en, and vanished from
their sight or fled into the sea, where she rocked on the waves like a
swan. We will now relate the cause of her flying from men, and no longer
meeting them with her former confidence.

In old times, long before the invasion of the Swedes, a rich farmer
lived on the coast of Laeaene with his wife and four sons. They obtained
their food more from the sea than from the land, for fishing was a very
productive industry in their days. The youngest son was very different
from his brothers, even from a child. He avoided the companionship of
men, and wandered about on the sea-shore and in the forest. He talked
much to himself and to the birds, or to the winds and waves, but when he
was in the company of others he hardly opened his mouth, but stood like
one dreaming. When the storms raged over the sea in autumn, and the
waves swelled up as high as a house and broke foaming on the beach, the
boy could not contain himself in the house, but ran like one possessed,
and often half-naked, to the shore. Neither wind nor weather harmed his
robust body. He sprang into his boat, seized the oars, and drove like a
wild goose over the crest of the raging billows far out to sea, without
incurring any harm by his rashness. In the morning, when the storm had
spent its fury, he was found sound asleep on the beach. If he was sent
anywhere on an errand, to herd cattle in summer, or to do any other easy
employment, he gave his parents only trouble. He lay down under the
shadow of a bush without minding the animals, and they strayed away or
trampled down the meadows and cornfields, and his brothers had often to
work for hours before they could find the lost animals. The father often
let the boy feel the rod severely enough, but it had no more effect than
water poured on the back of a goose. When the boy grew up into a youth,
he did not mend his ways. No work prospered in his negligent hands; he
hacked and broke the tools, wearied out the draught cattle, and yet
never did anything right.

His father sent him to neighbouring farmers to work, hoping that a
stranger's whip might improve the sloven, but whoever had the fellow for
one week on trial sent him back again on the next. His parents rated him
for a sluggard, and his brothers dubbed him "Sleepy Tony." This soon
became his nickname with everybody, though he had been christened
Jueri.[30] Sleepy Tony brought no one any good, but was only a nuisance
to his parents and relative