’I came back again; I often came back across the island of Funen and the waters of the Belt, and took up my place on Borreby shore close to the great forest of oaks.  The ospreys and the wood pigeons used to build in it, the blue raven and even the black stork!  It was early in the year; some of the nests were full of eggs, while in others the young ones were just hatched.  What a flying and screaming was there!  Then came the sound of the axe, blow upon blow; the forest was to be felled.  Waldemar Daa was about to build a costly ship, a three-decked man-of-war, which it was expected the king would buy.  So the wood fell, the ancient landmark of the seaman, the home of the birds.  The shrike was frightened away; its nest was torn down; the osprey and all the other birds lost their nests too, and they flew about distractedly, shrieking in their terror and anger.  The crows and the jackdaws screamed in mockery, Caw! caw!  Waldemar Daa and his three daughters stood in the middle of the wood among the workmen.  They all laughed at the wild cries of the birds, except Anna Dorothea, who was touched by their distress, and when they were about to fell a tree which was half-dead, and on whose naked branches a black stork had built its nest, out of which the young ones were sticking their heads, she begged them with tears in her eyes to spare it.  So the tree with the black stork’s nest was allowed to stand.  It was only a little thing.

’The chopping and the sawing went on—­the three-decker was built.  The master builder was a man of humble origin, but of noble loyalty; great power lay in his eyes and on his forehead, and Waldemar Daa liked to listen to him, and little Ida liked to listen too, the eldest fifteen-year-old daughter.  But whilst he built the ship for her father, he built a castle in the air for himself, in which he and little Ida sat side by side as man and wife.  This might also have happened if his castle had been built of solid stone, with moat and ramparts, wood and gardens.  But with all his wisdom the shipbuilder was only a poor bird, and what business has a sparrow in a crane’s nest?  Whew! whew!  I rushed away, and he rushed away, for he dared not stay, and little Ida got over it, as get over it she must.

’The fiery black horses stood neighing in the stables; they were worth looking at, and they were looked at to some purpose too.  An admiral was sent from the King to look at the new man-of-war, with a view to purchasing it.  The admiral was loud in his admiration of the horses.  I heard all he said,’ added the wind.  ’I went through the open door with the gentlemen and scattered the straw like gold before their feet.  Waldemar Daa wanted gold; the admiral wanted the black horses, and so he praised them as he did; but his hints were not taken, therefore the ship remained unsold.  There it stood by the shore covered up with boards, like a Noah’s Ark which never reached the water.  Whew! whew! get along! get along!  It was a miserable