[Illustration: FRAIL BRIDGE ON THE ROAD TO THE VÖRING FOSS.]
THE OXONIAN
IN
THELEMARKEN;
OR,
NOTES OF TRAVEL IN SOUTH-WESTERN NORWAY
IN THE SUMMERS OF 1856 AND 1857.
WITH GLANCES AT THE LEGENDARY LORE
OF THAT DISTRICT.
BY
THE REV. FREDERICK METCALFE, M.A.,
FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD,
AUTHOR OF
“THE OXONIAN IN NORWAY.”
“Auf den Bergen ist Freiheit; der Hauch der Grüfte,
Steigt nicht hinauf in die schönen Lüfte,
Die Welt is volkommen überall,
Wo der Mensch nicht hinein kömmt mit seiner Qual.”
“Tu nidum servas: ego laudo ruris amœni
Rivos, et musco circumlita saxa, nemusque.”
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1858.
[_The right of Translation is reserved._]
LONDON:
SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS,
CHANDOS STREET.
CONTENTS TO VOL. II.
CHAPTER I.
Danish custom-house officials--Home sickness--The ladies of
Denmark--Ethnological--Sweden and its forests--Influence
of climate on Peoples--The French court--Norwegian and
Danish pronunciation--The Swiss of the North--An instance of
Norwegian slowness--Ingemann, the Walter Scott of Denmark--Hans
Christian Andersen--Genius in rags--The level plains of
Zealand--Danish cattle--He who moveth his neighbour’s
landmark--Beech groves--The tomb of the great Valdemar--The two
queens--The Probst of Ringstedt--Wicked King Abel--Mormonism
in Jutland--Roeskilde--Its cathedral--The Semiramis of the
North--Frederick IV.--Unfortunate Matilda pp. 1-17
CHAPTER II.
Copenhagen--Children of Amak--Brisk bargaining--Specimens
of horn fish--Unlucky dogs--Thorwaldsen’s museum--The Royal
Assistenz House--Going, gone--The Ethnographic Museum--An
inexorable professor--Lionizes a big-wig--The stone
period in Denmark--England’s want of an ethnographical
collection--A light struck from the flint in the stag’s
head--The gold period--A Scandinavian idol’s cestus--How
dead chieftains cheated fashion--Antiquities in gold--Wooden
almanacks--Bridal crowns--Scandinavian antiquities peculiarly
interesting to Englishmen--Four thousand a year in return
for soft sawder--Street scenes in Copenhagen--Thorwaldsen’s
colossal statues--Blushes for Oxford and Cambridge--A Danish
comedy--Where the warriors rest pp. 18-38
CHAPTER III.
The celebrated Three Crowns Battery--Hamlet’s grave--The Sound
and its dues--To Fredericksborg--Iceland ponies--Denmark
an equine paradise--From Copenhagen to Kiel--Tidemann, the
Norwegian painter--Pictures at Düsseldorf--The boiling
of the porridge--Düsseldorf theatricals--Memorial of
Dutch courage--Young heroes--An attempt to describe the
Dutch language--The Amsterdam canals--Half-and-half in
Holland--Want of elbow-room--A new Jerusalem--A sketch for
Juvenal--The museum of Dutch paintings--Magna Charta of Dutch
independence--Jan Steen’s picture of the _fête_ of Saint
Nicholas--Dutch art in the 17th century--To Zaandam--Traces
of Peter the Great--Easy travelling--What the reeds seemed to
whisper pp. 39-55
CHAPTER IV.
Broek--A Dutchman’s idea of Paradise--A toy house for real
people--Cannon-ball cheeses--An artist’s flirtation--John Bull
abroad--All the fun of the fair--A popular refreshment--Morals
in Amsterdam--The Zoological Gardens--Bed and Breakfast--Paul
Potter’s bull--Rotterdam pp. 56-64
CHAPTER V.
