 Section 5 of INVISIBLE LINKS This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Lars Rolander. INVISIBLE LINKS by Selma Lagerlöf. Translated by Pauline Bancroft-Flack. THE LEGEND OF THE BIRD'S NEST Hattu the Hermit stood in the wilderness and prayed to God. A storm was raging, and his long beard and matted hair waved about him like weather-beaten tufts of grass on the summit of an old ruin. But he did not push his hair out of his eyes nor did he tuck his beard into his belt. For his arms were uplifted in prayer. Ever since sunrise he had raised his gnarled hairy arms towards heaven, as untiringly as a tree stretches up its branches. And he meant to remain standing so till night he had a great boon to pray for. He was a man who had suffered much of the world's anger. He had himself persecuted and tortured, and persecutions and torture from others had fallen to his share more than his heart could bear. So he went out on the great heath, dug himself a hole in the riverbank, and became a holy man whose prayers were heard at God's throne. Hattu the Hermit stood there on the riverbank by his hole and prayed the great prayer of his life. He prayed God that he should appoint the day of doom for this wicked world. He called on the trumpet-blowing angels who were to proclaim the end of the reign of sin. He cried out to the waves of the sea of blood which were to drown the unrighteous. He called on the pestilence which should fill the church-charge with heaps of dead, round about stretched a desert plain. But a little higher up on the riverbank stood an old willow with a short trunk which swelled out at the top in a great knob like a head from which new light-green shots drew out. Every autumn it was robbed of these strong young branches by the inhabitants of that few less heath. Every spring the tree put forth new soft shoots and in stormy weather these waved and fluttered about it, just as hair and beard fluttered about Hattu the Hermit. A pair of wag-tails which used to make their nest in the top of the willow's trunk among the sprouting branches had intended to begin their building that very day. But among the whipping shoots the birds found no quiet. They came flying with straws and root-fibers and dried sedges but they had to turn back with their errand unaccomplished. Just then they noticed old Hattu who called upon God to make the storm seven times more violent so that the nests of the little birds might be swept away and the eagles' airy destroyed. Of course no one now living can conceive how mossy and dried up and gnarled and black and unlike a human being such an old plain-dweller could be. The skin was so drawn of a brow and cheeks that he looked almost like a death-head and one saw only by a faint gleam in the hollows of the eye sockets that he was alive. And the dried-up muscles of the body gave it no roundness and the upstretched naked arms consisted only of shapeless bones covered with shriveled hardened bark-like skin. He wore an old, close-fitting black robe. He was tanned by the sun and black with dirt. His hair and beard alone were light, bleached by the rain and sun until they had become the same green-gray color as the underside of the willow leaves. The birds flying about looking for a place to build took Hattu the hermit for another old willow tree, checked in its struggle towards the sky by axe and saw like the first one. They circled about him many times, flew away and came again, took their landmarks, considered his position in regard to birds of prey and winds, found him rather unsatisfactory but nevertheless decided in his favor because he stood so near to the river and to the tufts of sedge, their larder and storehouse. One of them shot swift as an arrow down into his upstretched hand and laid his root-fiber there. There was a lull in the storm so that the root-fiber was not torn instantly away from the hand, but in the hermit's prayers there was no pause. May the Lord come soon to destroy this world of corruption so that man may not have time to heap more sin upon himself. May he save the unborn from life for there living there is no salvation. Then the storm began again and the little root-fiber fluttered away out of the hermit's big gnarled hand, but the birds came again and tried to wedge the foundation of the new home in between the fingers. Suddenly a shapeless and dirty thumb laid itself on the straws and held them fast, and four fingers arched themselves so that there was a quiet niche to build in. The hermit continued his prayers. O Lord, where are the clouds of fire which laid pseudom waste? When wilt thou let loose the floods which lifted the ark to arrow at stop? Are not the cups of thy patience emptied and the vials of thy grace exhausted? O Lord, when wilt thou rend the heavens and come? And feverish visions of the day of doom appeared to hutter the hermit. The ground trembled, the heavens glowed, across the flaming sky his so black clouds of flying birds, a horde of panic-stricken beasts rushed, roaring and bellowing past him. But while his soul was occupied with these fiery visions, his eyes began to follow the flight of the little birds as they flashed to and fro, and with a cheery peep of satisfaction wove a new straw into the nest. The old man had not thought of moving. He had made a vow to pray without moving with uplifted hands all day in order to force the Lord to grant his request. The more exhausted his body became, the more vivid visions filled his brain. He heard the walls of cities fall, and the houses his crack. Shrieking, terrified crowds rushed by him, pursued by the angels of vengeance and destruction, mighty forms with stern beautiful faces wearing silver coats of mail, riding black horses and swinging scourges woven of white lightning. The little wag tails built and shaped busily all day, and the work progressed rapidly. On the tufted heath with its stiff sedges and by the river with its reeds and rushes, there was no lack of building material. They had no time for noon siesta nor for evening rest. Glowing with eagerness and delight, they flew to and fro, and before night came they had almost reached the roof. But before night came the hermit had begun to watch them more and more. He followed them on their journeys. He scolded them when they built foolishly. He was furious when the wind disturbed their work, and least of all could he endure that they should take any rest. Then the sun set, and the birds went to their old sleeping place in among the rushes. Let him who crosses the heath at night bend on until his face comes on level with the tufts of grass, and he will see a strange spectacle outline itself against the western sky. Owls with great round wings skim over the ground, invisible to anyone standing upright. Snakes glide about there, leaf quick with narrow heads uplifted on swan-like necks. Great turtles crawl slowly forward, hares and water rats flee before preying beasts, and a fox bounce after a bat, which is chasing mosquitoes by the river. It seems as if every tuft has come to life, but through it all the little birds sleep on the waving rushes secure from all harm in that resting place which no enemy can approach without the water splashing or the reeds shaking and waking them. When the morning came, the wagtails believed at first that the events of the day before had been a beautiful dream. They had taken their landmarks and flew straight to their nest, but it was gone. They flew searching over the heath and rose up into the air to spy about. There was not a trace of nest or tree. At last they lighted on a couple of stones by the riverbank and considered. They wagged their long tails and cocked their heads on one side. Where had the tree and nest gone? But hardly had the sun risen a hand-spread over the belt of trees on the other bank before their tree came walking and placed itself on the same spot where it had been the day before. It was just as black and gnarled as ever and bore their nest on the top of something which must be a dry upright branch. Then the wagtails began to build again without troubling themselves any more about nature's many wonders. Hattu the hermit who drove the little children away from his hole telling them that it had been best for them if they had never been born. He who rushed out into the mud to hurl curses out at the joyous young people who rode up the streaming pleasure boats. He from whose angry eyes the shepherds on the heath guarded their flocks did not return to his place by the river for the sake of the little birds. He knew that not only has every letter in the holy books its hidden mysterious meaning but so also has everything which God allows to take place in nature. He had thought out the meaning of the wagtails building in his hand. God wished him to remain standing with uplifted arms until the birds had raced their brood and if he should have the power to do that he would be heard. But during that day he did not see so many visions of the day of doom. Instead he watched the birds more and more eagerly. He saw the nest soon finished. The little builders flattered about it and inspected it. They went after a few bits of lesion from the real willow tree and farsened them on the outside to fill the place of plaster and paint. They brought the finest cotton grass and the female wagtail took feathers from her own breast and lined the nest. The peasants who feared the baleful power that the hermit's prayers might have at the throne of God used to bring him bread and milk to mitigate his wrath they came now to and found him standing motionless with a bird's nest in his hand. See how the holy man loves the little creatures they said and were no longer afraid of him. But lifted the bowl of milk to his mouth and put the bread between his lips. When he had eaten and drunk he drew away the people with angry words but they only smiled at his curses. His body had long since become the slave of his will. By hunger and blows, by praying all day by waking a week at a time he