THE WIND'S TALE

ABOUT WALDEMAR DAA AND HIS DAUGHTERS


When the wind sweeps across a field of grass it makes little ripples in
it like a lake; in a field of corn it makes great waves like the sea
itself: this is the wind's frolic. Then listen to the stories it tells;
it sings them aloud, one kind of song among the trees of the forest, and
a very different one when it is pent up within walls with all their
cracks and crannies. Do you see how the wind chases the white fleecy
clouds as if they were a flock of sheep? Do you hear the wind down
there, howling in the open doorway like a watchman winding his horn?
Then, too, how he whistles in the chimneys, making the fire crackle and
sparkle. How cosy it is to sit in the warm glow of the fire listening to
the tales it has to tell! Let the wind tell its own story! It can tell
you more adventures than all of us put together. Listen now:--

'Whew!--Whew!--Fare away!' That was the refrain of his song.

'Close to the Great Belt stands an old mansion with thick red walls,'
says the wind. 'I know every stone of it; I knew them before when they
formed part of Marsk Stig's Castle on the Ness. It had to come down. The
stones were used again, and made a new wall of a new castle in another
place--Borreby Hall as it now stands.

'I have watched the highborn men and women of all the various races who
have lived there, and now I am going to tell you about Waldemar Daa and
his daughters!