The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

Pushing the boundaries of anthropocentrism

Frontispiece and title page of Selma Lagerlöf’s The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, illustrated by H. Baumhauer

I’ve known Selma Lagerlöf’s The Wonderful Adventures of Nils since childhood. I must have read reduced or adapted versions for children, and I certainly remember watching the anime adaptation (dubbed in Greek), with its very catchy tune. But I had never read the original text (all 500+ pages of it!)¹ from beginning to end until now. And, I should say that really impressed and moved me, and made me think a lot about humans and nature, and how a change in scale allows a reversal of our usual anthropocentricism.

This isn’t a full review of the book, but some thoughts on scenes and sequences that particularly captured my attention (and imagination!).

The tomte (“elf”), scale, magic, and nature

In the beginning of the story, Nils Holgersson, a lazy fourteen-year-old boy who mostly likes to make mischief, manages to capture a tiny elf. The elf pleads for his freedom but Nils tricks him, and so he is punished by shrinking and becoming an elf himself.

The English translation gives “elf” for the original Swedish term “tomte”, which refers to a “small” elvish/fairy creature inhabiting farms which can be both benevolent (e.g. looking after the farm animals) and malevolent (playing tricks, especially if disrespected).² The tomte appreciates some porridge or cream left out for him, and therefore shares several characteristics with creatures like the hob, puck, dobby, brownie or pixy in Britain, the cobold in Germany, and the nisse elsewhere in Scandinavia.³ The size of the tomte is a slippery concept - there is no precision in their description, but they seem to be part of a host of “little people” often seen across European folklore traditions. How little, is a matter of conjecture. In The Wonderful Adventures of Nils the elf/tomte is described as follows:

Figure 1: Ottilia Adelborg’s illustration of Nils capturing the tomte (elf)

To be sure, the boy had heard stories about elves, but he had never dreamed that they were such tiny creatures. He was no taller than a hand's breadth—this one, who sat on the edge of the chest. He had an old, wrinkled and beardless face, and was dressed in a black frock coat, knee-breeches and a broad-brimmed black hat. He was very trim and smart, with his white laces about the throat and wrist-bands, his buckled shoes, and the bows on his garters. He had taken from the chest an embroidered piece, and sat and looked at the old-fashioned handiwork with such an air of veneration, that he did not observe the boy had awakened.

This tomte, therefore, is around three inches tall (“handbreadth” refers to “a unit of length based on the breadth of a hand” or “four digits”)⁴, though Ottilia Adelborg’s illustration for the first edition (Figure 1) shows him as rather taller than that. He is also dressed in what seem to be smart (if a little old-fashioned) clothes, and admires good craft (women’s craft here, significantly). It’s also interesting that Nils traps the tomte with a butterfly net, aligning this supernatural being with small natural creatures, such as insects (an association that is strong, for example, in the British literary/illustration tradition of fairies). We will return to this association of the tomte/little people with small animals and birds.

Nils only realises he has shrunk to a tomte size because the room around him suddenly seems bigger: he thinks that the elf has bewitched the cottage causing it to grow larger, as the table now looks further away and the chair is enormous. Nils has to stand “right in the book itself” to continue reading where he left off before the elf appeared, and when he suddenly looks at himself in the mirror he exclaims: “Look! There’s another one!” (Figure 2) thinking that another elf is there, until he realises he’s looking at a miniature reflection of himself.

Figure 2: Ottilia Adelborg’s illustration of Nils seeing his miniature self in the mirror.

But another significant change that happens to Nils when he shrinks to a tomte size, is that he suddenly can understand the language of animals and birds. Nils thinks this has happened because he himself has been turned into an elf. But this doesn’t quite bear out in the rest of the story: Nils is as small as the tomte, he can converse with birds and animals like a tomte, but he has no other supernatural power - he can’t bewitch/enchant/make anything happen that requires any special power other than ingenuity or the affordances of a small size. I think this is important for the wider tradition of miniature people and worlds in children’s fantasy. These little creatures are sometimes identified as traditional folkloric beings (e.g. the gnomes in B.B.’s The Little Grey Men or in Upton Sinclair’s The Gnomobile) but they don’t seem to have any other special powers, other than a particular affinity with nature that goes beyond what humans can experience, and an ability to communicate with other non-human things. Similarly, in Mary Norton’s The Borrowers and elsewhere in the series, Arrietty is compared to a fairy a few times by “human beans” but she is not a fairy, just a minuscule version of a human being (with some minor animalistic differences - I shall return to this in another piece).

