Near the bog, close by Liimfjorden, lay the Viking's loghouse of three stories high, and with a tower and stone cellars. The storks had built their nest upon the roof of this dwelling. The female stork sat upon her eggs, and felt certain they would be all hatched.
One evening the male stork remained out very long, and when he came home he looked rumpled and flurried.
"I have something very terrible to tell thee," he said to the female stork.
"Thou hadst better keep it to thyself," said she. "Remember I am sitting upon the eggs: a fright might do me harm, and the eggs might be injured."
"But it _must_ be told thee," he replied. "She has come here--the daughter of our host in Egypt. She has ventured the long journey up hither, and she is lost."
"She who is of the fairies' race? Speak, then! Thou knowest that I cannot bear suspense while I am sitting."
"Know, then, that she believed what the doctors said, which thou didst relate to me. She believed that the bog-plants up here could cure her invalid father; and she has flown hither, in the magic disguise of a swan, with the two other swan princesses, who every year come hither to the north to bathe and renew their youth. She has come, and she is lost."
"Thou dost spin the matter out so long," muttered the female stork, "the eggs will be quite cooled. I cannot bear suspense just now."
"I will come to the point," replied the male. "This evening I went to the rushes where the quagmire could bear me. Then came three swans. There was something in their motions which said to me, 'Take care; they are not real swans; they are only the appearance of swans, created by magic.' Thou wouldst have known as well as I that they were not of the right sort."
"Yes, surely," she said; "but tell me about the princess. I am tired of hearing about the swans."
"In the midst of the morass--here, I must tell thee, it is like a lake," said the male stork--"thou canst see a portion of it if thou wilt raise thyself up a moment--yonder, by the rushes and the green morass, lay a large stump of an alder tree. The three swans alighted upon it, flapped their wings, and looked about them. One of them cast off her swan disguise, and I recognised in her our royal princess from Egypt. She sat now with no other mantle around her than her long dark hair. I heard her desire the other two to take good care of her magic swan garb, while she ducked down under the water to pluck the flower which she thought she saw. They nodded, and raised the empty feather dress between them. 'What are they going to do with it?' said I to myself; and she probably asked herself the same question. The answer came too soon, for I saw them take flight up into the air with her charmed feather dress. 'Dive thou there!' they cried. 'Never more shalt thou fly in the form of a magic swan--never more shalt thou behold the land of Egypt. Dwell thou in _the wild morass_!' And they tore her magic disguise into a hundred pieces, so that the feathers whirled round about as if there were a fall of snow; and away flew the two worthless princesses."