It was a rough storm.  The wild geese tried to turn back, time and again, but they couldn’t do it and were driven out toward the East sea.  The storm had already blown them past Oeland, and the sea lay before them—­empty and desolate.  There was nothing for them to do but to keep out of the water.

When Akka observed that they were unable to turn back she thought that it was needless to let the storm drive them over the entire East sea.  Therefore she sank down to the water.  Now the sea was raging, and increased in violence with every second.  The sea-green billows rolled forward, with seething foam on their crests.  Each one surged higher than the other.  It was as though they raced with each other, to see which could foam the wildest.  But the wild geese were not afraid of the swells.  On the contrary, this seemed to afford them much pleasure.  They did not strain themselves with swimming, but lay and let themselves be washed up with the wave-crests, and down in the water-dales, and had just as much fun as children in a swing.  Their only anxiety was that the flock should be separated.  The few land-birds who drove by, up in the storm, cried with envy:  “There is no danger for you who can swim.”

But the wild geese were certainly not out of all danger.  In the first place, the rocking made them helplessly sleepy.  They wished continually to turn their heads backward, poke their bills under their wings, and go to sleep.  Nothing can be more dangerous than to fall asleep in this way; and Akka called out all the while:  “Don’t go to sleep, wild geese!  He that falls asleep will get away from the flock.  He that gets away from the flock is lost.”

Despite all attempts at resistance one after another fell asleep; and Akka herself came pretty near dozing off, when she suddenly saw something round and dark rise on the top of a wave.  “Seals!  Seals!  Seals!” cried Akka in a high, shrill voice, and raised herself up in the air with resounding wing-strokes.  It was just at the crucial moment.  Before the last wild goose had time to come up from the water, the seals were so close to her that they made a grab for her feet.

Then the wild geese were once more up in the storm which drove them before it out to sea.  No rest did it allow either itself or the wild geese; and no land did they see—­only desolate sea.

They lit on the water again, as soon as they dared venture.  But when they had rocked upon the waves for a while, they became sleepy again.  And when they fell asleep, the seals came swimming.  If old Akka had not been so wakeful, not one of them would have escaped.

All day the storm raged; and it caused fearful havoc among the crowds of little birds, which at this time of year were migrating.  Some were driven from their course to foreign lands, where they died of starvation; others became so exhausted that they sank down in the sea and were drowned.  Many were crushed against the cliff-walls, and many became a prey for the seals.