[Katsunami]

Has this ever happened to you?

I'm re-reading the entire Shannara series; at the moment I'm reading The Elf Queen of Shannara. In between two chapters, I suddenly started thinking how I introduced a high-school friend of mine to Fantasy by lending him The Elfstones of Shannara; he started reading Fantasy like posessed. (In turn, he introduced me to Abba, still the only pop group I listen to.)

Long story short, he went to a university to study something, I went to another university studying something else, and we never saw each other again. Just lost contact.

This guy was one of my best friends at the time, and his name was Niels.

I thought: "I wonder where Niels (Holgersson) is now."

*blink, blink*

What? His name was "$Name". Who the frack is Niels Holgersson?

Whisper in my mind: (He rides geese. Through Sweden.)

*scratch, shakes head*

I actually thought that I'm going crazy. Must have something to do with finding some clips of "David the Gnome" for my niece on my tablet, and seeing some glimpses of him riding a fox and a swan, combined with the fact that Abba is from Sweden.

Whisper in my mind: (He lives on a farm, and some animals sound like Grand Smurf.)

Frack. I'm going crazy.

I had to look it up in the end. There was a series in Dutch, 52 episodes, in 1983-84. I never saw it. I'm positive; and if I saw it, I would be too young to remember details. The series was based on a book: "The wonderful adventures of Nils" (in English), a book that's in public domain since 2011. I've never read it.

And yes, Niels Holgersson rides geese through Sweden, and in the Dutch series, quite a few characters are actually voiced by the same guy who voiced Grand Smurf in Dutch. I recognized him instantly when finding some clips on Youtube, and cross checking in Wikipedia confirmed it. I DID see many of the Smurfs episodes back then, but I can't remember watching Niels Holgersson in Dutch.... *ever*.

I find this to be exceedingly strange. Why would a name like "Niels Holgersson" just pop up in my memories, and I even seem to remember that he rides geese on a journey through Sweden, while I (think I) never saw the series, and (know for sure that I) never read the book. I can't even remember anyone ever mentioning the name to me.

The weirdest thing is that I now want to read the book and see the series, altough I feel to be at least 25 years too old for it. I've looked up some clips on Youtube. That series has some beautiful music in it, actually.

Weird, and I don't have any explanation for it.