The Danish isles have such a pleasant, friendly, peaceful aspect, that,
when carried by our imagination back to their origin, the idea of any
violent shock of nature never enters into our thoughts. They seem
neither to have been cast up by an earthquake, nor to have been formed
by a flood, but rather to have gradually appeared from amid the
subsiding ocean. Their plains are level and extensive, their hills few,
small, and gently rounded. No steep precipices, no deep hollows remind
one of the throes at Nature's birth; the woods do not hang in savage
grandeur on cloud-capt ridges, but stretch themselves, like living
fences, around the fruitful fields. The brooks do not rush down in
foaming cataracts, through deep and dark clefts, but glide, still and
clear, among sedge and underwood. When, from the delightful Fyen, we
pass over to Jutland, we seem, at first, only to have crossed a river,
and can hardly be convinced that we are on the continent, so closely
resembling and near akin with the islands is the aspect of the
peninsula. But the further we penetrate, the greater is the change in
the appearance of the country. The valleys are deeper, the hills
steeper; the woods appear older and more decayed; many a rush-grown
marsh, many a spot of earth covered with stunted heath, huge stones on
the ridgy lands--every thing, in short, bears testimony to inferior
culture, and scantier population. Narrow roads with deep wheel-ruts, and
a high rising in the middle, indicate less traffic and intercourse among
the inhabitants, whose dwellings towards the west appear more and more
miserable, lower and lower, as if they crouched before the west wind's
violent assault. In proportion as the heaths appear more frequent and
more extensive, the churches and villages are fewer and farther from
each other. In the farm-yards, instead of wood, are to be seen stacks of
turf; and instead of neat gardens, we find only kale-yards. Vast
heath-covered marshes, neglected and turned to no account, tell us in
intelligible language that there is a superabundance of them.
No boundaries, no rows of willows, mark the division of one man's land
from another's. It appears as if all were still held in common. If, at
length, we approach the hilly range of Jutland, vast flat heaths lie
spread before us, at first literally strewn with barrows of the dead;
but the number of which gradually decreases, so that it may reasonably
be supposed that this tract had never, in former times, been cultivated.
This high ridge of land, it is thought, and not improbably, was the part
of the peninsula that first made its appearance, rising from the ocean
and casting it on either side, where the waves, rolling down, washed up
the hills and hollowed out the valleys. On the east side of this heath,
appear, here, and there, some patches of stunted oaks, which may serve a
compass to travellers, the tops of the trees being all bent towards the
east. On the large heath-covered hills but little verdure is to be
seen,--a solitary grass-plot, or a young asp, of which one asks, with
surprise, how it came here? If a brook or river runs through the heath,
no meadow, no bush indicates its presence: deep down between
hollowed-out hills, it winds its lonely course, and with a speed as if
it were hurrying out of the desert.
Across such a stream rode, one beautiful autumn-day, a young
well-dressed man, towards a small field of rye, which the distant owner
had manured by scraping off the surface, and burning it to ashes. He and
his people were just in the act of reaping it, when the horseman
approached them, and inquired the road to the manor-house of Ansbjerg.
The farmer, having first requited his question with another,--to wit,
where did the traveller come from?--told him what he knew already, that
he had missed his way; and then calling a boy who was binding the
sheaves, ordered him to set the stranger in the right road. Before,
however, the boy could begin to put this order in execution, a sight
presented itself which, for a moment, drew all the attention both of the
traveller and the harvest people. From the nearest heath-covered hill
there came directly towards them, at full speed, a deer with a man on
his back. The latter, a tall stout figure, clad in brown from head to
foot, sat jammed in between the antlers of the crown-deer, which had
cast them back, as these animals are wont to do when running. This
extraordinary rider had apparently lost his hat in his progress, as his
long dark hair flowed back from his head, like the mane of a horse in
full gallop. His hand was in incessant motion, from his attempt to
plunge a knife it held into the neck of the deer, but which the violent
springs of the animal prevented him from hitting. When the deer-rider
approached near enough to the astonished spectators, which was almost
instantaneously, the farmer, at once recognising him, cried, "Hallo,
Mads! where are you going to?"