had taught it obedience. Now the steel-like muscles held his arms uplifted for days and weeks and when the female wagtail began to sit on her eggs and never left the nest he did not return to his hole even at night. He learned to sleep sitting with upstretched arms. Among the dwellers in the wilderness there are many who have done greater things. He grew accustomed to the two little motionless bird eyes which stared down at him over the edge of the nest. He watched for hail and rain and sheltered the nest as well as he could. At last one day the female is freed from her duties. Both the birds sit on the edge of the nest wag their tails and consult and look delighted although the whole nest seems to be full of an anxious peeping. After a while they set out on the wildest hunt for midges. Midge after midge is caught and brought to whatever it is that is peeping up there in his hand and when the food comes the peeping is at his very loudest. The holy man is disturbed in his prayers by that peeping and gently, gently he bends his arms which has almost lost the power of moving and his little fiery eyes stare down into the nest. Never had he seen anything so helplessly ugly and miserable. Small naked bodies with a little thin down, no eyes, no power of light, nothing really but six big gaping mouths. It seemed very strange to him but he liked them just as they were. Their father and mother he had never spared in the general destruction but when hereafter he called to God to ask him the salvation of the world through its annihilation he made a silent exception of those six helpless ones. When the peasant women now brought him food he no longer thanked them by wishing their destruction. Since he was necessary to the little creatures up there he was glad that they did not let him starve to death. Soon six round heads were to be seen the whole day long stretching over the edge of the nest. Old Hattus' arm sank more and more often to the level of his eyes. He saw the feathers push out through the red skin, the eyes open, the bodies round out. Happy inheritors of the beauty nature as given to flying creatures they developed quickly in their loveliness. And during all this time prayers for the great destruction rose more and more hesitatingly to old Hattus' lips. He thought that he had God's promise that it should come when the little birds were fledged. Now he seemed to be searching for a loophole for God the Father. For these six little creatures whom he had sheltered and cherished he could not sacrifice. It was another matter before when he had not had anything that was his own. The love for the small and weak which it has been every little child's mission to teach big, dangerous people came over him and made him doubtful. He sometimes wanted to hurt the whole nest into the river for he thought that they who die without sorrow or sin are the happy ones. Should he not save them from beasts of prey and cold, from hunger and from life's manifold visitations. But just as he thought this a sparrow hawk came swooping down on the nest. Then Hattus seized the marauder with his left hands swanging about his head and hurled him with the strength of breath out into the stream. The day came at last when the little birds were ready to fly. One of the vagtiles was working inside the nest to push the young ones out to the edge while the other flew about showing them how easy it was if they only dared to try. And when the young ones were obstinate and afraid both the parents flew about showing them all their most beautiful feats of flight. Beating with their wings they flew in swooping curves or rose right up like larks or hung motionless in the air with vibrating wings. But as the young ones still persist in their obstinacy Hattu the hermit cannot keep from mixing himself up in the matter. He gives them a cautious show with his finger and then it is done. Out they go, fluttering and uncertain beating the air like bats sink but rise again grasp what the art is and make use of it to reach the nest again as quickly as possible. Proud and rejoicing the parents come to them again and old Hattu smiles. It was he who gave the final touch after all. He now considered seriously if there could not be any way out of it for our Lord. Perhaps when all was said God the Father held this earth in his right hand like a big bird's nest and perhaps he had come to cherish love for all those who build and dwell there. For all earth's defenseless children perhaps he felt pity for those whom he had promised to destroy just as the hermit felt pity for the little birds. Of course the hermit's birds were much better than our Lord's people but he could quite understand that God the Father nevertheless had love for them. The next day the bird's nest stood empty and the bitterness of loneliness filled the heart of the hermit. Slowly his arm sank down to his side and it seemed to him as if all nature held its breath to listen for the thunder of the trumpet of doom. But just then all the wag tails came again and lighted on his head and shoulders for they were not at all afraid of him. Then a ray of light shot through his confused brain. He had lowered his arm, lowered it every day to look at the birds. And standing there with all the six young ones fluttering and playing about him he nodded contentedly to someone whom he did not see. I let you off. He said, I let you off. I have not kept my word so you need not keep yours. And it seemed to him as if the mountain ceased to tremble and as if the river laid itself down in easy calm in its bed. End of the Legend of the Bird's Nest from Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlö translated by Pauline Bancroft Flak read by Lars Rolander. Section 6 of Invisible Links This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading by Lars Rolander. Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlö translated by Pauline Bancroft Flak The King's Grave Part 1 It was at the time of the year when the heather is red. It grew over the sand hills in thick clumps. From low tree-like stems, close-cruing green branches raised their hardy evergreen leaves and unfading flowers. They seemed not to be made of ordinary juicy flower substance but of dry hard scales. They were very insignificant in size and shape nor was their fragrance of much account. Children of the open moors they had not unfolded in the still air where lilies opened their alabaster petals nor did they grow in the rich soil from which roses draw nourishment for their swelling crowns. What made them flowers was really their color for they were glowing red. They had received the color-giving sunshine in plenty. They were no pallid cellar growth. The blessed gaiety and strength of health lay over all the blossoming heat. The heather covered the bare fields with its red mantle up to the edge of the wood. There on a gentle sloping ridge stood some ancient half-ruined stone cairns. And however closely the heather tried to creep to these there were all the strengths in its web through which were visible great flat rocks folds in the mountain's own rough skin. Under the biggest of these piles rested an old king, Atle by name. Under the others slumbered those of his warriors who had fallen when the great battle raged on the moor. They had lain there now so long that the fear and respect of death had departed from their graves. The path ran between their resting places. The wanderer by night never thought to look whether forms wrapped in mist sat at midnight on the tops of the cairns staring in silent longing at the stars. It was a glittering morning, dewy and warm. The hunter who had been out since daybreak had thrown himself down in the heather behind King Atle's pile. He lay on his back and slept. He had dragged his hat down over his eyes and under his head lay his leather game bag out of which protruded hair's long ears and the bent tail feathers of a black cock. His bow and arrows lay beside him. From out of the wood came a girl with a bundle in her hand. When she reached the flat rock between the piles of stones she thought what a good place it would be to dance. She was ceased with an ardent desire to try. She laid her bundle on the heather and began to dance quite alone. She had no idea that a man lay asleep behind the king's cairn. The hunter still slept. The heather showed burning red against the deep blue of the sky and Antel stood close beside the sleeper. On it lay a piece of quartz which sparkled as if it had wished to set fire to all the old stubble on the heath. Now the hunter's head, the black cock feathers spread out like a bloom and their iridescence shifted from deep purple to steely blue. On the unshaded part of his face the burning sunshine glowed but he did not open his eyes to look at the glory of the morning. In the meanwhile the girl continued to dance and whirled about so eagerly that the blacken moss which she had collected in the unevenness of the rocks flew about her. An old dry fur root smooth and gray with age lay upturned among the heather. She took it and whirled about with it. Chips flew out from the mouldering sport. Centipedes and air wigs that had lived in the crevices scarred out head over heels into the luminous air and bore down among the roots of the heather. When the swinging skirts graced the heather clouds a small grape butterflies fluttered up from it. The underside of their wings was white and silvery and they were like dry leaves in a squall. Then they seemed quite white and it was as if a red sea threw up white foam. The butterflies remained for a short time in the air. Their fragile wings fluttered so violently that the down loosened and fell like thin silver white feathers. The air seemed to be filled with a glorified mist. On the heath grasshoppers sat and scraped their back legs against their wings so that they sounded like harp strings. They kept good time and played so well together that to anyone passing over the moor it sounded like the same grasshopper during the whole