But now the crows descended,
and he saw at once that the big carpet under him was the earth, which
was dressed in green and brown cone-trees and naked leaf-trees, and that
the holes and tears were shining fiords and little lakes.
He remembered that the first time he had travelled up in the air, he
had thought that the earth in Skane looked like a piece of checked
cloth. But this country which resembled a torn carpet--what might this
be?
He began to ask himself a lot of questions. Why wasn't he sitting on the
goosey-gander's back? Why did a great swarm of crows fly around him? And
why was he being pulled and knocked hither and thither so that he was
about to break to pieces?
Then, all at once, the whole thing dawned on him. He had been kidnapped
by a couple of crows. The white goosey-gander was still on the shore,
waiting, and to-day the wild geese were going to travel to Oestergoetland.
He was being carried southwest; this he understood because the sun's
disc was behind him. The big forest-carpet which lay beneath him was
surely Smaland.
"What will become of the goosey-gander now, when I cannot look after
him?" thought the boy, and began to call to the crows to take him back
to the wild geese instantly. He wasn't at all uneasy on his own account.
He believed that they were carrying him off simply in a spirit of
mischief.
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