When, some weeks later, Herr Lönnrot went away, after providing for the comfort of Dame Ulricborg, he journeyed back to Helsingfors, the capital city of Finland; and told the scholars who were studying the poetry of the land how the little girl had been the means of bringing to light one of the most beautiful of the runes. Then the scholars had a little silver medal made which they sent to Elsa, and which she took great pride in keeping through all her life; and no doubt her great-grandchildren still keep it to this day.
As for Herr Lönnrot, he lived to put together the runes he had collected, and when he had finished he called the poem “Kalevala,” which in our language means “Land of Heroes,” because it tells the wonderful story of the heroes of that ancient land.
And some day, perhaps, you will read this “Kalevala,” for it is one of the noblest and most beautiful poems in all the world. And then when you come to the rune which tells of the birth of the harp, you too will be glad that the little Finnish girl was the means of saving it from being lost forever.
COUNT HUGO’S SWORD
HOW THE PEASANT BOY GEOFFREY BY HIS
BRAVERY AND DEVOTION PREVENTED
A DUEL OF GREAT NOBLES AND
BECAME PAGE TO THE
GOOD KING LOUIS
“Tee dee, deedle de de!” shrieked the cockatoo, from his perch high up in the gabled window of the old inn. “Tee de!” He was a pink and white cockatoo, with a beautiful tuft on top of his head; one of his legs was chained to a carved wooden perch that projected from the window-sill, while with his free claw he carefully balanced a large silver spoon, of antique pattern, from the contents of which he was very deliberately dining. For he was no common bird. Monsieur Jean the landlord of this “Guillaume-le-Conquérant” inn, of the ancient town of Dives, being something of a bird fancier, had but lately bought him, and for fear he might fly away, was thus keeping him chained to the window of monsieur’s own apartment until he should grow used to his new home. As he now slowly picked from his spoon the last morsel, and swallowed it with a great ruffling of feathers all the way down his throat, again he shrilled out in a high-pitched mimicking tone, “Tee deedle!” and this time a little boy looked up quickly from the courtyard below.
The boy was seated on a bench under a plane-tree, and held in his hands a sheet of yellow parchment on which was written a musical score, whose large black notes he was trying to hum over.