"
All of a sudden the boy saw before him a high, dark, turreted wall.
Instantly the Sun turned its beaming face toward this wall and flooded
it with light. Then it became apparent that it was no wall, but the most
glorious mountains, which loomed up--one behind another. Their peaks
were rose-coloured in the sunlight, their slopes azure and gold-tinted.
"Onward, onward!" urged the Sun as it climbed the steep cliffs. "There's
no danger so long as I am with you."
But half way up, the bold young birch deserted--also the sturdy pine and
the persistent spruce, and there, too, the Laplander, and the willow
brush deserted. At last, when the Sun reached the top, there was no one
but the little tot, Nils Holgersson, who had followed it.
The Sun rolled into a cave, where the walls were bedecked with ice, and
Nils Holgersson wanted to follow, but farther than the opening of the
cave he dared not venture, for in there he saw something dreadful.
Far back in the cave sat an old witch with an ice body, hair of icicles,
and a mantle of snow!
At her feet lay three black wolves, who rose and opened their jaws when
the Sun approached. From the mouth of one came a piercing cold, from the
second a blustering north wind, and from the third came impenetrable
darkness.
"That must be the Ice Witch and her tribe," thought the boy.
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