1.
There was a family called Christiansen. They lived up on Holmenkollen, and
they had an old oil-painting in the living-room which they were very proud
of. The painting showed some ducks in the yard outside a farmhouse. There
were no people in the painting, just a flock of ducks on a grassy farmyard
and the farmhouse in the background. It was a large painting and rather
pretty.
2.
Well, one day their daughter Solveg came home from school eating an
apple. She said a nice lady had given it to her on the street. The next
morning little Solveg was not in her bed. The parents searched everywhere
but they couldn't find her. Then all of a sudden her father shouted, "There she is! That's Solveg
feeding the ducks!" He was pointing at the oil-painting, and sure enough
Solveg was in it. She was standing in the farmyard in the act of throwing
bread to the ducks out of a basket. The father rushed up to the painting and touched her. But that didn't
help. She was simply a part of the painting, just a picture painted on the
canvas.