Oxford in the long vacation--The rats make such a
strife--A case for Lesbia--Interview between a hermit and
a novice--The ruling passion--Blighted hopes--Norwegian
windows--Tortoise-shell soup--After dinner--Christiansand
again--Ferry on the Torrisdal river--Plain records of
English travellers--Salmonia--The bridal crown--A bridal
procession--Hymen, O Hymenæe!--A ripe Ogress--The head cook at
a Norwegian marriage--God-fearing people--To Sætersdal--Neck or
nothing--Lilies and lilies--The Dutch myrtle pp. 65-81
CHAPTER VI.
A dreary station--Strange bed-fellows--Broadsides--Comfortable
proverb--Skarp England--Interesting particulars--A hospitable
Norwegian Foged--Foster-children--The great bear-hunter--A
terrible Bruin--Forty winks--The great Vennefoss--A temperance
lamentation--More bear talk--Grey legs--Monosyllabic
conversation--Trout fished from the briny deep--A warning to
the beaux of St. James’s-street--Thieves’ cave--A novelette for
the Adelphi pp. 82-100
CHAPTER VII.
A wolf-trap--The heather--Game and game-preserves--An
optical delusion--Sumptuous entertainment--Visit to a
Norwegian store-room--Petticoats--Curious picture of
the Crucifixion--Fjord scenery--How the priest Brun was
lost--A Sætersdal manse--Frightfully hospitable--Eider-down
quilts--Costume of a Norwegian waiting-maid--The tartan in
Norway--An ethnological inquiry--Personal characteristics--The
sect of the Haugians--Nomad life in the far Norwegian
valleys--Trug--Memorials of the Vikings--Female Bruin in a
rage--How bears dispose of intruders--Mercantile marine of
Norway--The Bad-hus--How to cook brigands--Winter clothing pp. 101-124
CHAPTER VIII.
Peculiar livery--Bleke--A hint to Lord Breadalbane--Enormous
trout--Trap for timber logs--Exciting scene--Melancholy
Jacques in Norway--The new church of Sannes--A clergyman’s
midsummer-day dream--Things in general at Froisnaes--Pleasing
intelligence--Luxurious magpies--A church without a
congregation--The valley of the shadow of death--Mouse
Grange--A tradition of Findal--Fable and feeling--A Highland
costume in Norway--Ancestral pride--Grand old names prevalent
in Sætersdal--Ropes made of the bark of the lime-tree--Carraway
shrub--Government schools of agriculture--A case for a London
magistrate--Trout fishing in the Högvand--Cribbed, cabined,
and confined--A disappointment--The original outrigger--The
cat-lynx--A wealthy Norwegian farmer--Bear-talk--The
consequence of taking a drop too much--Story of a Thuss--Cattle
conscious of the presence of the hill people--Fairy music pp. 125-148
CHAPTER IX.
Langeid--Up the mountain--Vanity of vanity--Forest
perfumes--The glad thrill of adventure--An ancient
beacon--Rough fellows--Daring pine-trees--Quaint old
powder-horn--Curiosities for sale--Sketch of a group of
giants--Information for _Le Follet_--Rather cool--Rural
dainties and delights--The great miracle--An odd name--The
wedding garment--Ivar Aasen--The study of words--Philological
lucubrations--A slagsmal--Nice subject for a spasmodic
poet--Smoking rooms--The lady of the house--A Simon Svipu--A
professional story-teller--Always about Yule-tide--The
supernatural turns out to be very natural--What happened to an
old woman--Killing the whirlwind--Hearing is believing--Mr.
Parsonage corroborates Mr. Salomon--The grey horse at
Roysland--There can be no doubt about it--Theological argument
between a fairy and a clergyman--Adam’s first wife, Lileth pp. 149-178
CHAPTER X.
Scandinavian origin of old English and Border ballads--Nursery
rhymes--A sensible reason for saying “No”--Parish
books--Osmund’s new boots--A St. Dunstan story--The
short and simple annals of a Norwegian pastor--Peasant
talk--Riddles--Traditional melodies--A story for William
Allingham’s muse--The Tuss people receive notice to quit--The
copper horse--Heirlooms--Stories in wood-carving--Morals and
match-making pp. 179-199
CHAPTER XI.