In children’s fantasies of little people and small worlds, therefore, the presence of an elf/fairy/gnome/tomte is more of an indication of scale and a different relationship with various ecosystems, than an indication of the (often ambivalent) supernatural powers such creatures have in folklore.

Beyond anthropocentricism: raw food and animal friends

One of the realisations Nils makes pretty soon after his transformation is that he is “no longer a human being”:

He was separated from everything now; he could no longer play with other boys, he could not take charge of the farm after his parents were gone; and certainly no girl would think of marrying him.

At this point, this separation is, once more, a separation of scale, of size. Nils can physically not do the things expected of a young boy of his age anymore, not now and not in the future, if he remains tiny. But this separation also soon becomes something closer to a separation of species.

Whilst Nils finds himself in this unusual predicament, one of the goosey-ganders his parents keep is so tempted by the calls of a flock of wild geese flying over the farm, that he decides to join them. Nils clings to the bird in an effort to be of some use to his parents, even in his current state, by stopping him escaping, but the goosey-gander succeeds in flying away anyway, carrying Nils with him. Nils sticks with the goosey-gander as the only familiar presence in a suddenly unfamiliar, wild company, and his great adventure with the wild geese, flying across Sweden, begins.

His first rite of passage as he moves from domestic life to living in the wild, is related to primal needs: feeding himself. He is offered a perch to eat, and Nils initially recoils, but eventually has to satisfy his hunger:

At first he must have thought that it would be impossible to eat raw fish, and then he had a notion to try it... When the boy had satisfied his hunger, he felt a little ashamed because he had been able to eat a raw thing. "It's evident that I'm not a human being any longer, but a real elf," thought he.

This reaction to eating raw flesh brings to mind the dichotomy between the natural world and the world of human culture as discussed in Lévi-Strauss seminal study The Raw and the Cooked (1964). The main symbolic idea here (and I am simplifying for the purposes of this piece) is that cooking signifies a transition from nature to culture, but also a mediation between nature and society. The boundaries this concept points to in The Wonderful Adventures of Nils are also those of wild vs. tame, human vs. animal/elf, wilderness vs. domesticity. Nils finds himself somewhere in-between these dichotomies. He is human, but the size of a squirrel or small bird, and forced to sustain himself with raw food (later on he also feeds on nuts, wild berries, etc.), though he often craves bread (and occasionally he gets some, to his great satisfaction). He lives happily outdoors and relishes the freedom and agency he is afforded, but often throughout his journey he longs for the warmth of fire (once more, a human thing).

Nils has, therefore, become a liminal creature, not quite human, not quite animal, and size is absolutely key in his change of status. When the goosey-gander introduces Nils to the geese, asking that he is allowed to join them on their journey, he invents a new name for him, Thumbietot (the Swedish original term is: “Tummetott”⁵), to disguise his human identity. But when Akka of Kebnekaise, the wise old leader of the geese, asks specifically if he’s elf or human, Nils replies: “My name is Nils Holgersson. I'm a farmer's son, and, until to-day, I have been a human being; but this morning—" and she immediately interrupts him: “We tolerate no human beings among us”. It’s interesting that Nils himself accepts that he has now lost his humanness because of his size change, but his resulting vulnerability is what wins him the chance to join the geese:

“It isn't possible,” said the goosey-gander, meditatively, “that you wild geese can be afraid of anyone who is so tiny! By to-morrow, of course, he'll turn back home. You can surely let him stay with us overnight. None of us can afford to let such a poor little creature wander off by himself in the night—among weasels and foxes!”

The wild goose came nearer. But it was evident that it was hard for her to master her fear. “I have been taught to fear everything in human shape—be it big or little," said she. "But if you will answer for this one, and swear that he will not harm us, he can stay with us to-night...”

For the duration of the book, I would argue, Nils remains in that in-between state, he’s both accepted by the geese as part of their company, and often does them much service, but he is also clearly something apart from them, and this is especially apparent when - at the end of the story, when Nils is about to leave them - Akka reveals to him the location of hidden treasure as a “reward” for all he has done for them and as a sort of compensation for his parents having missed his help. This is a transactional relationship which is what humans would expect, but has no meaning in an animal context. Akka realises that Nils will return back to such human relationships when he regains his original size.

