Gerda in Sweden | Page 7

the site of the present city were repeatedly destroyed by hostile
tribes."
"Why didn't they build fortifications on the islands and hold the enemy
at bay?" questioned Birger.
"They were too busy sailing off to foreign lands," answered his father.
"Fleet after fleet of Viking ships sailed out of the bays of Sweden,
manned by the bravest sailors the world has ever known; and they
swooped down upon the tribes of Europe, fighting and conquering
them with the strength of giants and the glee of children."
"It was Birger Jarl who built the first walls and towers to protect the
city," spoke Gerda. "I remember learning it in my history lesson."
"Yes," her father replied; "good old Earl Birger, who ruled the Swedes
in the thirteenth century, saw how important such fortifications would
be, and so he locked up the Mälar Lake from hostile fleets by building
walls and towers around one of the islands and making it his capital."
"There is an old folk-song in one of my books which always reminds

me of the Vikings," said Birger.
"Let us hear it," suggested his father, and Birger repeated:--
"Brave of heart and warriors bold, Were the Swedes from time untold;
Breasts for honor ever warm, Youthful strength in hero arm. Blue eyes
bright Dance with light For thy dear green valleys old. North, thou
giant limb of earth, With thy friendly, homely hearth."
"There is another stanza," said Gerda. "I like the second one best," and
she added:--
"Song of many a thousand year Rings through wood and valley clear;
Picture thou of waters wild, Yet as tears of mourning mild. To the
rhyme Of past time Blend all hearts and lists each ear. Guard the songs
of Swedish lore, Love and sing them evermore."
"Good," said Lieutenant Ekman; "isn't there a third stanza, Birger?"
But Birger was at the other end of the boat. "Come here, Gerda," he
called. "We can see Waxholm now."
Then, as the boat slipped past the great fortress and began to thread its
way in and out among the islands in the fjord, the twins stood at the rail,
pointing out to each other a beautiful wooded island, a windmill, a
rocky ledge, a pretty summer cottage nestling among the trees, a
fisherman's hut with fishing nets hung up on poles to dry, an eagle
soaring across the blue sky, or a flock of terns flying up from the rocks
with their harsh, rattling cry.
There was a new and interesting sight every moment, and the sailors in
their blue uniforms nodded to each other with pleasure as Gerda flitted
across the deck.
"She is like a little bluebird," they said; and like a bird she chirped and
twittered, singing snatches of song, and asking a hundred questions.
"I like those old fancies that the Vikings had about the sea and the sky

and the winds," she said at last, stretching her arms wide and dancing
from end to end of the deck. "They called the sea the 'necklace of the
earth,' and the sky the 'wind-weaver.'"
"I wish I had the magic boat that Loki gave to Frey," answered Birger
lazily, lying flat on his back and looking up into the "wind-weaver." "If
I had it, I would sail over the whole long 'necklace of the earth,' from
clasp to clasp."
But Gerda was already out of hearing. She had gone to sit beside her
father and watch the course of the boat through the thousands of rocky
islands that stud the coast.
"The captain says that the frost giants threw all these rocks out here
when they were having a battle with old Njord, the god of the sea," she
said. Then, as she caught sight of a lighthouse on a low outer
ledge,--"Why, Father!" she cried, "I thought we were going to stop at
every lighthouse on the coast."
"So we are, after we leave the Skärgård," replied Lieutenant Ekman. "I
came down as far as this several weeks ago when the ice went out of
the fjord. There are two or three months when all this water is frozen
over and there can be no shipping; but as soon as the ice breaks up, the
lamps are lighted in the lighthouses and I come down to see them. Now
it is so light all night that for two months the lamps are not lighted at all
unless there is a storm."
Gerda ran to the rail to wave her handkerchief to a little girl on the deck
of a lumber vessel which they were passing.
"The lighthouse keepers have a good many vacations, don't they?" she
said when she came back.
"Yes," replied her father; "those on the east coast of Sweden have
several months in the winter when the Baltic