Off again--Shakspeare and Scandinavian literature--A
fat peasant’s better half--A story about Michaelmas
geese--Explanation of an old Norwegian almanack--A quest after
the Fremmad man--A glimpse of death--Gunvar’s snuff-box--More
nursery rhymes--A riddle of a silver ring--New discoveries
of old parsimony--The Spirit of the Woods--Falcons at
home--The etiquette of tobacco-chewing--Lullabies--A frank
invitation--The outlaw pretty near the mark--Bjaräen--A
valuable hint to travellers--Domestic etcetera--Early
morning--Social magpies--An augury--An eagle’s eyrie--Meg
Merrilies--Wanted an hydraulic press--A grumble at
paving commissioners--A disappointment--An unpropitious
station-master--Author keeps house in the wilderness--Practical
theology--Story of a fox and a bear--Bridal-stones--The
Vatnedal lake--Waiting for the ferry--An unmistakeable hint--A
dilemma--New illustration of the wooden nutmeg truth--“Polly
put the kettle on”--A friendly remark to Mr. Caxton--The real
fountain of youth--Insectivora--The maiden’s lament pp. 200-237
CHAPTER XII.
Ketil--A few sheep in the wilderness--Brown Ryper--The
Norwegian peasants bad naturalists--More bridal-stones--The
effect of glacial action on rocks--“Catch hold of her
tail”--Author makes himself at home in a deserted châlet--A
dangerous playfellow--Suledal lake--Character of the
inhabitants of Sætersdal--The landlord’s daughter--Wooden
spoons--Mountain paths--A mournful cavalcade--Simple
remedies--Landscape painting--The post-road from Gugaard to
Bustetun--The clergyman of Roldal parish--Poor little Knut at
home--A set of bores--The pencil as a weapon of defence--Still,
still they come--A short cut, with the usual result--Author
falls into a cavern--The vast white Folgefond--Mountain
characteristics--Author arrives at Seligenstad--A milkmaid’s
lullaby--Sweethearts--The author sees visions--The Hardanger
Fjord--Something like scenery pp. 238-259
CHAPTER XIII.
Author visits a glacier--Meets with two compatriots--A good
year for bears--The judgment of snow--Effects of parsley fern
on horses--The advantage of having a shadow--Old friends of
the hill tribe--Skeggedals foss--Fairy strings--The ugliest
dale in Norway--A photograph of omnipotence--The great Bondehus
glacier--Record of the mysterious ice period--Guide stories--A
rock on its travels pp. 260-272
CHAPTER XIV.
Three generations--Dangers of the Folgo--Murray at
fault--Author takes boat for the entrance of the Bondehus
Valley--The king of the waterfall--More glacier paths--An
extensive ice-house--These glorious palaces--How is the
harvest?--Laxe-stie--Struggle-stone--To Vikör--Östudfoss,
the most picturesque waterfall in Norway--An eternal crystal
palace--How to earn a pot of gold--Information for the
_Morning Post_--A parsonage on the Hardanger--Steamers for
the Fjords--Why living is becoming dearer in Norway--A
rebuke for the travelling English--Sunday morning--Peasants
at church--Female head-dresses--A Norwegian church
service--Christening--Its adumbration in heathen Norway--A
sketch for Washington Irving pp. 273-292
CHAPTER XV.
Up Steindalen--Thorsten Thormundson--Very near--Author’s
guide gives him a piece of agreeable information--Crooked
paths--Raune bottom--A great ant-hill--Author turns rainbow
manufacturer--No one at home--The mill goblin helps author out
of a dilemma--A tiny Husman--The dangers attending confirmation
in Norway--The leper hospital at Bergen--A melancholy
walk--Different forms of leprosy--The disease found to be
hereditary--Terrible instances of its effects--Ethnological
particulars respecting--The Bergen Museum--Delicate little
monsters--Fairy pots--The best bookseller in Bergen--Character
of the Danish language--Instance of Norwegian good-nature--New
flames and old fiddles pp. 293-315
CHAPTER XVI.