walk. Although it seemed to be first on the right then on the left now in front now behind but the dancer was not content with their playing and began after a little while to hum the measure of a dance tune. Her voice was shrill and harsh. The hunter was waked by the song. He turned on his side raised himself to his elbow and looked over the pile of stones at the dancing girl. He had dreamt that the heather he must killed had leaped out of the bag and had taken his own arrows to shoot at him. He now stared at the girl half awake to see with his dreams his head burning from sleeping in the sun. She was tall and coarsely built not fair of face nor light in the dance nor tuneful in her song. She had broad cheeks thick lips and a flat nose. She had very red cheeks very dark hair. She was exuberant in figure moving with vigor and life. Her clothes were shabby but bright in color. Red bands edged the striped skirt and bright colored worsted fringes outlined the seams of her bodies. Other young maidens resembled roses and lilies but she was like the heather strong, gay and glowing. The hunter watched with pleasure as the big splendid woman danced on the red heath among the playing grasshoppers and the fluttering butterflies. While he looked at her he laughed so that his mouth was drawn up towards his ears but then she suddenly caught sight of him and stood motionless. I suppose you think I'm mad was the first thing that occurred to her to say. At the same time she wondered how she would get him to hold his tongue about what he had seen. She did not care to hear it told down in the village that she had danced with a fur root. He was a man poor in words not a syllable could he utter. He was so shy that he could think of nothing better than to run away although he longed to stay. Hastily he got his hat on his head and his leather bag on his back. Then he ran away through the clumps of heather. She snatched up her bundle and ran after him. He was small, stiff in his movements and evidently had very little strength. She soon caught up with him and knocked his hat off to induce him to stop. He really wished to do so but he was confused with shyness and fled with still greater speed. She ran after him and began to pull at his game bag. Then he had to stop to defend it. She fell upon him with all her strength. They fought and she threw him to the ground. Now he will not speak of it to anyone she thought and rejoiced. At the same moment however she grew sick with fright for the man who lay on the ground turned livid and his eyes rolled inward in his head. He was not hurt in any way however. He could not bear emotion. Never before had so strong and conflicting feelings stirred within that lonely forest-dweller. He rejoiced over the girl and was angry and ashamed and yet proud that she was so strong he was quite out of his head with it all. The big strong girl put her arm under his back and lifted him up. She broke the heather and whipped his face with the stiff twigs until the blood came back to it. When his little eyes again turned towards the light of day they shone with pleasure at the sight of her. He was still silent but he drew forward the hand which she had placed about his waist and caressed it gently. He was a child of starvation and early toil. He was dry and pallid, thin and anemic. She was touched by his faint heartedness he who'd nevertheless seemed to be about 30 years old. She thought that he must live quite alone in the forest since he was so pitiful and so meanly dressed. He could have no one to look after him. Neither mother nor sister nor sweetheart. End of part one of The King's Grave from Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlöf translated by Pauline Bancroft's Flak read by Lars Rolander. Section 7 of Invisible Links This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading by Lars Rolander Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlöf translated by Pauline Bancroft's Flak The King's Grave, Part 2 The great compassionate forest spread over the wilderness concealing and protecting it took to its heart everything which sought its help. With its lofty trunks it kept watch by the lair of the fox and the bear and in the twilight of the thick bushes it hid the egg-filled nests of little birds. At the time when people still had slaves many of them escaped to the woods and found shelter behind its green walls. It became a great prison for them which they did not dare to leave. Forest held its prisoners in strict discipline. It forced the dull ones to use their wits and educated those ruined by slavery to order and honour. Only to the industrious did it give the right to live. The two who met on the heath were descendants of such prisoners of the forest. They sometimes went down to the inhabited, cultivated valleys for they no longer feared to be reduced to the slavery from which their forefathers had fled but they were happiest in the dimness of the forest. The hunter's name was Tunne. His real work was to cultivate the earth but he also could do other things. He collected herbs, boiled tar, dried punk and often went hunting. The dancer was called Joffrit. Her father was a charcoal burner. She tied brooms, picked juniper berries and screwed ale of the white flowering myrtle. They were both very poor. They had never met before in the big wood but now they thought that all its path wound into a net in which they ran forward and back and could not possibly escape one another. They never knew how to choose a way where they did not meet. Tunne had once had a great sorrow. He had lived with his mother for a long while and had a very little waddled hut but as soon as he was grown up he was seized with the idea to build her a warm cabin. During all his leisure moments he went into the clearing, cut down trees and ewed them into squared pieces. Then he hid the timber in dark crannies under moss and branches. It was his intention that his mother should not know anything of all this work but his mother died before he could show her what he had collected, before he had time to tell her what he had wished to do. He who had worked with the same seal as David, King of Israel, when he gathered treasures for the temple of God grieved most bitterly over it. He lost all interest in the building. For him the brushwood shelter was good enough yet he was hardly better off in his home than an animal in its whole. When he who had always heretofore crept about alone was now seized with the desire to seek Joffreed's company it certainly meant that he would like to have her for his sweet heart and his bride. Joffreed also waited daily for him to speak to her father or to herself about the matter but Turner could not. This showed that he was of a race of slaves. The thoughts that came into his head moved as slowly as the sun when he travels across the sky and it was more difficult for him to shape those thoughts to connect his speech than for a smith to forge a bracelet out of rolling grains of sand. One day Turner took Joffreed to one of the clefts where he had hidden his timber. He pulled aside the branches and moss and showed her the squared beams. That was to have been mother's house, he said. The young girl was strangely slow in understanding a young man's thoughts. When he showed her his mother's logs she ought to have understood but she did not understand. Then he decided to make his meaning even planer. A few days later he began to drag the logs up to the place between the cairns where he had seen Joffreed for the first time. She came as usual along the path and saw him at work. Nevertheless she went on without saying anything. Since they had become friends she had often given him a good handshake but she did not seem to want to help him with the heavy work. Turner still thought that she ought to have understood that it was now her house which he meant to build. She understood it very well but she had no desire to give herself to such a man as Turner. She wished to have a strong and healthy husband. She thought it would be a poor livelihood to marry anyone who was weak and dull. Still there was much which drew her to that silent shy man. She thought how hard he had worked to gladden his mother and had not enjoyed the happiness of being ready in time. She could weep for his sake and now he was building the house just where he had seen her dance. He had a good heart and that interested her and fixed her thoughts on him but she did not at all wish to marry him. Every day she went over the Heather field and saw the log cabin grow miserable and without windows with the sunlight filtering in through the leaky walls. Turner's work progressed very quickly but not with care. His timbers were not bent square. The bark was scarcely taken off. He laid the floor with split young trees. It was uneven and shaky. The Heather which grew and blossomed under it for a year had passed since the day when Turner had lain asleep behind King Atlas pile. Pushed up old red clusters through the cracks and ounce with that number wandered out and in inspecting the fragile work of man. Wherever Joe Fried went during those days the thought never left her that a house was being built for her there. A home was being prepared for her upon the heat and she knew that if she did not enter there as mistress the bear and the fox would make it their home for she knew Turner well enough to understand that if he found he had worked in vain he would never move into the new house. He would weep for man when he heard that she would not live there. It would be a new sorrow for him as deep as when his mother died but he had himself to blame because he had not asked her in time. She thought that she gave him a sufficient hint in not helping him with the house. She often felt impelled to do so. Every time she saw any soft white moss she wanted to pick it to fill in the leaky walls. She longed too to help Turner to build the chimney. As he was making it all the smoke would gather in the house but it did not matter how it