At last the valley became too crowded. There was no longer enough of everything for all, so that quarrelling and even fighting grew almost into a habit; the heads of families and the wise elders did their best to keep the peace, but were not much listened to. At the same time the younger people were beginning to wonder what there was on the other side of the mountains. Once in a while a huntsman, in the excitement of following his game, would climb to some high point, from which he would look down into other valleys, with more mountains beyond. Then he would take up some comrade with him, and they would stand there long, gazing and wondering. Then some of the bolder, more curious boys and youths had followed the river into the narrow passage it had broken for itself through the mountains. The first who ventured had not gone very far. They had felt dreadfully frightened and lonesome in that dark, wild pass, between the two rugged rocky walls, so high that they seemed to join at the top, showing only a little strip of blue sky, and with the water foaming and roaring deep down below, and they had been glad to get back into the safety and sunshine of their own valley. But they had gone again, many together, and got farther,—for many will be brave where one is scared,—and it became known for a positive fact that there was a way out of the valley. Of course there was much curiosity to know whither it led and what the land on the other side might be like.
So it came to pass that some young families, who were going to set up new homesteads of their own, instead of crowding into some of the scantily measured lots of poor soil which were all that was left in the valley, collected the household goods and the domestic animals which were their due share of the community's property, and started off through the mountain pass, following the river. They were never heard of more.
Others did the same. And still others, again and again. It was like bees swarming. From time to time children, brothers, cousins said good-by and went. None ever came back. None ever were heard from. All that was known of them was that they did not all go the same way. Some went west, and some south; and some northwest or southwest. And they never met or heard from one another, either. They became and remained total strangers; did not even know of one another's existence. But all treasured memories of the old home—the latest gone, of course, more than those that went first, who naturally forgot most in the course of time.
The years went by—many hundreds of years; and great changes came over the world and the people that lived in it. They who used to keep much to themselves and look on one another with distrust and dislike were brought together in many ways; they made war, they traded, they travelled, and, either as friends or foes, learned to know and take interest in one another. What struck people most at first was how different they were, in looks and in manners, in mind and in language. Some were dark and some very fair; some quick and fierce, others slow and persistent. Those who lived in the South, where the sun is seldom clouded and the sea is bluer than the sky, were fond of all bright things, loved luxury and ease; those whose homes were in the North, where sad, dark woods sigh in the wind, where lanes and fields are wrapped in mists and snow half the year, were themselves sad and dreamy, rough of manner, but strong of heart.
But if people from different countries wondered at the differences between them, they began to make other discoveries as they were brought together more often and more closely.
There had been a great storm. A ship was wrecked and the pieces were carried away on the dancing waves. Almost all the sailors were drowned; only a few had been thrown out on the beach alive and taken in by poor fishermen. They were sad and lonely, for they could not understand their hosts and had no hope of being picked up soon by another ship of their own country, it was so far away. To while away the time and to feel less strange among the people, they began to learn the language, asking the names of things as they went. Fancy how astonished they were when they found out, as the sounds of the foreign words grew more familiar, that the names of most things in common use were almost the same as in their own language, also a great many of the most ordinary words: just a letter or two changed, or a little difference in the way of pronouncing—as, for instance, mleko for milk, sestra for sister, tre or drei for three, and so on, sometimes more like, sometimes less. And there were more surprises in store for the guests. When they had made progress enough to understand a great deal, they took much pleasure in listening to the songs which the women sang to the small children and the stories they told to the older ones. And these stories were not new to them! They were the same songs and stories that had been used for years by their mothers and grandmothers to amuse the children, and had always been known in the country. There was the little girl and the wolf, and the sleeping beauty, and the wicked stepmother, and the girl whom the prince knew by her tiny foot, and many, many more. The shipwrecked guests wondered much, and at last came to the conclusion that they and their hosts were distant cousins; for they remembered hearing from some aged men that they were themselves descended from a branch of a very old family—one of many which at different times left the old stock, long, long ago, and now, surely, here were the descendants of another branch.
Another time, and in another country, there had been a great battle. A brave army, led by a famous general, had come into a rich and powerful country, to make its people subject to their own king. But the people, too, were brave; besides, they fought for their liberty and their homes, and that made them doubly strong. They had driven the enemy from before their capital city after an obstinate siege and had made many prisoners. Both nations were civilized and enlightened; therefore there was no bad feeling after the fighting was over, and the prisoners were treated more like guests, waiting for the signing of the treaty of peace, when they would be exchanged. The sick and the wounded were taken care of at the hospitals; as to the others, the private soldiers were placed in well-kept barracks, and the officers were quartered in private families and left free "on parole," i.e., on their promise not to try to escape. Friendships were formed, and the unwilling guests employed their forced leisure in studying the customs, laws, and society of the nation into which they were thus thrown. There were highly cultivated and scholarly men among the captive officers; yet they were naturally a little prejudiced, so that they were not a little astonished when they found the customs and laws not only not inferior to their own, but in many cases almost exactly the same. More than that, they continually came upon little habits, sayings, even superstitious customs at births, weddings, funerals, and other occasions, which they had been familiar with at home from childhood, and which they had been told by nurses and old servants should be observed and respected because they were family peculiarities, handed down from times so ancient nobody could have counted the years. Still greater was the astonishment of those who discovered that a great many of the religious ceremonies, prayers, hymns, which were held particularly sacred in their native country for the same reason, were observed and treasured with only slight differences by those whom they had always looked upon as the merest strangers. When the holy books and the sacred laws of both nations, also the stories of favorite ancient heroes, were found to be so much alike that it was clear they were all heirlooms from the same family treasure, no more proof was needed for those who had so recently fought—and might fight again any time—to say: "We are kin; years and years ago, our fathers were brothers and lived in one common home."
It was not in one place, or two, or three, that such discoveries were made, but in many and all over the world. For after chance had led to the first, people became interested and began to look for forgotten kindred to turn up. The well-known signs were watched, and compared, and verified, till nowadays no one doubts that the descendants of the families who once upon a time recklessly migrated from the long-forgotten valley are scattered over the face of the earth and can know one another by the token of their languages, their customs, stories, songs, their sacred legends and laws.