But whilst Nils is journeying with the geese, he finds himself increasingly in alliance with animals, birds and trees, forsaking his own old ways and learning to recognise when humans trespass on the lives of other living things. This is, perhaps, the most memorable “lesson” of this entire book (Lagerlöf skilfully manages to impart it without becoming preachy). Nils is originally portrayed as a young boy habitually cruel to animals, hence the heckling he receives from all the domestic animals in his parents’ farm as soon as he is transformed. However, as he travels with the wild geese, he suddenly realises he is himself in the position of a vulnerable small animal. The wise leader of the wild geese, Akka of Kebnekaise, explains to him quite early on about the dangers he will be facing regularly:

Whenever he walked in the park, she said, that he must look out for the fox and the marten; when he came to the shores of the lake, he must think of the otters; as he sat on the stone wall, he must not forget the weasels, who could creep through the smallest holes; and if he wished to lie down and sleep on a pile of leaves, he must first find out if the adders were not sleeping their winter sleep in the same pile. As soon as he came out in the open fields, he should keep an eye out for hawks and buzzards; for eagles and falcons that soared in the air. In the bramble-bush he could be captured by the sparrow-hawks; magpies and crows were found everywhere and in these he mustn't place any too much confidence. As soon as it was dusk, he must keep his ears open and listen for the big owls, who flew along with such soundless wing-strokes that they could come right up to him before he was aware of their presence.

When the boy heard that there were so many who were after his life, he thought that it would be simply impossible for him to escape. He was not particularly afraid to die, but he didn't like the idea of being eaten up, so he asked Akka what he should do to protect himself from the carnivorous animals.

Akka answered at once that the boy should try to get on good terms with all the small animals in the woods and fields: with the squirrel-folk, and the hare-family; with bullfinches and the titmice and woodpeckers and larks. If he made friends with them, they could warn him against dangers, find hiding places for him, and protect him.

So Nils is here aligned with small animals and birds as opposed to carnivorous animals and birds of prey: he is not only dethroned from the dominant position humans have over nature (for good, but mostly for ill…) but he seems to have now been placed at the very bottom of the animal food chain. As we saw, he’s initially reluctant to eat raw food, but he is also unhappy to be eaten himself.

The first incident in which Akka’s advice bears fruit is Nils’s efforts to help a mother squirrel, captured by humans and put in a cage to be admired. Nils first tries to unlock the cage, and when he fails, he carries the baby squirrels to their mother so that they don’t starve and freeze on their own (see Figure 3). This melts the hearts of the human captors, who free the squirrel family. Nils is also instrumental in freeing more animals, including those who may potentially do him (and his friends) harm, such as Smirre the fox, and Gorgo the eagle, eventually realising that no wild animal should be in captivity. There are also multiple times when Nils receives advice and warning from other animals as the stories progresses.

Figure 3: Nils carrying the baby squirrels to their caged mother. Illustration by Mary Hamilton Frye.

These themes come together in, perhaps, the most moving scene of the entire book, towards the end of Nils’s adventures, when Akka (while she can still speak to him and be understood) tells him that:

“If you have learned anything at all from us, Thumbietot, you no longer think that the humans should have the whole earth to themselves,” said the wild goose, solemnly. “Remember you have a large country and you can easily afford to leave a few bare rocks, a few shallow lakes and swamps, a few desolate cliffs and remote forests to us poor, dumb creatures, where we can be allowed to live in peace. All my days I have been hounded and hunted. It would be a comfort to know that there is a refuge somewhere for one like me.”

But when Nils visits his parents’ farm, not necessarily meaning to stay, and after helping a lame horse they owned, he suddenly finds himself back to his former human size. The elf has clearly been satisfied that he looked after the goosey-gander and made sure he was returned back to his parents’ farm (where Nils also saves him from being slaughtered) so the elf - rather unceremoniously - fulfils his own end of the bargain instantaneously and turns Nils back into a proper boy’s size. This means that the last goodbye moment Nils has with the geese is particularly poignant, because he can’t understand their language anymore, and they have to overcome their fear of a full-sized human to approach him:

At last he understood. They did not know that he was human, had not recognized him. He could not call them to him because human beings can not speak the language of birds. He could not speak their language, nor could he understand it.

Although the boy was very glad to be released from the enchantment, still he thought it hard that because of this he should be parted from his old comrades.

He sat down on the sands and buried his face in his hands. What was the use of his gazing after them any more?

Presently he heard the rustle of wings. Old mother Akka had found it hard to fly away from Thumbietot, and turned back, and now that the boy sat quite still she ventured to fly nearer to him. Suddenly something must have told her who he was, for she lit close beside him.