was. No food would ever be cooked there. No ale brewed. Still it was odious that the house would never leave her thoughts. Turner worked glowing with eagerness certain that Joe Fried would understand his meaning if only the house were ready. He did not wonder much about her. He had enough to do to youth and shape. The days went quickly for him. One afternoon when Joe Fried came over the moor she saw that there was a door in the cottage and a slab of stone for a threshold. Then she understood that everything must now be ready and she was much agitated. Turner had covered the roof with tufts of flowering heather and she was seized by an intense longing to enter under that red roof. He was not at the new house and she decided to go in. The house was built for her. It was her home. It was not possible to resist the desire to see it. Within it was more attractive than she had expected. Rushes were strewed over the floor. It was full of the fresh fragrance of pine and resin. The sunshine that played through the windows and cracks made bands of light through the air. It looked as if she had been expected. In the crannies of the wall green branches were stuck and in the fireplace stood a newly cut fir tree. Turner had not moved in his old furniture. There was nothing but new table and a bench over which an elk skin was thrown. As soon as Joe Fried had crossed the threshold she felt the pleasant cosiness of home surrounding her. She was happy and content while she stood there but to leave it seemed to her as hard as to go away and serve strangers. It happened that Joe Fried had expended much hard work in procuring a kind dower for herself. With skillful hands she had woven bright coloured fabrics such as are used to adorn a room and she wanted to put them up in her own home when she got one. Now she wondered how these cloth would look here. She wished she could try them in the new house. She hurried quickly home, fetched her roll of weavings and began to fasten the bright coloured pieces of cloth up under the roof. She threw open the door to let the big setting sun shine on her and her work. She moved eagerly about the cottage brisk, gay, bumming a merry tune. She was perfectly happy. It looked so fine. The woven roses and stars shone as never before. While she worked she kept a good look out over the moor and the graves for it seemed to her as if Turner might now too be lying hidden behind one of the churns and laughing at her. The king's grave lay opposite the door and behind it she saw the sun setting. Time after time she looked out. She felt as if someone was sitting there and watching her. Just as the sun was so low that only a few blood-red beams filtered over the old stone heap she saw who it was who was watching her. The whole pile of stones was no longer stones but a mighty old warrior who was sitting there scared and grey and staring at her. Round about his head the rays of the sun made a crown and his red mantle was so wide that he spread over the whole moor. His head was big and heavy. His face grey as stone. His clothes and weapons were also stone-coloured and repeated so exactly the shadings and mossiness of the rock. That one had to look closely to see in that it was a warrior and not a pile of stones. It was like those insects which resemble tree twigs. One can go by them twenty times before one sees that it is a soft animal body one has taken for hard wood. But Joffred could no longer be mistaken. It was the old king Utley himself sitting there. She stood in the doorway, shaded her eyes with her hand and looked right into his stony face. He had very small oblique eyes under a dome-like brow a broad nose and a long beard and he was alive. That man of stone he smiled and winked at her. She was afraid and what terrified her most of all were his thick muscular arms and hairy hands. The longer she looked at him the broader grew his smile and at last he lifted one of his mighty arms to beckon her to him. Then Joffred took flight towards home. But when Turner came home and saw the house adorned with starry weavings he found courage to send a friend to Joffred's father. The latter asked Joffred what she thought about it and she gave her consent. She was well pleased with the way it had turned out even if she had been half-forced to give her hand. She could not say no to the man to whose house she had already carried her dower. Still she looked first to see that old King Attle had again become a pile of stones. End of Part 2 of The King's Grave from Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlö translated by Pauline Bancroft Flack Read by Lars Rolander Section 8 of Invisible Links This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Lars Rolander Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlö translated by Pauline Bancroft Flack The King's Grave Part 3 Turner and Joffred lived happily for many years. They earned a good reputation. They are good, people said. See how they stand by one another. See how they work together. See how one cannot live apart from the other. Turner grew stronger, more enduring and less heavy-witted every day. Joffred seemed to have made a whole man of him. Almost always he let her rule, but he also understood how to carry out his own will with tenacious obstinacy. Jests and merriment followed Joffred wherever she went. Her clothes became more vivid the older she grew. Her whole face was bright red, but in Turner's eyes she was beautiful. They were not so poor as many others of their class. They ate butter with their porridge and mixed neither bran nor bark in their bread. Myrtle ale foamed in their tankards. Their flocks of sheep and goats increased so quickly that they could allow themselves meat. Turner once worked for a peasant in the valley. The latter, who saw how he and his wife worked together with great deity, thought like many another. See, these are good people. The peasant had lately lost his wife and she had left behind her a child six months old. He asked Turner and Joffred to take his son as a foster child. The child is very dear to me, he said. Therefore I give it to you, for you are good people. They had no children of their own so that it seemed very fitting for them to take it. They accepted it too without hesitation. They thought it would be to their advantage to bring up a peasant's child besides which they expected to be cheered in their old age by their foster son. But the child did not live to grow up with them. Before the year was out it was dead. It was said by many that it was the fault of the foster parents for the child had been unusually strong before it came to them. By that no one meant, however, that they had killed it intentionally but rather that they had undertaken something beyond their powers. They had not had sense or love enough to give it the care it needed. They were accustomed only to think of themselves and to look out for themselves. They had no time to care for a child. They wished to go together to their work every day and to sleep a quiet sleep at night. They thought that the child drank too much of their good milk and did not allow him as much as themselves. They had no idea that they were treating the boy badly. They thought that they were just as tender to him as parents generally are. It seemed more to them as if their foster son had been a punishment and a torment. They did not mourn him when he died. Women usually enjoy nothing better than to take care of a child but Joffreed had a husband whom she often had to care for like a mother so that she desired no one else. They also loved to see their children's quick growth but Joffreed had pleasure enough in watching Turner develop sense and manliness in adorning and taking care of her house in the increase of their flocks and in the crops which they were raising below them all. Joffreed went to the peasants farm and told him that the child was dead. Then the man said, I am like the man who puts cushions in his bed so soft that he sinks down to the hard bottom. I wish to take care too well for my son and look, now he is dead. And he was heartbroken. At his words Joffreed began to weep bitterly. What took God that you had not left your son with us? He said, we were too poor. He could not get what he needed with us. That is not what I meant answered the peasant. I believe that you have overindulged the child but I will not accuse anyone for over life and death God alone rules. Now I mean to celebrate the funeral where my only son with the same expense as if he had been full grown the feast I invite both Turner and you. By that you may know that I bear you no grudge. So Turner and Joffreed went to the funeral banquet. They were well treated and no one said anything unfriendly to them. The women who had dressed the child's body had related that it had been miscibly thin and had borne marks of great neglect. But that could easily come from sickness. No one wished to believe anything bad about the foster parents for it was known that they were good people. Joffreed wept a great deal during those days especially when she heard the women tell how they had to wake and toil for their little children. She noticed too that the women at the funeral were continually talking of their children. Some rejoiced so in them that they never could stop telling of their questions and games. Joffreed would have liked to have talked about Turner but most of them never spoke of their husbands. Late one evening Joffreed and Turner came home from the festivities. They went straight to bed but hardly had they fallen asleep before they were waked by a feeble crying. It is the child they thought still half asleep and were angry at being disturbed. But suddenly both of them sat right up in the bed. The child was dead. Where did that crying come from? When they were quite awake they heard nothing but as soon as they began to drop off to sleep they heard it. Little tottering feet sounded on the stone threshold outside the house. A little hand grouped for the door and