The mole now stopped up the hole through which the daylight had pierced, and then followed the ladies home. But Tommelise could not sleep that night, so she got out of her bed, and wove a carpet out of hay, and then went out and spread it round the dead bird; she also fetched some soft cotton from the field-mouse’s room, which she laid over the bird, that it might be warm amid the cold earth. ‘Farewell, thou dear bird,’ said she; ‘farewell, and thanks for thy beautiful song in the summer-time, when all the trees were green, and the sun shone so warmly upon us!’ And she pressed her head against the bird’s breast, but was terrified to feel something beating within it. It was the bird’s heart. The bird was not dead; it had lain in a swoon, and now that it was warmer its life returned. Every autumn all the swallows fly away to warm countries; but if one of them linger behind, it freezes and falls down as though dead, and the cold snow covers it. Tommelise trembled with fright, for the bird was very large compared with her, who was only an inch in length. However, she took courage, laid the cotton more closely round the poor swallow, and fetching a leaf which had served herself as a coverlet, spread it over the bird’s head. The next night she stole out again, and found that the bird’s life had quite returned, though it was so feeble that only for one short moment could it open its eyes to look at Tommelise, who stood by with a piece of tinder in her hand--she had no other lantern. ‘Thanks to thee, thou sweet little child!’ said the sick swallow. ‘I feel delightfully warm now; soon I shall recover my strength, and be able to fly again, out in the warm sunshine.’ ‘Oh, no,’ she replied, ‘it is too cold without, it snows and freezes! Thou must stay in thy warm bed; I will take care of thee.’ She brought the swallow water in a flower-petal and he drank, and then he told her how he had torn one of his wings in a thorn bush, and therefore could not fly fast enough to keep up with the other swallows who were all migrating to the warm countries. He had at last fallen to the earth, and more than that he could not remember; he did not at all know how he had got underground. However, underground he remained all the winter long, and Tommelise was kind to him, and loved him dearly, but she never said a word about him either to the mole or the field-mouse, for she knew they could not endure the poor swallow. As soon as the spring came and the sun’s warmth had penetrated the earth, the swallow said farewell to Tommelise, and she opened for him the covering of earth which the mole had thrown back before. The sun shone in upon them so deliciously, and the swallow asked whether she would not go with him; she might sit upon his back, and then they would fly together far out into the greenwood. But Tommelise knew it would vex the old field-mouse if she were to leave her. ‘No, I cannot, I must not go,’ said Tommelise.