Nils gave a cry of joy and took old Akka in his arms. The other wild geese crowded round him and stroked him with their bills. They cackled and chattered and wished him all kinds of good luck, and he, too, talked to them and thanked them for the wonderful journey which he had been privileged to make in their company.

All at once the wild geese became strangely quiet and withdrew from him, as if to say:

"Alas! he is a man. He does not understand us: we do not understand him!"

Then the boy rose and went over to Akka; he stroked her and patted her. He did the same to Yksi and Kaksi, Kolme and Neljä, Viisi and Kuusi—the old birds who had been his companions from the very start.

After that he walked farther up the strand. He knew perfectly well that the sorrows of the birds do not last long, and he wanted to part with them while they were still sad at losing him.

There’s so much more I have to say about this book, the beautiful ways it describes landscapes and forests and animals, the “aerial view” of the land we get (more on this on a separate piece, I hope!), its folklore and legend references, and the many memorable scenes and characters (human and animal!) it offers. But let me finish with the scene that moved me nearly to tears, and which also has a bearing on all the topics I have discussed in this piece. When Nils arrives at a “poor and desolate portion of northern Småland”, he finds temporary shelter in what seems like an abandoned farmhouse, but is surprised to find a cow in its shed, who hasn’t been fed for a day, and is worried that her mistress has been unwell and may have passed away. The cow tells him that her mistress once had a husband and children, but her husband died and her children went away to find better job prospects, and she was left alone to tend their ancestral farm, until she got ill. She pleads with Nils to check on her, and when he finds her dead on the farm, to approach her and close her eyes. Nils is initially afraid to do so, but he is eventually moved by the old woman’s story, and goes back into her cottage:

The boy searched for a matchbox and lighted these candles, not because he needed more light than he already had; but because he thought that this was one way to honour the dead.

Then he went up to her, closed her eyes, folded her hands across her breast, and stroked back the thin gray hair from her face.

He thought no more about being afraid of her. He was so deeply grieved because she had been forced to live out her old age in loneliness and longing. He, at least, would watch over her dead body this night.

He hunted up the psalm book, and seated himself to read a couple of psalms in an undertone. But in the middle of the reading he paused—because he had begun to think about his mother and father.

Think, that parents can long so for their children! This he had never known. Think, that life can be as though it was over for them when the children are away! Think, if those at home longed for him in the same way that this old peasant woman had longed!

This thought made him happy, but he dared not believe in it. He had not been such a one that anybody could long for him.

But what he had not been, perhaps he could become.

Round about him he saw the portraits of those who were away. They were big, strong men and women with earnest faces. There were brides in long veils, and gentlemen in fine clothes; and there were children with waved hair and pretty white dresses. And he thought that they all stared blindly into vacancy—and did not want to see.

"Poor you!" said the boy to the portraits. "Your mother is dead. You cannot make reparation now, because you went away from her. But my mother is living!"

Here he paused, and nodded and smiled to himself. "My mother is living," said he. "Both father and mother are living."

I wonder whether a children’s book today would every portray a scene like this, in which a child is keeping vigil over an old woman’s remains. I wonder whether an illustrator would choose this scene to depict either, as Ottilia Adelborg clearly did (see Figure 4). References to death and loss of loved ones have always been part of children’s literature, of course, but this particular scene of a death ritual kept by a child, and Nils’s sudden realisation of the importance of family and life in the presence of death is, I think, very striking, very memorable; sad, but also life-affirming at the same time.

Figure 4: Nils keeping vigil over the old woman’s body, and exclaiming: "My mother is living… Both father and mother are living." Illustration by Ottilia Adelborg.

1. I should point out that what I call here the “original text” may be accessed in different ways: the full Swedish text was originally published in two books in 1906 and 1907. The first English translation, published very soon after, also followed this duology format: The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (1907) and The Further Adventures of Nils (1911). Later English-language editions included both parts in one volume titled The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, but the two-volume format also still exists, so when you buy an English translation titled The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, make sure both parts are included, or you’ll need to buy a second book!

2. Nygaard, Mathias Ephraim. 2019. “Tomte Stories in Swedish Hälsingland: Place and Vernacular Religion.” Folklore, 130 (2): 153–174. https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.2018.1556980

3. See Simpson, Jacqueline. 2011. “On the Ambiguity of Elves.” Folklore, 122 (1): 76–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.2011.537133

4. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “handbreadth (n.),” December 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1295053190.

5. As far as I can understand, tummetott is a childish word for “thumb” in Swedish, something the English translation tries to emulate by inventing a sort-of-neologism. If any Swedish speaker/translator has any views on this, I’d be happy to hear them!