The safest day in the year for travelling--A
collision--Lighthouses on the Norwegian coast--Olaf the Holy
and the necromancers--The cathedral at Stavanger--A Norwegian
M.P.--Broad sheets--The great man unbends--Jaederen’s Rev--Old
friends at Christiansand--Too fast--The Lammer’s schism--Its
beneficial effects--Roman Catholic Propagandism--A thievish
archbishop--Historical memoranda at Frederickshal--The Falls
of the Glommen--A Department of Woods and Forests established
in Norway--Conflagrations--A problem, and how it was
solved--Author sees a mirage--Homewards pp. 316-327
THE OXONIAN IN THELEMARKEN.
CHAPTER I.
Danish custom-house officials--Home sickness--The ladies of
Denmark--Ethnological--Sweden and its forests--Influence
of climate on Peoples--The French court--Norwegian and
Danish pronunciation--The Swiss of the North--An instance of
Norwegian slowness--Ingemann, the Walter Scott of Denmark--Hans
Christian Andersen--Genius in rags--The level plains of
Zealand--Danish cattle--He who moveth his neighbour’s
landmark--Beech groves--The tomb of the great Valdemar--The two
queens--The Probst of Ringstedt--Wicked King Abel--Mormonism
in Jutland--Roeskilde--Its cathedral--The Semiramis of the
North--Frederick IV.--Unfortunate Matilda.
Being desirous of proceeding to Copenhagen, I landed at Nyeborg;
together with the Dane and his lady.
The steamer across to Korsör will start at four A.M., and so, it
being now midnight, we must sleep as fast as we can till then. The
politeness of the Danish custom-house officials surpassed everything of
the kind I ever encountered from that class. We put up at Schalburg’s
hotel. Mine host cozened us. I recommend no traveller to stop at his
house of entertainment.
“Morgen-stund giv Guld i Mund,” said the fair Dane to me, quoting a
national proverb, as I pointed out to her the distant coast of Zealand,
which a few minutes before was indistinctly visible in the grey dawn,
now gilded with the sun.
She was quite in ecstasies at the thoughts of setting foot on her dear
Zealand, and seeing its level plains of yellow corn and beechen groves,
after the granite and gneiss deserts of Lapland and Finmark. Sooth to
say, the Danish ladies are not infected with that deadly liveliness
which characterizes many of the Norwegians; while, on the other hand,
they are devoid of that bland facility and Frenchified superficiality
which mark many of the Swedes. How is it that there is such a wide
distinction between the Swede and the Norskman? Contrast the frank
bluffness of the one; strong, sterling, and earnest, without artifice
and grace: and the supple and insinuating manner of the other. The very
peasant-girl of Sweden steps like a duchess, and curtsies as if she
had been an _habitué_ of Almack’s. Pass over the Borders, as I have
done, from Trondjem Fjord through Jemte-land, and at the first Swedish
change-house almost, you are among quite a different population,
profuse of compliments and civilities which they evidently look upon
as all in the day’s work, and very much disposed withal to have a deal
with you--to sell you, for instance, one of their grey dog-skin cloaks
for one hundred rix dollars. One is reminded, on the one hand, of
the sturdy, blundering Halbert Glendinning; and on the other, of the
lithesome, adroit Euphuist, Sir Piercie Shaftón. And yet, if we are to
believe the antiquarians and ethnologists, both people are of pretty
much the same stock: coming from the countries about the Black Sea,
two centuries after Christ, when these were overrun by the Romans, and
supervening upon the old Gothic or second migration. It may be said
that the Norsk character caught some parts of its colouring from the
stern, rugged nurse in the embrace of whose mountains their lot has
been cast; with the great backbone of primæval rock (Kiölen) splitting
Norway in two, and rendering intercourse difficult. So that now you
will hear a Norskman talk of Nordenfjelds (north of the mountains), and
Söndenfjelds (south of the mountains), as if they were two distinct
countries. But then, if the Swedes did live on a flatter country, and
one apparently more adapted for the production of the necessaries of
life, and so more favourable to the growth of civilization; yet it,
too, presented obstacles almost equally insurmountable to the spread of
refining arts and tastes.