when it could not open it the child crept crying and feeling along the wall until it stopped just outside where they were sleeping. As soon as they spoke or sat up they perceived nothing but when they tried to sleep they distinctly heard the uncertain steps and the suppressed sobbing. That which they had not wished to believe but which seemed a possibility during these last days now became a certainty. They felt that they had killed the child. Why otherwise should it have the power to haunt them? From that night all happiness left them. They lived in constant fear of the ghost. By day they had some peace but at night they were so disturbed by the child's weeping and choking sobs that they did not dare to sleep alone. Joe Friedoven went long distances to get someone to stop overnight in their house. If there was any stranger there it was quiet but as soon as they were alone they heard the child. One night when they had found no one to keep them company and could not sleep for the child Joe Fried got up from her bed. You sleep Turner she said if I keep awake we will not hear anything. She went out and sat down on the doorstep thinking of what they ought to do to get peace for they could not go on living as things were. She wondered if confession and penance and modification and repentance could relieve them from this heavy punishment. Then it happened that she raised her eyes and saw the same vision as once before from this place. The pile of stones had changed to a warrior. The night was quite dark but still she could plainly see that old King Attle sat there and watched her. She saw him so well that she could distinguish the moss-grown bracelets on his wrists and could see how his legs were bound with crossed bands between which his calf muscles swelled. This time she was not afraid of the old man. He seemed to be a friend and consular in her unhappiness. He looked at her with pity as if he wished to give her courage. Then she thought that the mighty warrior had once had his day when he had overthrown hundreds of enemies there on the heap and waded through the streams of blood that had poured between the clumps. What had he thought of one dead man more or less? How much would the sight of children whose fathers he had killed have moved his heart of stone? Light as air with the burden of a child's death have rested on his conscience. And she heard his whisper, the same which the old stone-cold heathenism had whispered through all time. Why repent? The gods rule us. The faith spin the threads of life. Why shall the children of earth mourn because they have done what immortal gods have forced them to do? Then Dufried took courage and said to herself, How am I to blame because the child died? It is God alone who decides. Nothing takes place without his will. And she thought that she could lay the ghost by putting all repentance from her. But now the door opened and Turner came out. Joe Frid, he said, it is in the house now. It came up and knocked on the edge of the bed and woke me. What shall we do, Joe Frid? The child is dead, said Joe Frid. You know that it is lying deep underground. All this is only dreams and imagination. She spoke hardly and coldly, for she feared that Turner would do something reckless and thereby cause them misfortune. We must put an end to it, said Turner. Joe Frid laughed dismally. What do you wish to do? God has sent this to us. Could he not have kept the child alive if he had chosen? He did not wish it, and now he persecutes us for its death. Tell me why what right he persecutes us? She got her words from the old stone warrior who sat dark and high on his pile. It seemed as if he suggested to her everything she answered to Turner. We must acknowledge that we have neglected the child and do penance, said Turner. Never will I suffer what is not my fault, said Joe Frid. Who wanted the child to die? Not I. Not I. What kind of penance will you do? You need all your strength for work. I have always tried with scorching, said Turner. It is of no avail. You see, she said and laughed again. We must try something else. Turner went on with persistent determination. We must confess. What do you want to tell God that he does not know? mocked Joe Frid. Does he not guide your thoughts, Turner? What will you tell him? She thought that Turner was stupid and obstinate. She had found him so in the beginning of their acquaintance, but since then she had not thought of it, but had loved him for his good heart. We will confess to the father, Joe Frid, and offer him compensation. What will you offer him? she asked. The house and the goats. He will certainly demand an enormous compensation for his only son. All that we possess would not be enough. We will give ourselves as slaves into his power if he is not content with less. At this word, Joe Frid was seized by cold despair, and she hated Turner from the depth of our soul. Everything she would lose appeared so plainly to her, freedom for which her ancestors had ventured their lives, the house, her comforts, honour and happiness. Mark my words, Turner. She said hoarsely, half choked with pain, that the day you do that thing will be the day of my death. After that no more words were exchanged between them, but they remained sitting on the doorstep until the day came. Neither found a word to appease or to conciliate. Each felt fear and scorn of the other. The one measured the other by the standard of his own anger, and they found each other narrow-minded and bad-tempered. After that night, Joe Frid could not refrain from letting Turner feel that he was her inferior. She let him understand in the presence of others that he was stupid and helped him with his work so that he had to think how much stronger she was. She evidently wished to take away from him all rights as master of the house. Sometimes she pretended to be very lively to distract him and to prevent him from broadening. He had not done anything to carry out his plan, but she did not believe that he had given it up. During this time, Turner became more and more as he was before his marriage. He grew thin and pale, silent and slow-witted. Joe Frid's despair increased each day for it seemed as if everything was to be taken from her. Her love for Turner came back. However, when she saw him unhappy, what is any of it worth to me if Turner is ruined, she thought? It is better to go into slavery with him than to see him die in freedom. End of Part 3 of the King's Grave from Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlöf. Translated by Pauline Bancroft-Flack, read by Lars Rolander. Section 9 of Invisible Links. This is a LibriVox Recordings. All LibriVox Recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Lars Rolander. Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlöf. Translated by Pauline Bancroft-Flack. The King's Grave, Part 4. Joe Frid, however, could not at once decide to obey Turner. She fought a long and severe fight. But one morning she awoke in an unusually calm and gentle mood. Then she thought that she could now do what he demanded. And she waked him saying that it should be as he wished. Only that one day he should grant her to save her well to everything. The whole foreknown she went about strangely gentle. Tears rose easily to her eyes. The heath was beautiful that day, for her sake, she thought. Frost had passed over it, the flowers were gone, and the whole moor had turned brown. But when it was lighted by the slanting rays of the autumn sun, it looked as if the heather glowed red once more. And she remembered the day when she saw Turner for the first time. She wished that she might see the old king once more, for he had helped her to find her happiness. She had been seriously afraid of him of late. She felt as if he were lying in wait to seize her. But now she thought he could no longer have any power over her. She would remember to look for him towards night when the moon rose. It happened that a couple of wandering musicians came by about noon. Joffreed had the idea to ask them to stop at her house the whole afternoon, for she wished to have a dance. Turner had to hasten to her parents and ask them to come. And her small brothers and sisters ran down to the village for the other guests. Soon many people had collected. There was great gaiety. Turner kept apart in a corner of the house as was his habit when they had guests. But Joffreed was quite wild in her fun. With shrill voice she led the dance and was eager in offering her guests the foaming ale. There was not much room in the cottage, but the fiddlers were untiring and the dance went on with life and spirit. It grew suffocatingly warm. The door was thrown open and all at once Joffreed saw that night had come and that the moon had risen. Then she went to the door and looked out into the white world of the moonlight. A heavy dew had fallen. The whole heath was white as the moon was reflected in all the little drops which had collected on every tweak. There Turner and she would go tomorrow hand in hand to meet the most terrible dishonor. For however the meeting with the peasant should turn out whatever he might take or whatever he might let them keep dishonor would certainly be their lot. They who that evening possessed a good cottage and many friends tomorrow would be despised and detested by all. Perhaps they would also be robbed of everything they had earned perhaps to be dishonored slaves. She said to herself it is the way of death and now she could not understand how she would ever have strength to walk in it. It seemed to her as if she were of stone a heavy stone image like old King Utle. Although she was alive she felt as if she would not be able to lift her heavy stone limbs to walk that way. She turned her eyes towards the king's grave and distinctly saw the old warrior sitting there. But now he was adorned as for a feast. He no longer wore the grey moss-grown stone attire but white glittering silver. Now again he wore a crown of beams as when she first saw him but this one