering the owl's question.

  46. "Do you think that could be managed?"

  47. — "Oh well, the place isn't up to much now, compared to what it once was," said the owl, "but one can certainly hold out here.

  48. It mostly depends on what you mean to live on.

  49. Do you intend to take up rat-hunting?"

  50. — "No, not at all," said the boy.

  51. "There's more danger of the rats eating me up than of my doing them any harm."

  52. 14

    "It can hardly be possible that he's really as harmless as he says," thought the tawny owl.

  53. "But I think I'll make an attempt all the same."

  54. She rose into the air, and in the next instant she had struck her claws into Nils Holgersson's shoulder and was pecking at his eyes.

  55. The boy put one hand up over his eyes and tried to free himself with the other.

  56. At the same time he shouted for help with all his strength.

  57. He realized he was in real mortal danger, and he told himself that this time, surely, it was the end of him.

  58. 15

    Now I must tell how strangely it happened that in that very year when Nils Holgersson was traveling about with the wild geese, there was a woman who went about thinking of writing a book about Sweden, one meant for children to read in the schools.

  59. She had been thinking about this from Christmastime clear on into the autumn, but she had not gotten a single line of the book written, and at last she had grown so weary of the whole thing that she said to herself: "You're no good at this.

  60. Sit yourself down and compose fairy tales and stories, as you're used to doing, and let someone else write this book, which has to be instructive and serious, and in which there mustn't be a single untrue word!"

  61. 16

    It was as good as settled that she would give up the undertaking, but she did feel that it would have been delightful to get to write something beautiful about Sweden, and she found it hard to let the work go.

  62. At last it occurred to her that perhaps it was because she sat in a city with nothing but streets and house walls around her that she could not get the writing started.

  63. If she went out into the countryside, where she could see forests and fields, it might go better.

  64. 17

    She was from Värmland, and it stood quite clear to her that she wanted to begin the book with that province.

  65. And first and foremost she would tell about the place where she had grown up.

  66. It had been a small manor house, lying far from the world, where many old-fashioned customs and ways had been preserved.

  67. She had thought it would be a delight for children to hear about the manifold tasks that had followed one another all through the year.

  68. She wanted to tell them how they had celebrated Christmas and New Year and Easter and Midsummer back home, what sort of furniture and household things they had had, what it had looked like in the kitchen and the pantry, in the cowshed and the stable, in the barn and the bathhouse.

  69. But when she meant to write about this, the pen would not stir.

  70. She could not at all understand what the reason for it was, but so it was, in any case.

  71. 18

    It was certainly true that she remembered all of it just as clearly as if she had still been living in the midst of it.

  72. But she told herself that since she was going to travel out to the countryside anyway, she ought perhaps to go to the old estate and look at it once more before she wrote about it.

  73. She had not been there for many years, and she did not mind having a reason to travel there.

  74. In truth she longed for it, wherever in the world she happened to be.

  75. She saw clearly enough that other places were both more beautiful and better, but nowhere could she find such security and comfort as she had known in her childhood home.

  76. 19

    It was not, however, so simple a matter for her to go home as one might think, for the estate had been sold to people she did not know.

  77. She supposed they would receive her well enough, but she did not want to come to the old place in order to sit and talk with strangers, but rather to be able to truly remind herself of how it had been there in the old days.

  78. For that reason she arranged it so that she would arrive late one evening, when the work was done and the people were indoors.

  79. 20

    She had never believed it would feel so strange to come home.

  80. As she sat in the carriage and drove toward the old estate, she felt that with every minute she was growing younger and younger, and soon she was no longer an old woman with graying hair, but a little girl in short skirts with a long, flax-white braid.

  81. As she sat there recognizing every single farm along the road, she could soon believe nothing else but that everything at home would be just as it had once been in the world.

  82. Father and mother and siblings would stand on the steps to receive her, the old housekeeper would hurry to the kitchen window to see who was coming driving up, and Nero and Freja and a couple more dogs would come rushing and jump up on her.

  83. 21

    The nearer she came to the estate, the happier she grew.

  84. It was autumn now, and a busy season of many tasks lay ahead, but it was precisely the abundance of tasks that made things never dull or monotonous back home.

  85. She had seen along the way that people were busy digging up potatoes, and no doubt they were doing the same at her home, so the first order of business now would be grating potatoes and making potato flour.