They also used to talk, not like the Norwegians, of their north of the
mountain and south of the mountain, but of their north of the forest
(nordenskovs) and south of the forest (söndenskovs), in allusion to
the impenetrable forests of Kolmorden and Tiveden, which divided the
district about the Mälar Lake from the south and south-west of Sweden.
And is it much better now? True, you have the canal that has pierced
the country and opened it out to culture and civilization; but even at
the present day the climate of Sweden is less mild than that of Norway,
and four-sevenths of the whole surface of the country are still covered
by forests. In travelling from the Trondjem Fjord to the Gulf of
Bothnia, I found myself driving for four consecutive days through one
dense forest, with now and then a clearing of some extent; and as for
the marshes, they are very extensive and treacherous. One day I saw two
cranes not far from the road along which I was driving, and immediately
stepped, gun in hand, off the causeway, to try and stalk them. But I
was nigh becoming the victim; for at the first step on what looked like
a grassy meadow, I plunged deep into a floating morass. A Swede who
was my companion luckily seized me before I had played out the part of
Curtius without any corresponding results.
The nation which has to fight with a cold climate and such physical
geography as this, is not much better situated than the one which in
a milder climate has to wring a subsistence from rocks, and which, to
advance a mile direct, has to go up and down twain. Like those heroes
and pioneers of civilization in the backwoods, they both of them have
to clench the teeth, and knit the brow, and stiffen the sinews, if they
want to hold their own in the stern fight with nature. And this sort of
permanent, self-reliant obduracy which by degrees gets into the blood,
is by no means prone to foster those softer graces that bud forth under
the warmth of a southern sky and in the lap of a richer soil, where
none of the asperities generated by compulsion are requisite, but Dame
Nature, with the least coaxing possible, listens to and rewards her
suitors.
Why is it, then, that the manners of these two people are so different?
People tell me it did not use to be so. The first and great reason,
then, appears to be the different governments of the two countries; the
absence of liberty and the excessive powers and number of the nobility
in the one, and the abundance of liberty and absence of nobles in the
other. The influence of rule upon the inhabitants of a country is, in
the long run, as mighty as that of breed and blood.
Improbable as it may appear to some, I am inclined to lay great stress
on the influence of a French Court. Bernadotte, it is true, was the
son of a plebeian, a notary of Pau; but he was a Frenchman, and every
Frenchman is versatile, and gifted with external polish, at all events;
and his Court was French, and Court influence did its work, penetrating
to the very roots of society; so that by degrees the graces of the
capital became engrafted on the obsequious spirit already engendered
by long servitude among the Swedish population. At Christiania, on the
contrary, there is no Court; the nobility are not, and the country
is all but a republic. This is, I believe, a part solution of the
problem--a “guess at truth.” While on this subject, I may as well refer
to the difference between the pronunciation of Danish and Norwegian,
though they are at present the same language. The vapid sweetness
which your Dane affects in his articulation, is most distasteful after
the rough and strenuous tongue of Norway. It is a case of lollipop to
wholesome gritty rye-bread. The Dane, especially the Copenhagener,
rolls out his words in a most lackadaisical manner, as if he were
talking to a child. Mammas and papas will talk thus, we know, to their
babies, the language of endearment not being according to the rules
of the Queen’s English. At times I thought great big men were going to
blubber, and were commiserating their own fate or that of the person
addressed, when perhaps they were only asking what time the train
started to Copenhagen, or whether the potato sickness had reappeared.
Going to the fore part of the steamer to get some English money turned
into Danish, I find two of those Swiss of the North, Dalecarlian
girls, on board. They are from Mora, and one is very pretty. The most
noticeable feature in their costume is their short petticoats and red
stockings. That most sprightly girl, Miss Diana Redshank, will at
once perceive whence it is that we borrow the fashion now prevailing
in England. As a matter of course, they were artists in hair, and
they immediately produced their stock-in-trade--viz., specimens of
bracelets, necklaces, and watch-chains, very well worked and very
cheap. They have been from home all the summer, and are now working
their way back. In winter they weave cloth and attend to the household
duties. I bought a hair bracelet for three shillings.
