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Resan till Vemmenhög

The Journey to Vemmenhög

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  1. 1

    One day at the beginning of November the wild geese flew over Hallandsås into Skåne.

    Enaen · determiner, common gender, singulardeterminer of dag
    dagdaydag · noun, nominative, common gender, singulardirect object of flögo
    iati · prepositionpreposition marking början
    börjanbeginningbörjan · noun, nominative, common gender, singularmodifies dag
    avofav · prepositionpreposition marking november
    novemberNovembernovember · noun, nominative, common gender, singularmodifies början
    flögoflewflögo · verb, present, indicative, activemain verb of the sentence

    Past plural of flyga; mistagged as present tense.

    vildgässenthe wild geesevildgässe · noun, nominative, common gender, singularsubject of flögo

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

    överoveröver · prepositionpreposition marking Hallandsås
    HallandsåsHallandsåsHallandsås · proper noun, nominativeoblique complement of flögo
    ininin · adverbdepends on flögo
    iintoi · prepositionpreposition marking Skåne
    SkåneSkåneSkåne · proper noun, nominativeoblique complement of in

  2. They had spent a few weeks lingering on the broad plains around Falköping, and since several other large flocks of wild geese had also been staying there, they had had a merry time, with much talk among the old birds and much competing in every kind of sport among the young ones.

  3. 2

    As for Nils Holgersson, he had not been happy about the long delay in Västergötland.

  4. He tried to keep his spirits up, but he found it hard to make peace with his fate.

  5. "If only I had left Skåne behind me and were abroad," he thought, "then I would know I had nothing to hope for, and then I would feel calmer."

  6. 3

    So the wild geese had finally broken camp one morning and flown down toward Halland.

  7. At first the boy had not found any particular pleasure in looking at that landscape.

  8. He felt there was nothing new to see there.

  9. In the eastern part it was hilly, with great heather moors that reminded him of Småland, and further west it was covered with round, bare hills and cut through with inlets, much the same way as Bohuslän.

  10. 4

    But when the wild geese continued their journey southward along the narrow coastal country, the boy had sat leaning out over the goose's neck, never lifting his eyes from the ground.

  11. He saw how the hills thinned out and the plain spread wide.

  12. At the same time he noticed that the coast became less ragged.

  13. The skerries offshore thinned out and vanished, and the wide, open sea came right up to the mainland.

  14. 5

    And then the forest came to an end.

  15. There had, of course, been many fine plains further up the country, but they had all lain framed by trees.

  16. The forest had been everywhere.

  17. It was as if the land really belonged to the trees, and the cultivated ground had lain like great clearings in the forest.

  18. And on every plain there had been plenty of groves and pastures, as if to show that the forest could reclaim the land at any moment.

  19. 6

    But here it was different.

  20. Here the flatland had taken the upper hand.

  21. It spread out all the way to the horizon.

  22. There were large forest plantations, but no wild forest.

  23. Just this — that the land lay so open, with field after field — was what made it remind the boy of Skåne.

  24. The bare coast with its sand flats and ridges of seaweed, too, he felt he recognized.

  25. He grew both glad and anxious when he saw this.

  26. "Now I can't be far from home," he thought.

  27. 7

    The landscape did keep changing, it's true.

  28. Rivers came rushing down from Västergötland and Småland and broke the plain's monotony.

  29. Lakes, bogs, heather moors, and drifting sand fields got in the way of the fields, but these still spread ever wider, all the way until Hallandsås rose down by the Skåne border with its beautiful ravines and valleys.

  30. — —

  31. 8

    It had happened several times during the journey that the young geese had asked those who were old in the flock, "What does it look like abroad? What does it look like abroad?"

  32. 9

    "Wait, wait! You'll soon find that out," those who had traveled up and down the country many times had answered.

  33. 10

    When the young geese had seen Värmland's long forest ridges and the shining lakes between them, or Bohuslän's world of cliffs, or Västergötland's lovely little hills, they had wondered and asked, "Does the whole world look like this? Does the whole world look like this?"

  34. 11

    "Wait, wait! You'll soon find out what a good part of the world looks like," the old ones had answered.

  35. 12

    When the wild geese had crossed Hallandsås and come some way into Skåne, Akka called out, "Look down now! Look around you! This is what it looks like abroad."

  36. 13

    Just then they were flying over Söderåsen.

  37. The whole long height was clothed in beech forests, and embedded in the forests were beautiful, turreted castles.

  38. Between the trees roe deer grazed, and in the forest meadows hares played.

  39. Hunting horns sounded from the forests, and the dogs' sharp barking was heard all the way up to the flying flock.

  40. Broad roads wound between the trees, and along them came gentlemen and ladies riding in gleaming carriages or on splendid horses.

  41. Ringsjön spread out below the height, with the old Bosjökloster lying on a narrow spit of land.

  42. Skäralid's ravine cut through the ridge, with a stream in its depths and its rock walls clothed in bushes and trees.

  43. 14

    "Does it look like this abroad? Does it look like this abroad?" the goslings asked.

  44. "This is what it looks like where there are forest-clad ridges," Akka cried, "but that's not so often.

  45. Wait, and you shall see what it usually looks like there!"

  46. 15

    Akka led the wild geese further south to the great Skåne plain.

  47. There it lay with broad fields, with beet fields where the beet-pickers moved along in long rows, with low, whitewashed farms built around courtyards, with countless small white churches, with ugly gray sugar factories, with small-town-like market towns around the railway stations.

  48. There lay peat bogs with long rows of peat stacks, coal mines with black heaps of coal, and roads ran between avenues of pollarded willows, while railways crossed one another and formed a dense net over the plain.

  49. Small beech-ringed plain lakes gleamed here and there, each adorned with its own splendid manor house.

  50. 16

    "Look down now! Look carefully!" cried the guide-goose.

  51. "This is what it looks like abroad, from the Baltic coast all the way to the high mountains, and further than that we have never flown."

  52. 17

    When the goslings had seen the plain, the guide-goose flew on to the Öresund coast.

  53. Marshy meadows sank slowly toward the water, and long ridges of blackened seaweed lay heaped up on the shores.

  54. In some places there were high beach ridges, and in others drift-sand fields, where the sand lay tossed up into banks and hillocks.

  55. The fishing villages rose along the shore with a long row of identically built and identically sized little brick houses, with a small lighthouse out on the breakwater and brown nets hanging on the drying ground.

  56. 18

    "Look down now! Look carefully!" said Akka.

  57. "This is what it looks like along the coasts abroad."

  58. 19

    Finally the guide-goose flew to a couple of the towns as well.

  59. They lay with masses of slender factory chimneys, with deep streets between tall, smoke-blackened houses, with large, beautiful parks and promenades, with harbors full of ships, with old fortifications and castles, and with ancient churches.

  60. 20

    "This is what the towns abroad look like, though they are much bigger," said the guide-goose.

  61. "But these can surely grow, the same as you."

  62. 21

    After Akka had traveled around in this way, she came down in a bog in Vemmenhög district.

  63. And the boy couldn't help thinking that she had flown that day all across Skåne to show him that he had a country that could well hold its own against any other out in the world.

  64. But she hadn't needed to.

  65. The boy did not think about whether the country was rich or poor.

  66. Ever since he had seen the first row of willows and the first low half-timbered house, his heart had ached with homesickness.

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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