  86. It had been a mild autumn.

  87. She could well wonder whether everything had already been gathered in from the garden.

  88. The cabbage, at least, would surely still be standing out.

  89. And had the hops been picked, and all the apples taken down, she wondered?

  90. 22

    It would be all right if they hadn't had a great deal of bustle at home, for it was drawing near the time for the autumn market.

  91. Everything was supposed to be swept and neat everywhere for the market.

  92. It was reckoned a great festival, above all by the servants.

  93. It also used to be a pleasure, on market eve, to come into the kitchen and see the freshly scrubbed, juniper-strewn floor, the whitewashed walls, and the shining copper pots under the ceiling.

  94. 23

    Nor would there be much peace either, once the market festivities were over.

  95. Then they would have to get down to the flax-breaking.

  96. The flax had lain spread out on a meadow through the dog days of summer to be retted.

  97. Now it was brought into the old bathhouse, and the great bathhouse stove was fired up, so that it would dry.

  98. And when it was dry enough, all the women of the neighborhood were called together on a given day.

  99. They sat themselves down outside the bathhouse and began to break up the flax.

  100. Then they beat it with swingles to draw out the fine, white fibers from the dry stalks.

  101. During the work the women turned gray with dust.

  102. Their hair and clothes were covered with flax shives, but they were just as merry for all that.

  103. All day long the swingles clattered and the talk went on, so that as one drew near the old bathhouse, it sounded as though a roaring storm had been raging there.

  104. 24

    After the work with the flax came the great rye-bread baking, the sheep-shearing, and the maidservants' moving day.

  105. In November came busy slaughtering days with meat-salting and sausage-stuffing and blood-bread baking and candle-dipping.

  106. The seamstress, who used to sew their homespun woolen dresses, would surely also be coming around that time, and it was a pleasant couple of weeks when the household sat together busy with sewing.

  107. The shoemaker, who made footwear for the whole household, sat at the same time out in the farmhands' chamber working away, and one could never tire of watching how he cut the leather and soled and heeled it and set rings into the lace-holes.

  108. 25

    But the greatest rush of all would come as Christmas drew near.

  109. Lucia Day, when the chambermaid went about dressed in white with candles in her hair and offered everyone coffee at five in the morning, came as a signal that for the next two weeks they could count on very little sleep.

  110. Now there was ale to be brewed and fish to be lyed and the Christmas baking and cleaning to be seen to.

  111. 26

    She stood in the middle of the baking, with Christmas buns and little cookie sheets all around her, when the coachman drew in the horses at the start of the avenue, as she had asked him to do.

  112. She gave a start, like someone waking with a jolt.

  113. It felt eerie to sit alone this late in the evening, for one who had just been dreaming herself surrounded by all her own.

  114. As she stepped down from the carriage and began walking down the avenue in order to come unnoticed to her old home, she felt the difference between then and now so heavily that she would rather have turned back.

  115. "What's the use of coming here?

  116. It surely can't be as it was in the old days," she thought.

  117. 27

    But she felt that, now that she had come this far, she might as well see the place after all, and she walked on, though she felt sadder with every step she took.

  118. 28

    She had heard it said that the estate would be much decayed and changed, and no doubt it was.

  119. But she could not tell it now, in the evening.

  120. She felt rather that everything was just as it had been.

  121. There was the pond, which in her youth had been full of crucian carp that no one dared fish for, because father wanted those carp left to go their own way, wherever they went.

  122. There stood the farmhands' cottage and the shed and the stable, with the porridge-bell over one gable and the weathervane over the other.

  123. And the forecourt in front of the manor house was still enclosed all around, without a view in any direction, just as it had been in father's day, for he had never had the heart to cut down so much as a single bush.

  124. 29

    She had stopped in the shadow beneath the great maple by the entrance to the estate and stood looking about her.

  125. And as she stood there now, the remarkable thing happened that a flock of pigeons came and settled down beside her.

  126. 30

    She could hardly believe they were real birds, for pigeons never move about after sunset.

  127. It must have been the beautiful moonlight that had woken these.

  128. They had thought it was daylight and flown out from their dovecote, but afterward they had grown confused and could not find their way.

  129. When they had caught sight of a human being, they had flown to her, as if to have her show them the way.

  130. 31

    There had been a great many pigeons at the estate in her parents' time, for the pigeons too had been among the creatures her father had taken under his special protection.

  131. The moment there was talk of slaughtering a pigeon, he grew ill-humored.

  132. She was very glad that the beautiful birds had come to meet her at the old home.

  133. Who could say whether the pigeons had not flown out into the night after all to show her that they had not forgotten they had once had a good home here?

