Author: Neil Shipley's watching the Swedes

Long, long ago in the southern lakes of Stockholm, there lived a duck called Gloria and Gloria was a special duck indeed. Sure, she had white feathers, a yellow beek and big webbed feet. But it was something else that made her special.

Gloria was a giant duck. She was, to put it simply, huge. She was so huge that she towered above the tree-tops.

The townspeople at that time didn’t know about Gloria. She kept herself to herself far away from civilisation and deep in the forests to the south of the town. She fed off fish, but they were so small that she had to eat tons and tons of them to feel full. She was eating all of the time. And the more she ate, the more she grew.

Now it just so happened that one day a group of townspeople were riding through the forest along a wide river. As they approached the lake known as Flaten, they saw something curious on the ground – a giant webbed footprint. They looked quickly around and noticed that the footprints led deeper into the forest. Slowly, they followed the trail until they arrived at a big pile of sticks in a circular form – some kind of nest. They climbed up the outside of the nest and peeked over the top. And there in the centre of the nest they saw a big, white egg.

‘Oh my’ they thought, ‘that egg would feed the people of Stockholm for many months’
‘We have to take it back to town’ said one of the men in the group.
‘But how does one carry such a big egg to town?’ asked another

The giant egg was certainly too massive to carry. Rolling it might break it. They looked around the forest for inspiration.

‘I have an idea’ said one of the men, ‘if we can break the side of the nest, we can roll the egg down to the lake and float it on the river all the way back to Stockholm’.

What a brilliant idea! And this is exactly what they did. Soon the giant egg was bobbing along the wide river on its way to the town.

A short while later, Gloria returned from a day eating fish from another lake. When she saw her empty nest and the missing egg, she quacked inconsolably. Seeing the broken sticks on the ground she understood what had happened. Thieves! They were taking her egg to the town to eat. Angrily, she dove into the lake and swam towards Stockholm as fast as her webbed feet could paddle.

Soon in the distance she saw her egg, floating on the river. And she saw the townspeople with ropes and sticks urging it along. ‘I’ll teach them not to steal’ she quacked, and she swam towards them.

The egg might have been in water but it was still heavy. The group of men were struggling to make it move and making slow progress. Suddenly, from behind them, they heard an angry quacking. They turned around but before they knew what had hit them, Gloria had lifted the giant egg on her beak and rolled it to the bank of the river. Then, with a horrifying screech, she ate up every single man.

Gloria climbed up to the bank to her egg. The bottom of it had flattened out with the speed that it had hit the ground. It wasn’t round any more, so she couldn’t roll it. She tried to push it back into the water but it was stuck fast to the earth. Realising moving the egg was an impossible task, Gloria sat down on the grass beside the egg and hung her head in sorrow. And there she stayed for many many years, protecting her giant egg from any townspeople that might want to steal it again.

Nobody knows what happened to Gloria. She probably got very old and disappeared into the forest to die. But her egg is still there. Just to the south of Stockholm, you can see it towering above the treetops. A long time ago, the townspeople hollowed it out and used it as a shelter. Now, we use it as a place of entertainment.

We call it Globen, but we should really call it Gloria.

Long, long ago the city of Stockholm wasn’t as big as it is today. In fact, it was comprised only of two small islands surrounded by sea on one side and a lake on the other. One of the islands, known today as Gamla Stan, where the city people lived and worked. On the other island, known as Riddarholmen, there was a monestry and a church, with a large iron steeple.

Now, the people of Gamla Stan had a problem. Every day, from the southern forests, a large dragon called Eldvind would come flying and swooping over them. He would screech and breathe fire and, if you were unlucky, he would grasp you in his mouth and swallow you up. Eldvind the dragon always circulated over Gamla Stan a few times before he landed on the steeple of the church on Riddarholmen. Then, perched up high, he would breath fire on the steeple until the iron melted. Opening his jaws, he would take a huge bite and swallow a bit of iron in a loud gulp. And then, with a screech, he would take off and fly away over the water to the southern forests.

This went on day after day, week after week.

But after a while, the people of Gamla Stan started to notice something odd. Eldvind seemed to be flying lower in the sky like he was heavier. He seemed to be slower and more tired. Could the iron he was eating be making him heavier? Yet still Eldvind would continue perch on the church, melt some iron, eat a big piece and then disappear across the water.

Time went on and soon the church steeple had hardly any iron left on it.

One day, it was in early spring, Eldvind appeared again. He flew so low that he skirted the top of the water, he couldn’t lift any higher. He landed at the bottom of the church, too heavy to climb to the roof. Blowing fire upwards, he melted the remaining iron and opened his mouth to catch the last drops as they fell to the ground.

