THE BIRD OF POPULAR SONG

    IT is winter-time. The earth wears a snowy garment, and
looks like marble hewn out of the rock; the air is bright and
clear; the wind is sharp as a well-tempered sword, and the
trees stand like branches of white coral or blooming almond
twigs, and here it is keen as on the lofty Alps.

    The night is splendid in the gleam of the Northern Lights,
and in the glitter of innumerable twinkling stars.

    But we sit in the warm room, by the hot stove, and talk
about the old times. And we listen to this story:

    By the open sea was a giant's grave; and on the
grave-mound sat at midnight the spirit of the buried hero, who
had been a king. The golden circlet gleamed on his brow, his
hair fluttered in the wind, and he was clad in steel and iron.
He bent² his head mournfully, and sighed in deep sorrow, as an
unquiet spirit might sigh.

    And a ship came sailing by. Presently the sailors lowered
the anchor and landed. Among them was a singer, and he
approached the royal spirit, and said,

    "Why mournest thou, and wherefore dost thou suffer thus?"

    And the dead man answered,

    "No one has sung the deeds of my life; they are dead and
forgotten. Song doth not carry them forth³ over the lands, nor
into the hearts of men; therefore I have no rest and no
peace."

    And he spoke⁴ of his works, and of his warlike deeds, which
his contemporaries had known, but which had not been sung,
because there was no singer among his companions.

    Then the old bard⁵ struck the strings⁶ of his harp¹, and sang
of the youthful courage of the hero, of the strength of the
man, and of the greatness of his good deeds. Then the face of
the dead one gleamed like the margin⁷ of the cloud in the
moonlight. Gladly and of good courage, the form arose in
splendor and in majesty⁸, and vanished like the glancing of the
northern light. Nought⁹ was to be seen but the green turfy
mound, with the stones on which no Runic record has been
graven; but at the last sound of the harp there soared over
the hill, as though he had fluttered from the harp, a little
bird, a charming singing-bird, with ringing voice of the
thrush, with the moving voice pathos¹⁰ of the human heart, with
a voice that told of home, like the voice that is heard by the
bird of passage. The singing-bird soared away, over mountain
and valley, over field and wood- he was the Bird of Popular
Song, who never dies.

    We hear his song- we hear it now in the room while the
white bees are swarming¹¹ without, and the storm clutches the
windows. The bird sings not alone the requiem¹² of heroes; he
sings also sweet gentle songs of love, so many and so warm, of
Northern fidelity¹³ and truth. He has stories in words and in
tones; he has proverbs and snatches of proverbs; songs which,
like Runes laid under a dead man's tongue, force him to speak;
and thus Popular Song tells of the land of his birth.

    In the old heathen days, in the times of the Vikings, the
popular speech was enshrined in the harp of the bard.

    In the days of knightly¹⁴ castles, when the strongest fist
held the scales of justice, when only might was right, and a
peasant and a dog were of equal importance, where did the Bird
of Song find shelter and protection? Neither violence nor
stupidity gave him a thought.

    But in the gabled window of the knightly castle, the lady
of the castle sat with the parchment roll before her, and
wrote down the old recollections in song and legend, while
near her stood the old woman from the wood, and the travelling
peddler who went wandering through the country. As these told
their tales, there fluttered around them, with twittering and
song, the Bird of Popular Song, who never dies so long as the
earth has a hill upon which his foot may rest.

    And now he looks in upon us and sings. Without are the
night and the snow-storm. He lays the Runes beneath our
tongues, and we know the land of our home. Heaven speaks to us
in our native tongue, in the voice of the Bird of Popular
Song. The old remembrances awake, the faded colors glow with a
fresh lustre¹⁵, and story and song pour us a blessed draught
which lifts up our minds and our thoughts, so that the evening
becomes as a Christmas festival.

    The snow-flakes chase each other, the ice cracks, the
storm rules without, for he has the might, he is lord- but not
the LORD OF ALL.

    It is winter time. The wind is sharp as a two-edged sword,
the snow-flakes chase each other; it seems as though it had
been snowing for days and weeks, and the snow lies like a
great mountain over the whole town, like a heavy dream of the
winter night. Everything on the earth is hidden away, only the
golden cross of the church, the symbol of faith, arises over
the snow grave, and gleams in the blue air and in the bright
sunshine.

    And over the buried town fly the birds of heaven, the
small and the great; they twitter and they sing as best they
may, each bird with his beak¹⁶.

    First comes the band of sparrows: they pipe at every
trifle in the streets and lanes, in the nests and the houses;
they have stories to tell about the front buildings and the
back buildings.

    "We know the buried town," they say; "everything living in
it is piep! piep! piep!"

    The black ravens¹⁷ and crows flew on over the white snow.

    "Grub, grub!" they cried. "There's something to be got
down there; something to swallow, and that's most important.
That's the opinion of most of them down there, and the opinion
is goo-goo-good!"

    The wild swans come flying on whirring pinions¹⁸, and sing
of the noble and the great, that will still sprout¹⁹ in the
hearts of men, down in the town which is resting beneath its
snowy veil.

    No death is there- life reigns²⁰ yonder; we hear it on the
notes that swell²¹ onward²² like the tones of the church organ,
which seize us like sounds from the elf-hill, like the songs
of Ossian, like the rushing swoop²³ of the wandering spirits'
wings. What harmony! That harmony speaks to our hearts, and
lifts up our souls! It is the Bird of Popular Song whom we
hear.

    And at this moment the warm breath of heaven blows down
from the sky. There are gaps in the snowy mountains, the sun
shines into the clefts²⁴; spring is coming, the birds are
returning, and new races are coming with the same home sounds
in their hearts.

    Hear the story of the year: "The night of the snow-storm,
the heavy dream of the winter night, all shall be dissolved,
all shall rise again in the beauteous notes of the Bird of
Popular Song, who never dies!"


                            THE END