Astrid Lindgren, illustrated by Ilon Wikland, translated from the Swedish by Jill Morgan by Astrid Lindgren Read Free Book Online Page A

nodded at us.
    â€œWhy do you stay up at night and do your weaving?” I asked.

    â€œI weave the cloth of dreams,” she said. “It must be done at night.”
    The moonlight shone through the window and fell on her cloth and it shimmered beautifully. I’ve never seen such beautiful fabric.
    â€œFairy cloth and dream cloth must be woven at night,” she said.
    â€œWhat do you weave with to make it so pretty?” I asked.
    She didn’t answer, but started weaving again. She pounded the loom and hummed quietly to herself,
    â€œMoonlight, moonlight and heart’s red blood ,
    so silver, silver and purple ,
    and apple blossoms, to weave the cloth
    so smooth and soft.
    Softer than the evening wind
    through the grass ,
    as Sorrowbird sings over the forest.”
    She sang with a quiet, toneless voice, which didn’t sound so pretty. When she stopped, I heard another song outside in the forest, one that I’d heard before. What the Weaver had said was right—Sorrowbird sang over the forest. He sat in the top of a tree, singing so sadly that it hurt when you listened to it.
    â€œWhy is Sorrowbird singing?” I asked the Weaver.
    She began to cry, and her tears fell on the cloth becoming bright little pearls, so that the fabric was even prettier than before.
    â€œWhy is Sorrowbird singing?” I asked again.
    â€œHe is singing about my little daughter,” said the Weaver, crying more bitterly. “He is singing about my little daughter who was stolen.”
    â€œWho has stolen your little daughter?” I asked. But I already knew without being told. “Don’t say his name,” I begged.
    â€œI won’t,” replied the Weaver, “because the moonlight will die down and the white colts will cry tears of blood.”
    â€œWhy will they cry blood?” I asked.
    â€œFor the little foal that was stolen, too,” said the Weaver. “Hear how Sorrowbird sings over the forest!”
    I stood there in the middle of the floor in the cottage and listened through the open window, as Sorrowbird sang outside. He had sung to me for many nights in the Garden of Roses, but I hadn’t understood what he was singing about. Now I knew. He sang about all the stolen ones, of the Weaver’s little daughter, of Nonno’s brothers and Totty’s sister and many, many others whom the cruel Sir Kato had captured and taken to his castle.
    This was why people mourned in the little cottages on Greenfields Island and in the Land on the Other Side of the Water and Beyond the Mountains. They mourned for their children, for all the children who were gone. Even the white horses in the Forest of Moonbeams had one they mourned, and they cried tears of blood if they heard the thief’s name.
    Sir Kato! I was so scared of him. So scared, so scared! But as I stood there in the cottage, listening to Sorrowbird, something strange occurred to me. Suddenly I knew why I had ridden through the Forest of Moonbeams tonight. Beyond the forest the border country to Outer Land began. It was there that I actually must go. I must go there to fight Sir Kato, though I was so scared, so scared. Yes, I wanted to cry when I realized what I must do.
    The Weaver had gone back to her weaving. She hummed the dull tune to herself about “Moonlight, moonlight, heart’s red blood” and she didn’t pay any more attention to Pompoo and me.
    â€œPompoo,” I said, and my voice sounded rather strange. “Pompoo, I’m going to Outer Land now.”
    â€œI know that,” said Pompoo.
    I was so astonished. “How could you know? I just realized it right now.”
    â€œThere’s a lot you don’t know, Mio,” said Pompoo.
    â€œBut you . . . you know everything,” I said.
    â€œYes, I do,” said Pompoo. “For a long time I’ve known that you would go to Outer Land. Everyone knows.”
    â€œEveryone