  134. 32

    Or perhaps it was father who had sent his birds with a greeting to her, so that she would not feel so anxious and alone when she came to her former home?

  135. 33

    As she thought this, so strong a longing for the old days rose up within her that tears came to her eyes.

  136. It had been a good life that they had led in this place.

  137. They had had weeks of work, but they had also had festival days; they had had drudgery by day, but in the evenings they had gathered around the lamp and read Tegnér and Runeberg, Mrs. Lenngren and Miss Bremer.

  138. They had grown grain, but also roses and jasmine; they had spun flax, but they had sung folk songs while they spun.

  139. They had toiled over history and grammar, but they had also put on plays and written verse; they had stood at the stove cooking food, but they had also learned to play the clavier and the flute and the guitar and the violin and the piano.

  140. They had planted cabbage and turnips and peas and beans in one garden, but they had had another that was full of apples and pears and every kind of berry.

  141. They had lived solitary lives, but for that very reason they had kept so many tales and stories in memory.

  142. They had worn homemade clothes, but even so they had been able to live carefree and independent.

  143. 34

    "Nowhere else in the world do they know how to lead so good a life as they did at a little manor house like this one, in my youth," she thought.

  144. "There was a fair measure of work and a fair measure of pleasure, and there was joy every day.

  145. I would very gladly like to come back here.

  146. Now that I've seen the place, it's hard to travel away from it."

  147. 35

    And so she turned to the flock of pigeons and spoke to it, laughing at herself even as she did so: "Won't you go to father and tell him that I long for home?

  148. I've been traveling long enough now in strange places.

  149. Ask him if he can't arrange it so that I may soon return to my childhood home!"

  150. 36

    Scarcely had she said this when the whole flock of pigeons rose up and flew away.

  151. She tried to follow it with her eyes, but it vanished at once.

  152. It was as if the whole bright flock had dissolved into the shimmering air.

  153. 37

    The pigeons were barely gone when she heard a couple of shrill cries from the garden, and hurrying there now, she saw something quite peculiar.

  154. There stood a tiny, tiny fellow, who could hardly have been more than a hand's breadth tall, fighting with a tawny owl.

  155. At first she was so startled that she could not move.

  156. But when the little fellow's cries grew ever more piteous, she stepped in quickly and parted the combatants.

  157. The owl swung itself up into a tree, but the little fellow stood his ground on the sanded path without hiding or fleeing.

  158. "Thanks for the help!" he said.

  159. "But it was quite foolish of you to let the owl get away.

  160. I can't leave from here, for she's sitting up in the tree lying in wait for me."

  161. 38

    "Yes, it was thoughtless of me to let her go.

  162. But couldn't I follow you instead to wherever you're at home?" said she, who was in the habit of composing fairy tales, feeling not a little astonished at having so unexpectedly fallen into conversation with one of the little folk.

  163. But at bottom she was not so very surprised after all.

  164. It was as though she had been expecting the whole time that she would get to experience something remarkable, walking there in the moonlight outside her old home.

  165. 39

    "Actually I had thought of staying here at the estate the whole night," said the little fellow.

  166. "If you would just show me a safe place to sleep, I wouldn't go back to the forest until daybreak."

  167. — "Shall I show you a place to sleep?

  168. Aren't you at home here, then?"

  169. — "I daresay you think I'm one of the little folk," said the little fellow now, "but I'm a human being, just as much as you are, only I've been turned into this by a tomte."

  170. — "That's the most remarkable thing I've ever heard!

  171. 40

    Would you care to tell me how you came to be so ill-used?"

  172. 41

    The boy had no objection to telling of his adventures, and she who listened grew ever more astonished, marveling, and glad as the story went on.

  173. "Why, what luck it is to meet someone who has traveled on goose-back over the whole of Sweden!" she thought.

  174. "Just what he's telling me now, I shall put in my book.

  175. Now I need worry no more about that matter.

  176. How very fortunate that I traveled home!

  177. To think that I should get help with this, so soon as I came to the old estate!"

  178. 42

    At once a thought came over her that she scarcely dared to think through to the end.

  179. She had sent word to father with the pigeons that she longed for home, and directly afterward she had gotten help with the very thing she had puzzled over for so long.

  180. Could this be father's answer to what she had asked for?

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.
Data
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Two whoopie pies and a pine. An inside joke.