was white. And white shone his breezed plate and armets shining white were sword, hilt and sheet. He sat and watched her with silent indifference. The unfathomable mystery which great stone faces wear had now sunk down over him. There he sat dark and mighty and Joffred had a faint, indistinct idea that he was an image of something which was in herself and in all men of something which was buried in faraway centuries covered by many stones and still not dead. He saw him, the old king sitting deep in the human heart. Over its barren field he spread his wide king's mantle. Their pleasure danced, their love of display flaunted. He was the great stone warrior who saw famine and poverty pass by without his stone heart being moved. It is the will of the gods, he said. He was the strong man of stone who could bear unatoned for sin without yielding. He always said, why grieve for what you have done compelled by the immortal gods? Joffred's breast was shaken by a sigh deep as a sob. She had a feeling which she could not explain, a feeling that she ought to struggle with a man of stone if she was to be happy. But at the same time she felt helplessly weak. Her impenitence and the struggle out on the heath seemed to her to be one and the same thing, and if she could not conquer the first by some means or other the last would gain power over her. She looked back towards the cottage where the weavings glowed under the roof timbers, where the musicians spread merriment and where everything she loved was. Then she felt that she could not go into slavery, not even for tuna's sake could she do it. She saw his pale face within the house, and she asked herself with the contraction of the heart if he was worth the sacrifice of everything for his sake. In the cottage the people had started a new dance. They arranged themselves in a long line, took each other by the hand, and with a wild strong young man at the head they rushed forward at dizzy speed. The leader drew them through the open door out onto the moonlit heath. They stormed by Joe Fried, panting and wild, stumbling against stones, falling into the heather, making wide rings from the house, circling about the heaps of stones. The last of the line called to Joe Fried to fetch out his hand to her. She seized it and ran too. It was not a dance, only a mad rush, but there was pleasure in it, audacity and the joy of living. The rings became bolder, the cries sounded louder, the laughter more boisterous, from can to can as they lay scattered over the heath wound their line of dancers. If anyone fell in the wild swinging, he was dragged up. Overdriven onward, the musician stood in the doorway and played the faster. There was no time to rest, to think, nor to look about. The dance went on at always madder speed over the yielding moss and slippery rocks. During all this Joe Fried felt more and more clearly that she wished to keep her freedom, that she would rather die than lose it. She saw that she could not follow Turney. She thought of running away, of hurrying into the wood and never coming back. They had circled about all the cairns except that of King Utley. Joe Fried saw that they were now turning towards it and she kept her eyes fixed on the stone man. Then she saw how his giant arms were stretched towards the rushing dancers. She screamed aloud, as answered by a loud laughter. She wished to stop, but a strong grasp drew her on. She saw him snatch at those hurrying by, but they were so quick that the heavy arms could not reach any of them. It was incomprehensible to her that no one saw him. The agony of death came over her. She thought that he would reach her. It was for her that he had lain in wait for many years. With the others it was only play. It was she whom he would cease at last. Her turn came to rush by King Utley. She saw how he raised himself and bent for a spring to be sure of the matter and catch her. In her extreme need she felt that if she only could decide to give in the next day, he would not have the power to catch her, but she could not. She came last, and she was swung so violently that she was more dragged and jerked forward than drumming herself, and it was hard for her to keep from falling. And although she passed at lightning speed, the old warrior was too quick for her. The heavy arms sank down over her. The stone hands seized her. She was drawn into the silvery harness of that breast. The agony of death took more and more hold over her, but she knew to the very last that it was because she had not been able to conquer the stone king in her own heart that Utley had power over her. It was the end of the dancing and merriment. Joe Friedley dying. In the violence of their mad root she had been thrown against the king's cairn and received her death blow on its stones. End of Part 4 of the King's Grave from Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlööf translated by Pauline Bancroft Flak read by Lars Rolander Section 10 of Invisible Links This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading by Lars Rolander Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlööf translated by Pauline Bancroft Flak The Outlaws Part 1 A peasant who had murdered a monk took to the woods and was made an outlaw. He found there before him in the wilderness an outlaw, a fisherman from the outermost islands who had been accused of stealing a herring net. They joined together, lived in a cave, set snares, sharpened darts, baked bread on a granite rock and guarded one another's lives. The peasant never left the woods but the fisherman who had not committed such an abominable crime sometimes loaded game on his shoulders and stole down among men. There he got in exchange for black cocks for long-haired hairs and fine-limbed red deer, milk and butter, arrowheads and clothes. These helped the outlaws to sustain life. The cave where they lived was dug in the side of a hill. Broad stones and thorny slow bushes hid the entrance. Above it stood a thick growing pine tree. At its root was the vent hole of the cave. The rising smoke filtered through the trees, thick branches and vanished into space. The men used to go to and from their dwelling place wading in the mountain stream which ran down the hill. No one looked for their tracks under the merry bubbling water. At first they were hunted like wild beasts. The peasants gathered as if for a chase of bear and wolf. The wood was surrounded by men with bows and arrows. Men with spears went through it and left no dark crevice, no bushy thicket unexplored. While the noisy baton hunted through the wood, the outlaws lay in their dark hole listening breathlessly, panting with terror. The fisherman held out a whole day but he who had murdered was driven by unbearable fear out into the open where he could see his enemy. He was seen and hunted but it seemed to him seven times better than to lie still in helpless in activity. He fled from his pursuers, slid down precipices, sprang of the streams, climbed up perpendicular mountain walls. All latent strength and dexterity in him was called forth by the excitement of danger. His body became elastic like a steel spring, his foot made no fall step, his hand never lost its hold, eye and ear were twice as sharp as usual. He understood what the leaves whispered and the rocks warned. When he had climbed up a precipice, he turned towards his pursuers, sending them jibes in biting rhyme. When the whistling darts whist by him, he caught them swift as lightning and hurled them down on his enemies. As he forced his way through whipping branches, something within him sang a song of triumph. The bald mountain ridge ran through the wood and alone on its summit stood a lofty firm. The red-brown trunk was bare but in the branching top rocked an eagle's nest. The fugitive was now so audaciously bold that he climbed up there while his pursuers looked for him on the wooded slopes. There he sat twisting the young eagle's necks while the hunt passed by far below him. The male and female eagle, longing for revenge, swooped down on the ravisher. They fluttered before his face. They struck with their beaks at his eyes. They beat him with their wings and tore with their claws bleeding wheels in his weather-beaten skin. Laughing, he fought with them. Standing upright in the shaking nest, he cut at them with his sharp knife and forgot in the pleasure of the play his danger and his pursuers. When he found time to look for them, they had gone by to some other part of the forest. No one had thought to look for their prey on the bald mountain ridge. No one had raised his eyes to the clouds by him practicing boyish tricks and sleep-walking feats while his life was in the greatest danger. The man trembled when he found that he was saved. With shaking hands he caught at a support. Did he measure the height to which he had climbed and moaning with the fear of falling, afraid of the birds, afraid of being seen, afraid of everything, he slid down the trunk. He set himself down on the ground so as not to be seen and dragged himself forward over the rocks until the underbrush covered him. There he hid himself under the young pine tree's tangled branches. Weak and powerless he sank down on the moss. A single man could have captured him. Tord was the fisherman's name. He was not more than sixteen years old but strong and bold. He lived a year in the woods. The peasant's name was Berg with a surname Rese. He was the tallest and the strongest man in the whole district and moreover handsome and well-built. He was broad in the shoulders and slender in the waist. His hands were as well-shaped as if he had never done any hard work. His hair was brown and his skin fair. After he had been some time in the woods he had to hide in all ways a more formidable appearance. His eyes became piercing, his eyebrows grew bushy and the muscles which needed them lay finger-thick above his nose. It showed now more plainly than before how the upper part of his athlete's brow projected over the lower. His lips closed