Heavy stomached, Eldvind turned to fly back over the water. With great effort, he lifted and flew in the direction of Gamla Stan. Huffing and puffing, he tried and hard as he could to reach the forests but the iron he had eaten had made him too heavy and he sunk lower and lower until he crash- landed on his stomach in the middle of the town. The townspeople watched with amazement as the dragon tried to get to his feet and fly away, but he couldn’t.

Suddenly, a knight on horseback came riding through the town to slaughter the injured dragon. He raised his sword. But then he stopped. He watched as Eldvind’s feet turned to iron. Then his legs, his body, his tail, his wings and finally his head and jaws stiffened and became iron.

If you look over the water at Riddarholmen you can still see the church with the curious steeple there today. It looks like a skeleton, but once upon a time, it was covered in iron. Until the dragon devoured it.

And if you walk through Gamla Stan you can still see Eldvind.

Most people think that it’s a statue of St George fighting a dragon – but it’s not. It is really Elvind – the frozen dragon that terrorized the people of Stockholm long, long ago.

Long, long ago in Stockholm there was an ogre called Huskahinni. Huskahinni was a friendly but rather arrogant ogre with one eye in the middle of his forehead. But Huskahinni thought, quite simply, that he was the best ogre in the whole of the land of Norden.

Huskahinni lived in the tower that stretched above the city hall. From his viewpoint, he could look out over the whole city, the waterways and the islands. Every morning, he would lean out of the tower and shout out over the city, ‘I am Huskahinni, King of the Mountain!’

Now, at that time, the land of Norden had a real King and he didn’t take at all kindly to the ogre’s claim. He called his advisors to him and aksed how to stop Huskahinni’s jeering from the top of the city hall.

‘We could shoot him’, said one advisor. The King said no.
‘We could send soldiers up and bring him down’. The King said no,no.
‘We could burn down the tower’, said another. No, said the King, no, no, no.

Finally, a fourth advisor stepped forward. Clearing his throat, he announced that the best way to silence the offensive ogre was to ridicule him into silence. To make fun of him. The King seemed interested in this idea. Yes, the best way to shut someone up is to make them feel silly.

‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘If he claims to be the king, let’s make him the king’.

The next day, the King called to him the city’s goldsmith. He ordered him to forge three large crowns out of gold.

The weeks went by, the goldsmith forged, the King waited and Huskahinni kept peering out from his tower and claiming he was the king of the mountain.

Finally, the day arrived when the three golden crowns were ready. The King arranged for the goldsmith, and the rest of the townspeople, to meet him by the city hall. When everyone was gathered the King looked up at the enormous tower, and shouted, ‘Huskahinni, Huskahinni, who are you?’. The ogre popped his head over the edge of the tower and shouted ‘I am the king of the mountain!’. ‘Well’. said the King, ‘you deserve a crown’. At this moment, the King signalled to his soldiers to catapult one of the crowns up to the top of the tower. Hitting Huskahinni in the head, the ogre yelped and fell backwards. And the townspeople laughed and laughed and laughed.

The next day, the crowd gathered again at the base of the city hall tower. And once again, the King called, ‘Huskahinni, Huskahinni, who are you?’. The ogre popped his head over the edge of the tower again and shouted ‘I am the king of the mountain!’. ‘Well’. said the King, ‘then you deserve another crown’. Once again the soldiers catapulted the second of the crowns up to the top of the tower. Hitting Huskahinni in the eye, the ogre screamed in pain and fell backwards. And the townspeople laughed and laughed and laughed.

The third day came and the King shouted for the ogre again.’Huskahinni, Huskahinni, who are you?’. ‘I am the king of the mountain!’. ‘Well’. said the King, ‘a king should have a crown’. And yet again, a golden crown was catapulted one to the top of the tower. Hitting Huskahinni in the neck, the ogre fell backwards, bleeding. And the townspeople laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.

‘That should do it,’ thought the King, ‘that stupid ogre’.

The townspeople danced back to their homes laughing at the hilarious way in which the King had tricked the ogre. High up in the tower, Huskahinni looked down. His head and his eye were hurting and his neck was bleeding. And all alone, at the top of the city hall, he started to cry.

The next day, the townspeople went about their work as usual, laughing at the memory of what had happened to the stupid ogre the days before. Suddenly a little girl pointed to the top of the tower – ‘Look!’ she shouted. The townspeople looked up and couldn’t believe their eyes. High up at the top of the tower, there was a golden pole. And stuck to the top of the pole were the three shiny golden crowns, glistening in the sun for all to see.

Today, Huskahinni is long gone. But his crowns are still there, perched on the top of the city hall.

A reminder to us all that, once up on a time, Huskahinni was king of the mountain.