The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

"'There are plenty of fox trails in the forest, but the poachers are not looking for them. Believe me, old granddaddy! They know that you are lying here, and are coming to attac...

"It was thoughtless of me to let her go. But to make amends, can't I accompany you to your home?" asked she who wrote stories, somewhat surprised to think that in this unexpecte...

Soon thereafter Fumle-Drumle put Nils Holgersson down in the bottom of a sandpit. The boy flung himself down, rolled over, and lay there as though he was simply done up with fat...

He did not take the outstretched hands and was just about to drive out the beggar children, when a fresh recollection faced him. Engärd--was not that a little cabin where a poor...

"He understood how all this had come to pass. For it is thus with mermaids: one who beholds them must needs find them more beautiful than any one else, and the mermaid's blood b...

The author has rendered valuable assistance in cutting certain chapters and abridging others. Also, with the author's approval, cuts have been made where the descriptive matter...

The day of the eldest daughter's burial the mother closed the cabin and left home with the two remaining children, Osa and Mats. She went down to Skåne to work in the beet field...

It was this that the dog recalled; and it troubled him in a way very different from the recollection of all his other misdeeds. This was doubtless because he had not really mean...

"Do you call this a hut, you tramps! Can't you see that this is a great stone castle? Can't you see what fine terraces, and what a lot of pretty walls and windows and great door...

The day's work was done at the forest ranches, supper was over, and the peasants sat about and chatted. It was a long time since they had been in the forest of a summer's night,...

A little later they came to Ljungen, a river which glides through a broad valley. Immediately everything was so changed that they might well think they had come to another count...

As he thought of being alone with the dead in the middle of the dark night, he was terribly afraid. He threw himself headlong down the steps, and rushed back to the cowshed.

"He placed the iron on the anvil without heating it at the forge; he simply hammered it hot and forged nail after nail, without the use of either anvil or bellows. None of the j...

The big white one was sure now that the leader-goose would say that under no circumstances could they take him along. He was very much astonished when she said: "You answer ques...

"He brings with him one who is bewitched," said Goldeye, "and, under the circumstances, he too must be bewitched. Are you not afraid that he may be a black cormorant?" She was a...

He crawled up on a doorstep, and seated himself in the pouring rain and meditated. He sat there one whole hour--two whole hours, and he thought so hard that his forehead lay in...

Akka stood there hesitatingly. It was not pleasant, by any means, to venture out in the storm again, and it wasn't good to remain in a house where such guests were expected. Whe...

They had opened the kitchen door on account of the heat; and through it a clear ray of light streamed out on the yard; and it became so well lighted out there that the old woman...

The fisherman became more and more zealous to prevent the adoption. It seemed as if he could not bear the thought of a child of Swedish parents being taken in by Laplanders.

"One can't be too careful, with such neighbours as we have," said Father Bear gently. Then he leaped up with a roar. As luck would have it, one of the cubs had moved a paw over...

Karr was standing beneath the drooping branches of a great pine. He looked carefully at it; the needles moved. He went closer and saw a mass of grayish-white caterpillars creepi...

Here the wild geese lit on a balcony, and, as usual, they fell asleep at once. The boy, on the contrary, could not sleep because he hadn't cared to creep in under the goosey-gan...

They already owned a large place, but if the lake-draining was carried into effect, such a goodly portion of the lake-bottom would fall to their share that their property would...

The geese alighted on the west shore of the bay; but when Akka saw where the swans were, she swam toward them at once. She was very much surprised at their having sent for her,...

He sat and looked at his home. It was a little log house, which lay as if it had been crushed down to earth, under the high, sloping roof. The outhouses were also small; and the...

The only place on the heath where the heather is not all-powerful, is a low, stony ridge which passes over it. There you'll find juniper bushes, mountain ash, and a few large, f...

The bronze man struck the ground hard with his stick; but the boy never learned what he had intended to do for now the sun ran up, and, at the same time, both the bronze man and...

But the boy turned both vest and breeches pockets inside out, so they should see that he owned nothing. Then tears filled the eyes of all these regal merchants, who were so much...

It was with great difficulty that he gained the courage to answer. "Don't be angry with me, Caesar, because I came into the house!" said he. "It isn't my fault. I have been woun...

He was filled with a desire to help her, and ran his hand under the feathers, and felt along the wing-bone. The bone was not broken, but there was something wrong with the joint...

"I don't know what the grouse means by his forests, nor do I know where the eyes of the lark and the gull could have been,' remarked the loon. There's hardly any land up there--...

On one side of the swampy meadow, where the wild geese fed, there was a broad stone hedge. Toward evening when the boy finally raised his head, to speak to Akka, his glance happ...

"No; Akka, the white goosey-gander, and the whole flock are probably safe and sound up in Lapland at this season," said the boy. "It's only I who am a prisoner here."

Soon after that, another cloud comes over the plain. This stops over every bit of land; over peasant cottage and palace; over towns and cities; over farms and railway stations;...

He was just as little now as when he went away, and wore the same clothes; yet he was completely changed. The Nils Holgersson that went away in the spring had a heavy, slow gait...