As an instance of Norwegian slowness, I may mention that although the
railway is opened from Korsör to Copenhagen, distant three hours, the
Norwegian steamer still continues to stop at Nyeborg, on the further
side of the Belt, thereby necessitating this trip across, and much
additional delay, trouble, and expense.
The novels of Ingemann have made all these places classic ground. The
Danes look on him as the Walter Scott of their country. He is now past
seventy, and living in repose at the Academy of Sorö. Denmark sets a
good example in the reward of literary merit.
Well do I remember, years ago, meeting a goggle-eyed young man, with
lanky, dark hair, ungainly figure, and wild countenance, and nails just
like filberts, at a table-d’hôte in Germany. All the dinner he rolled
about his large eyes in meditation. This was Hans Christian Andersen,
now enjoying a European reputation, and holding, with a good stipend,
the sinecure of Honorary Professor at the University of Copenhagen.
Hitherto he had been candle-snuffer at the metropolitan theatre, but
his hidden talents had been perceived, and he was being sent to Italy
to improve his taste and get ideas at the public expense.
If we contrast the fate in England and in Denmark of genius in rags,
we may be reminded of the märchen, told, if I remember, by Andersen
himself, how that once on a time a little dirty duck was ignored by the
sleek fat ducks around, when it meets with two swans, who recognised
the seemingly dirty little duck, and protected it. Whereupon the
astonished youngster happens to see himself in a puddle, and finds that
he is a genuine swan.
What a contrast between these flat plains of Zealand, with the
whitewashed cottages and farm-houses--the ridge of the thatched roof
pinned down with straddles of wood--and the rocky wilds of Norway, its
log-houses, red or yellow, with grass-covered roofs, nestling under a
vast impending mountain. In Denmark, the highest land is only a few
hundred feet above the sea. How immensely large, too, the cows and
horses look after the lilliputian breeds of Norway. There being hardly
any fences, the poor creatures are generally tethered: yonder peasant
girl with the great wooden mallet is in the act of driving in the iron
tethering-pin.
No wonder that in a country so open, superstition has had recourse
to terrify the movers of their neighbour’s landmarks. Thus the
Jack-o’-Lanterns in the isle of Falster are nothing but the souls of
dishonest land-measurers running about with flaming measuring-rods,
and crying, “Here is the right boundary, from here to here!” Again,
near Ebeltoft, there used to live a rich peasant, seemingly a paragon
of propriety, a regular church-goer, a most attentive sermon-hearer,
one who paid tithes of all he possessed; but somehow, nobody believed
in him. And sure enough when he was dead and buried, his voice was
often heard at night crying in woful accents, “Boundary here, boundary
there!” The people knew the reason why.
Instead of those dark and sombre pine-forests so thoroughly in keeping
with the grim, Dantesque grandeur of the Norwegian landscape, or the
ghostlike white stems of the birch-trees, the only trees visible are
the glossy-foliaged, wide-spreading groves of beech, with now and then
an oak.
I descend at Ringstedt to see the tombs of the great Valdemar (King
of Denmark), and his two wives, Dagmar of Bohemia, and Berengaria of
Portugal. The train, I perceive, is partly freighted with food for the
capital, in the shape of sacks full of chickens (only fancy chickens
in sacks!) and numbers of live pigs, which a man was watering with a
watering-can, as if they had been roses, and would wither with the heat.
Having a vivid recollection of Ingermann’s best historical tale,
_Valdemar Seier_, it was with no little interest that I entered the
church, and stood beside the flag-stones in the choir which marked
the place of the King’s sepulture. On the Regal tomb was incised,
“Valdemarus Secundus Legislator Danorum.” On either side were stones,
with the inscriptions, “Regina Dagmar, prima uxor Valdemari Secundi,”
and “Regina Berengaria, secunda uxor Valdemari Secundi.” The real
name of Valdemar’s first wife was Margaret, but she is only known to
the Dane as little Dagmar, which means “dawning,” or “morning-red.”
Her memory is as dear to the people as that of Queen Tyra Dannebod.
She was as good as she was beautiful. The name of “Proud Bengard,” on
the contrary, is loaded with curses, as one who brought ruin upon the
throne and country.