more firmly than of old. His whole face was thinner. The hollows at the temples grew very deep and his powerful jaw was much more prominent. His body was less well-filled out but his muscles were as hard as steel. His hair grew suddenly gray. Jung toward could never wary of looking at this man. He had never before seen anything so beautiful and powerful. In his imagination he stood high as the forest, strong as the sea. He served him as a master and worshipped him as a god. It was a matter of course that toward should carry the hunting spears, drag home the game, fetch the water and build the fire. Bergresa accepted all his services but almost never gave him a friendly word. He despised him because he was a thief. The outlaws did not lead a robbers of Brigham's life. They supported themselves by hunting and fishing. If Bergresa had not murdered a holy man the peasants would soon have ceased to pursue him and have left him in peace in the mountains. But they feared great disaster to the district because he who had raised his hand against the servant of God was still unpunished. When toward came down to the valley with game they offered him riches and pardon for his own crime if he would show them the way to Bergresa's hole so that they might take him while he slept. But the boy always refused and if anyone tried to sneak after him up into the wood he led him so cleverly astray that he gave up the pursuit. Once Berg asked him if the peasants had not tried to tempt him to betray him and when he heard what they had offered him as a reward he said scornfully that toward had been foolish not to accept such a proposal. Then toward looked at him with a glance the like of which Bergresa had never before seen. Never had any beautiful woman in his youth never had his wife or child looked so at him. You are my lord my elected master said the glance know that you may strike me and abuse me as you will I am faithful not withstanding. After that Bergresa paid more attention to the boy and noticed that he was bold to act but timid to speak. He had no fear of death. When the ponds were first frozen or when the bogs were most dangerous in the spring when the quagmires were hidden under richly flowering grasses and cloudberry he took his way over them by choice. He seemed to feel the need of exposing himself to danger as a compensation for the storms and terrors of the ocean which he had no longer to meet. At night he was afraid in the woods and even in the middle of the day the darkest thickets or the wide stretching roots of a fallen pine could frighten him but when Bergresa asked him about it he was too shy to even answer. Tord did not sleep near the fire far in the cave on the bed which was made soft with moss and warm with skins but every night when Berg had fallen asleep he crept out to the entrance and lay there on a rock. Berg discovered this and although he well understood the reason he asked what it meant. Tord would not explain. To escape any more questions he did not lie at the door for two nights but then he returned to his post. One night when the drifting snow whirled about the forest tops and drove into the thickest underbrush the driving snowflakes found their way into the outlaws cave. Tord who lay just inside the entrance was when he waked in the morning covered by a melting snow drift. A few days later he fell ill. His lungs wheezed expanded to take in air he felt excruciating pain. He kept up as long as his strings held out but when one evening he leaned down to blow the fire he fell over and remained lying. Bergresa came to him and told him to go to his bed Tord moaned with pain and could not raise himself. Berg then thrust his arms under him and carried him there but he felt as if he had got hold of a slimy snake. He had a taste in the mouth as if he had eaten the unholy horse flesh. It was so odious to him to touch the miserable thief. He laid his own big bear skin over him and gave him water more he could not do nor was it anything dangerous. Tord was soon well again but through Berg's being obliged to do his tasks and to be his servant they had come nearer to one another. Tord dared to talk to him when he sat in the cave in the evening and cut arrow shafts. You are of a good race Berg said Tord. Your kinsmen are the richest in the valley. Your ancestors have served with kings and fought in their castles. They have often fought with bands of rebels and done the king's great injury, replied Berg Riesel. Your ancestors gave great feasts at Christmas and so did you when you were at home. Hundreds of men and women could find a place to sit in your big house which was already built before St. Olaf first gave the baptism here in Weeken. You owned old silver vessels and great drinking horns which passed from man to man filled with mead. Again Berg Riesel had to look at the boy. He sat up with his legs hanging out to the bed and his head resting on his hands with which he at the same time held back the wild masses of hair which would fall over his eyes. His face had become pale and delicate from the ravages of sickness. In his eyes fever still burned. He smiled at the pictures he conjured up at the adorned house, at the silver vessels, at the guests in Gala array and at Berg Riesel sitting in the seat of honour in the hall of his ancestors. The peasant thought that no one had ever looked at him with such shining, admiring eyes or thought him so magnificent arrived in his festival clothes as that boy thought him in the torn skin dress. He was both touched and provoked that miserable thief had no right to admire him. Were there no feasts in your house? he asked. Tord laughed out there on the rocks with father and mother. Father is a wrecker and mother is a witch. No one will come to us. Is your mother a witch? She is, answered Tord, quite untroubled. In stormy weather she rides out on a seal to meet the ships over which the waves are washing and those who are carried overboard are hers. What does she do with them? asked Berg. Oh, a witch always needs corpses. She makes ointments out of them or perhaps she eats them. On moonlight nights she sits in the surf where it is whitest and the spray dashes over her. They say that she sits and searches for shipwrecked children's fingers and eyes. That is awful, said Berg. The boy answered with infinite assurance that would be awful in others but not in witches. They have to do so. Fraser found that he had here come upon a new way of regarding the world and things. Do thieves have to steal? As witches have to use witchcraft? he asked sharply. Yes, of course, answered the boy. Everyone has to do what he is destined to do but then he added with a cautious smile there are thieves also who have never stolen. Say out what you mean, said Berg. The boy continued with this mysterious smile proud at being an unsolvable riddle. It is like speaking of birds who do not fly to talk of thieves who do not steal. Berg Fraser pretended to be stupid in order to find out what he wanted. No one can be called a thief without having stolen, he said. No, but said the boy and pressed his lips together as if to keep in the words but if someone had a father who stole he hinted after a while. One inherits money and lands replied Berg Fraser but no one bears the name of thief if he has not himself earned it. Tord laughed quietly but if somebody has a mother who begs and prays him to take his father's crime on him but if such a one cheats the hangman and escapes to the woods but if someone is made an outlaw for a fishnet which he has never seen Berg Fraser struck the stone table with his clenched fist he was angry. This fair young man had thrown away his whole life he could never win love nor riches nor esteem after that. The wretched striving for food and clothes was all which was left him and the fool had let him Berg Fraser go on despising one who was innocent. He rebuked him with stern words but Tord was not even as afraid as a sick child of its mother when she chides it because it has caught cold in the spring brooks. End of part one of the Outlaws from Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlöö translated by Pauline Bancroft Flack read by Lars Rolander. Section 11 of Invisible Links This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Lars Rolander Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlööö translated by Pauline Bancroft Flack The Outlaws Part Two On one of the broad wooded mountains lay a dark tarn. It was square with a straight shores and a sharp corners as if it had been cut by the hand of man. On three sides it was surrounded by steep cliffs on which pines clung with roots as thick as a man's harm. Down by the pool where the earth had been gradually washed away their roots stood up out of the water bare and crooked and wonderfully twisted about one another. It was like an infinite number of serpents which had wanted all at the same time to crawl up out of the pool but had got entangled in one another and been held fast. Or it was like a mass of blackened skeletons of drowned giants which the pool wanted to throw up on the land. Arms and legs writhed about one another the long fingers stuck deep into the very cliff to get a hold. The mighty ribs formed arches which held up primeval trees. It had happened, however, that the iron arms, the steel-like fingers with which the pines held themselves fast had given way and a pine had been borne by a mighty north wind from the top of the cliff down into the pool. It had burrowed deep down into the muddy bottom with its top and now stood there. The smaller fish had a good place of refuge among its branches but the roots stuck up above the water like a many-armed monster and contributed to make the pool awful and terrifying. On the tarn's fourth side the cliff sank down. There a little foaming stream carried away its waters. Before this stream could find the only possible way it had tried to get out between stones and tufts and had by so doing made a little world of islands, some no bigger