These children had irritated
him terribly with their Smaland.
It wasn't fair to say that Osa, the goose-girl, had annoyed him. She was
much too wise for that. But the one who could be aggravating with a
vengeance was her brother, little Mats.
"Have you heard, Nils Goose-boy, how it went when Smaland and Skane were
created?" he would ask, and if Nils Holgersson said no, he began
immediately to relate the old joke-legend.
"Well, it was at that time when our Lord was creating the world. While
he was doing his best work, Saint Peter came walking by. He stopped and
looked on, and then he asked if it was hard to do. 'Well, it isn't
exactly easy,' said our Lord. Saint Peter stood there a little longer,
and when he noticed how easy it was to lay out one landscape after
another, he too wanted to try his hand at it. 'Perhaps you need to rest
yourself a little,' said Saint Peter, 'I could attend to the work in
the meantime for you.' But this our Lord did not wish. 'I do not know if
you are so much at home in this art that I can trust you to take hold
where I leave off,' he answered. Then Saint Peter was angry, and said
that he believed he could create just as fine countries as our Lord
himself.
"It happened that our Lord was just then creating Smaland. It wasn't
even half-ready but it looked as though it would be an indescribably
pretty and fertile land.
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