It actually seemed as if the young ones were learning to live on wind and air, for when they had flown a little longer, they said nothing more about being hungry.

The goose flock was still in the mountain regions, and the old geese called out the names of all the peaks as they flew past, so that the youngsters might learn them.  When they had been calling out a while: 

“This is Porsotjokko, this is Saerjaktjokko, this is Sulitelma,” and so on, the goslings became impatient again.

“Akka, Akka, Akka!” they shrieked in heart-rending tones.

“What’s wrong?” said the leader-goose.

“We haven’t room in our heads for any more of those awful names!” shrieked the goslings.

“The more you put into your heads the more you can get into them,” retorted the leader-goose, and continued to call out the queer names.

The boy sat thinking that it was about time the wild geese betook themselves southward, for so much snow had fallen that the ground was white as far as the eye could see.  There was no use denying that it had been rather disagreeable in the glen toward the last.  Rain and fog had succeeded each other without any relief, and even if it did clear up once in a while, immediately frost set in.  Berries and mushrooms, upon which the boy had subsisted during the summer, were either frozen or decayed.  Finally he had been compelled to eat raw fish, which was something he disliked.  The days had grown short and the long evenings and late mornings were rather tiresome for one who could not sleep the whole time that the sun was away.

Now, at last, the goslings’ wings had grown, so that the geese could start for the south.  The boy was so happy that he laughed and sang as he rode on the goose’s back.  It was not only on account of the darkness and cold that he longed to get away from Lapland; there were other reasons too.

The first weeks of his sojourn there the boy had not been the least bit homesick.  He thought he had never before seen such a glorious country.  The only worry he had had was to keep the mosquitoes from eating him up.

The boy had seen very little of the goosey-gander, because the big, white gander thought only of his Dunfin and was unwilling to leave her for a moment.  On the other hand, Thumbietot had stuck to Akka and Gorgo, the eagle, and the three of them had passed many happy hours together.

The two birds had taken him with them on long trips.  He had stood on snow-capped Mount Kebnekaise, had looked down at the glaciers and visited many high cliffs seldom tramped by human feet.  Akka had shown him deep-hidden mountain dales and had let him peep into caves where mother wolves brought up their young.  He had also made the acquaintance of the tame reindeer that grazed in herds along the shores of the beautiful Torne Lake, and he had been down to the great falls and brought greetings to the bears that lived thereabouts from their friends and relatives in Westmanland.