“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.  It was difficult for our Lord to say no to Saint Peter, and aside from this, he thought very likely that a thing so well begun no one could spoil.  Therefore he said:  If you like, we will prove which one of us two understands this sort of work the better.  You, who are only a novice, shall go on with this which I have begun, and I will create a new land.’  To this Saint Peter agreed at once; and so they went to work—­each one in his place.

“Our Lord moved southward a bit, and there he undertook to create Skane.  It wasn’t long before he was through with it, and soon he asked if Saint Peter had finished, and would come and look at his work.  ’I had mine ready long ago,’ said Saint Peter; and from the sound of his voice it could be heard how pleased he was with what he had accomplished.

“When Saint Peter saw Skane, he had to acknowledge that there was nothing but good to be said of that land.  It was a fertile land and easy to cultivate, with wide plains wherever one looked, and hardly a sign of hills.  It was evident that our Lord had really contemplated making it such that people should feel at home there.  ’Yes, this is a good country,’ said Saint Peter, ‘but I think that mine is better.’  ’Then we’ll take a look at it,’ said our Lord.

“The land was already finished in the north and east when Saint Peter began the work, but the southern and western parts; and the whole interior, he had created all by himself.  Now when our Lord came up there, where Saint Peter had been at work, he was so horrified that he stopped short and exclaimed:  ’What on earth have you been doing with this land, Saint Peter?’

“Saint Peter, too, stood and looked around—­perfectly astonished.  He had had the idea that nothing could be so good for a land as a great deal of warmth.  Therefore he had gathered together an enormous mass of stones and mountains, and erected a highland, and this he had done so that it should be near the sun, and receive much help from the sun’s heat.  Over the stone-heaps he had spread a thin layer of soil, and then he had thought that everything was well arranged.