At this moment a gentleman approached me with a courteous bow; he was
dressed in ribbed grey and black pantaloons, and a low-crowned hat.
I found afterwards that he was a native of Bornholm, and no less a
personage than the Probst of Ringstedt; he was very polite and affable,
and informed me that these graves were opened not long ago in the
presence of his present Majesty of Denmark. Valdemar was three ells
long; his countenance was imperfect. Bengard’s face and teeth were in
good preservation. Dagmar’s body had apparently been disturbed before.
In the aisle near, he pointed out the monument to Eric Plugpenning, the
son of Valdemar. He had the nickname of Plugpenning (Plough-penny), for
setting a tax on the plough. He was murdered on a fishing excursion by
his brother. The fratricide’s name was not Cain but Abel. There was
no luck afterwards about the house; the curse of Atreus and Thyestes
rested upon it. Of course, after such an atrocity King Abel “walks,”
or more strictly speaking he “rides.” Slain in a morass near the Eyder
in 1252, his body was buried in the cathedral of Sleswig. But his
spirit found no rest; by night he haunted the church and disturbed
the slumbers of the canons; his corpse was consequently exhumed, and
buried in a bog near Gottorp, with a stake right through it to keep it
down; the peasants will still point out the place. But it was all to
no purpose; a huntsman’s horn is often heard at night in the vicinity,
and Abel, dark of aspect, is seen scouring away on a small black horse,
with a leash of dogs, burning like fire.
Here, then, in Denmark, we see the grand Asgaardsreia of Norway
localized, and transferred from the nameless powers of the invisible
world to malefactors of earth; while in Germany it assumes the shape of
“The Wild Huntsman.”
Returning to the inn, I amused myself till the next train arrived
by looking at the Copenhagen paper, from which I learn that twenty
pairs were copulerede--married--last week, and that there has been
a great meeting of Mormons in the capital. Such has been the effect
of the mission of the elders in Jutland, that that portion of Denmark
is becoming quite depopulated from emigration to the city of the Salt
Lake. There is also a list of gold, silver, and bronze articles lately
discovered in the country, and sent to the museum of Copenhagen, with
the amount of payments received by each. In the precious metals these
are according to weight. One lucky finder gets 72 rix dollars.
By the next train I advance to Roeskilde, which takes its name from the
clear perennial spring of St. Roe, which ejects many gallons a minute.
Baths and public rooms are established in connexion with it. But it
was the Cathedral that drew me to Roeskilde. A brick building, in the
plain Gothic of Denmark, it has not much interest in an architectural
point of view; but there are monuments here which I felt bound to see.
Old Saxo Grammaticus, the chronicler of early Denmark, the interior of
whose study is so graphically described by Ingermann in the beginning
of _Valdemar Seier_--he rests under that humble stone. Here, too, is
buried in one of the pillars of the choir, Svend Tveskjaeg, the father
of Canute the Great, who died at the assize at Gainsborough, in 1014.
Queen Margaret (the Northern Semiramis), who wore the triple crown
of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, sleeps behind the altar, under a
full-length monument in white marble more than four centuries old. It
were well if the Scandinavian idea, now absorbing the minds of thinking
men in the North, were to find a more happy realization than in her
case--the union, instead of allaying the hostility with which each
nation regarded the other, only serving to perpetuate embroilments.
Some good kings and great repose here; also some wicked and mean.
Among the former, it will suffice to mention Frederick IV., whom the
Danes look upon as their greatest monarch. A bronze statue of him
by Thorwaldsen is to be found in one of the chapels. In the latter
category we unhesitatingly place Christian VII., to whom, in an evil
hour, was married our Caroline Matilda, sister of George III., who died
at the early age of twenty-three.
“And what do the Danes think now of Matilda?” inquired I of a person of
intelligence.
“Oh, they say ‘Stakkels Matilda!’” (unfortunate Matilda), was the
touching but decisive reply. So that by the common voice of the people
her memory is relieved from the stain cast upon it by those who were
bound to protect her, the vile Queen-mother and the good-for-nothing
King.