What happens
On a bright, moonlit Easter night the stork Ermenrich takes Nils for a ride and sets him down on a deserted beach. Nils kicks away an old, worn copper coin, and when he looks up a tall wall with towers and a gate stands where the sea had been. Curious rather than afraid, he walks in past guards playing dice and finds a square full of richly dressed men and women, surrounded by tall, splendid houses, like something from his mother's old storybook.
Chapter 14. The city is Vineta, which according to legend sank into the sea for its pride and may rise for one hour every hundred years. What happens to the coin turns out to matter.
The 20 hardest words
- ämna
- to intend
- flygsandskulle
- sand dune
- kopparslant
- copper coin
- ärg
- verdigris (green rust on copper)
- genomskinlig
- transparent
- häpen
- astonished
- tornförsedd
- with towers
- tinnar
- battlements
- tångbank
- bank of seaweed
- spökeri
- something ghostly, haunting
- präktig
- splendid, magnificent
- portvalv
- archway (of a gate)
- väktare
- guard, watchman
- spjutyxa
- halberd
- tärning
- dice
- stenflisa
- flagstone
- pälsbrämad
- fur-trimmed
- plymprydd
- plumed
- ståtligt utstyrd
- grandly dressed up
- ståt
- splendour, finery
Questions
Answer in Swedish, out loud or on paper, then open the suggested answer.
1.Vem tog med Nils till stranden?
2.Vad hittade Nils i sanden, och vad gjorde han med den?
3.Vad såg han när han reste sig upp?
4.Varför blev han inte rädd?
5.Vad gjorde väktarna i porten?
6.Hur var människorna på torget klädda?
About the language
Lagerlöf wrote Nils Holgersson as a school reader in the new spelling of 1906, so the words look modern. The grammar is of its time: verbs still have plural forms (de voro = de var, de gingo = de gick, de höllo = de höll), sade is used for sa, and a few words like eljest (annars) and månne (kanske) have gone out of use. We have not modernised anything.
Source and copyright
Lagerlöf's text (first published by Albert Bonniers förlag, 1906–07) as transcribed for Project Runeberg by Joakim Ragnvaldsson. Selma Lagerlöf died in 1940, so her work has been in the public domain since 1 January 2011. Text from Project Runeberg. Obvious typing errors in the e-text are corrected: Tummetott, medan jag → Tummetott, "medan jag (missing quotation mark); börjde → böjde. Nothing else is changed. The summary, glossary and questions are written by Lingolib.
Level B2: You read Swedish news without much help. Longer sentences, literary words, older grammar. Levels are our own estimate, based on vocabulary and style.