than a little hillock, others covered with trees. Here, where the encircling cliffs did not shut out all the sun, leafy trees flourished. Here stood thirsty, gray-green alders and smooth-leaved willows. The birch tree grew there as it does everywhere where it is trying to crowd out the pine woods and the wild cherry and the mountain ash, those to which itched the forest pastures filling them with fragrance and adorning them with beauty. Here at the outlet there was a forest of reeds as high as a man which made the sunlight fall green on the water just as it falls on the moss in the real forest. Among the reeds there were open places, small round pools and water lilies were floating there. The tall stalks looked down with mild seriousness on those sensitive beauties who discontentedly shut their white petals and yellow stamens in a hard leather-like sheet as soon as the sun sees to show itself. One sunshine day the outlaws came to this town to fish. They waded out to a couple of big stones in the midst of the reed forest and sat there and threw out bait for the big green-striped pickerel that lay and slept near the surface of the water. These men who were always wandering in the woods and the mountains had, without their knowing its own selves, come under the nature's rule as much as the plants and the animals. When the sun shone, they were open-hearted and brave, but in the evening, as soon as the sun had disappeared, they became silent and the night which seemed to them much greater and more powerful than the day made them anxious and helpless. Now the green light which slanted in between the rushes and colored the water with brown and dark green streaked with gold affected their mood until they were ready for any miracle. Every outlook was shut off. Sometimes the reeds rocked in an imperceptible wind, their stalks rustled and the long ribbon-like leaves fluttered against their faces. They sat in gray skins on the gray stones. The shadows in the skins repeated the shadows with a beaten mossy stone. Each saw his companion in his silence and in movability change into a stone image. But in among the rushes swam mighty fishes with rainbow-colored backs. When the men threw out their hooks and saw the circles spreading among the reeds, it seemed as if the motion grew stronger and stronger until they perceived that it was not caused only by their cast. A sea-nymph, half human, half a shining fish lay and slept on the surface of the water. She lay on her back with her whole body under water. The waves so nearly covered her that they had not noticed her before. It was her breathing that caused the motion of the waves. But there was nothing strange in her lying there. And when the next instant she was gone, they were not sure that she had not been only an illusion. The green light entered through the eyes into the brain like a gentle intoxication. The men sat and stared with dulled thoughts, seeing visions among the reeds, of which they did not dare to tell one another. Their catch was poor, the day was devoted to dreams and apparitions. The stroke of oars was heard among the rushes and they started up as from sleep. The next moment a flat-bottom boat appeared heavy, hollowed out with no skill and with oars as small as sticks. A young girl who had been picking water lilies rode it. She had dark brown hair, gathered in great braids and big dark eyes. Otherwise she was strangely pale. But her paleness toned to pink and not to gray. Her cheeks had no higher color than the rest of her face. The lips had hardly enough. She wore a white linen shirt and a leather belt with a gold buckle. Her skirt was blue with a red hem. She could buy the outlaws without seeing them. They get breathlessly still but not for fear of being seen but only to be able to really see her. As soon as she had gone they were as if changed from stone images to living beings smiling they looked at one another. She was white like the water lilies in the sun. Her eyes were as dark as the water there under the pine roots. They were so excited that they wanted to laugh, really laugh as no one had ever laughed by that pool till the cliffs thundered with echoes and the roots of the pines loosened with fright. Do you think she was pretty? asked Burgreis. I don't know. I saw her for such a short time. Perhaps she was. I do not believe you dare to look at her. You thought that it was a mermaid and they were again shaken by the same extravagant merriment. Tord had once as a child seen a drowned man. He had found the body on the shore on a summer day and had not been at all afraid but at night he had dreamt terrible dreams. He saw a sea where every wave rolled a dead man to his feet. He saw too that all the islands were covered with drowned men who were dead and belonged to the sea but who still could speak and move and threaten him with withered white hands. It was so with him now the girl whom he had seen among the rushes came back in his dreams. He met her out in the open pool where the sunlight fell even greener than among the rushes and he had time to see that she was beautiful. He dreamt that he had crept up on the big pine root in the middle of the dark tarn but the pine swayed and rocked so that sometimes he was quite underwater. Then she came forward on the little islands. She stood under the red mountain ashes and laughed at him. In the last dream vision he had come so far that she kissed him. It was already morning and he heard that burgdrasa had got up but he obstinately shut his eyes to be able to go on with his dream. When he awoke he was so dizzy and stunned by what had happened to him in the night. He thought much more now of the girl than he had done the day before. Towards night he happened to ask burgdrasa if he knew her name. Burgd looked at him inquiringly. Perhaps it is best for you to hear it, he said. She is An. We are cousins. Tord then knew that it was for that pale girl's sake Burgdrasa wandered an outlaw in forest and mountain. Tord tried to remember what he knew of her. An was the daughter of a rich peasant. Her mother was dead so that she managed her father's house. This she liked for she was fond of her own way and she had no wish to be married. An and Burgdrasa were the children of brothers and it had long been said that Burgd preferred to sit with An and her maids and jest with them than to work on his own lands. When the great Christmas feast was celebrated at his house his wife had invited a monk from Draxmark for she wanted him to remonstrate with Burgd because he was forgetting her for another woman. This monk was hateful to Burgd and to many on account of his appearance. He was very fat and quite white. The ring of hair about his bald head the eyebrows about his watery eyes his face, his hands and his whole cloak everything was white. Many found it hard to endure his looks. At the banquet table in the hearing of all the guests this monk now said for he was fearless and thought that his words would have more effect if they were heard by many. People are in the habit of saying that the cuckoo is the worst of birds because he does not rear his young in his own nest but here sits a man who does not provide for his home and his children but seeks his pleasure with a strange woman. Him will I call the worst of men. Anne then rose up. That Burg is said to you and me she said never have I been so insulted and my father is not here either. She had wished to go but Burg sprang after her. Do not move she said I will never see you again. He caught up with her in the hall and asked her what he should do to make her stay. She had answered with flashing eyes that he must know that best himself. Then Burg went in and killed the monk. Burg and Toad were busy with the same thoughts for after a while Burg said you should have seen her Anne when the white monk fell the mistress of the house gathered the small children about her and cursed her. She turned their faces towards her that they might forever remember her who had made their father a murderer. But Anne stood calm and so beautiful that the men trembled. She thanked me for the deed and told me to fly to the woods. She bade me not to be robber and not to use the knife until I could do it for an equally just cause. Your deed has been to her honour, said Toad. Burg reassert noticed again what had astonished him before in the boy. He was like a heathen, worse than a heathen. He never condemned what was wrong. He felt no responsibility that which must be was. He knew of God and Christ and the saints but only by name as one knows the gods of foreign lands. The ghosts of the rocks were his gods. His mother, Weiss in witchcraft, had taught him to believe in the spirits of the dead. Then Burg reassert undertook a task which was as foolish as to twist a rope about his own neck. He said before those ignorant eyes the great God, the Lord of Justice, the avenger of misdeeds who cast the wicked into places of everlasting torment. And he taught him to love Christ and his mother and the holy men and women who with lifted hands kneeled before God's throne to avert the wrath of the great avenger from the hosts of sinners. He taught him all that men do to appease God's wrath. He showed him the crowds of pilgrims making pilgrimages to holy places, the flight of self-torturing penitents and monks from a worldly life. As he spoke, the boy became more eager and more pale. His eyes grew large as if for terrible visions. Burg Racer wished to stop but thought streamed to him and he went on speaking. The night sank down over them the black forest night when the owls hoot. God came so near to them that they saw his throne darken the stars and the chastising angels sank down to the tops of the trees and under them the fires of hell flamed up to the earth crust eagerly licking that shaking place of refuge for the sorrowing races of men. End of part two of the Outlaws from Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlö translated by Pauline Bancroft Flak read by Lars Rolander.