"That you must ask the deer or the devil!" answered Mads; but before the
answer could be completely uttered, he was already so far away, that the
last words scarcely reached the ears of the inquirer. In a few seconds
both man and deer vanished from the sight of the gazers.
"Who was that?" inquired the stranger, without turning his eyes from the
direction in which the centaur had disappeared.
"It is a wild fellow called Mads Hansen, or Black Mads: he has a little
hut on the other side of the brook. Times are hard with him: he has many
children, I believe, and so he manages as he can. He comes sometimes on
this side and takes a deer; but to-day it would seem that the deer had
taken him: that is," added he, thoughtfully, "if it really be a deer.
God deliver us from all that is evil! but Mads is certainly a dare-devil
fellow, though I know nothing but what is honourable and good of him. He
shoots a head of deer now and then; but what matters that? there's
enough of them; far too many, indeed. There, you may see yourself how
they have cropped the ears of my rye. But here have we Niels the
game-keeper. Yes; you are tracking Black Mads. To-day he is better
mounted than you are."
While he was saying this, a hunter appeared in sight, coming towards
them at a quick trot from the side where they had first seen the
deer-rider. "Have you seen Black Mads?" cried he, before he came near
them.
"We saw one, sure enough, riding on a deer, but can't say whether he was
black or white, or who it was; for he was away in such haste that we
could hardly follow him with our eyes," said the farmer.
"The fiend fetch him!" cried the huntsman, stopping his horse to let him
take breath; "I saw him yonder in the Haverdal, where he was skulking
about, watching after a deer. I placed myself behind a small rising,
that I might not interrupt him. He fired, and a deer fell. Mads ran up,
leaped across him to give him the death-blow, when the animal, on
feeling the knife, rose suddenly up, squeezed Mads between his
antlers--and hallo! I have got his gun, but would rather get himself."
With these words he put his horse into a trot, and hastened after the
deer-stealer, with one gun before him on his saddle-bow, and another
slung at his back.
The traveller, who was going in nearly the same direction, now set off
with his guide, as fast as the latter could go at a jog-trot, after
having thrown off his wooden shoes. They had proceeded little more than
a mile, and had reached the summit of a hill, which sloped down towards
a small river, when they got sight of the two riders. The first had
arrived at the end of his fugitive course: the deer had fallen dead in
the rivulet, at a spot where there was much shallow water. Its slayer,
who had been standing across it, and struggling to free himself from its
antlers, which had worked themselves into his clothes, had just
finished his labour and sprung on land, when the huntsman, who at first
had taken a wrong direction, came riding past our traveller with the
rein in one hand and the gun in the other. At a few yards' distance from
the unlucky deer-rider he stopped his horse, and with the comforting
words, "Now, dog! thou shalt die," deliberately took aim at him. "Hold!
hold!" cried the delinquent, "don't be too hasty, Niels! you are not
hunting now; we can talk matters to rights."
"No more prating," answered the exasperated keeper, "thou shalt perish
in thy misdeeds!"
"Niels, Niels!" cried Mads, "here are witnesses; you have now got me
safe enough, I cannot go from you; why not take me to the manor-house,
and let the owner do as he likes with me, and you will get good
drink-money into the bargain."
At this moment the traveller rode up, and cried out to the keeper, "For
heaven's sake, friend, do not commit a crime, but hear what the man has
to say."
"The man is a great offender," said the keeper, uncocking his gun, and
laying it across the pommel of his saddle, "but as the strange gentleman
intercedes for him, I will give him his life. But thou art mad, Mads!
for now thou wilt come to drive a barrow before thee[7] for the rest of
thy life. If thou hadst let me shoot thee, all would now have been
over." Thereupon he put his horse into a trot, and the traveller, who
was also going to Ansbjerg, kept them company.
They proceeded a considerable way without uttering a word, except that
the keeper, from time to time, broke silence with an abusive term, or an
oath. At length the deer-stealer began a new conversation, to which
Niels made no answer, but whistled a tune, at the same time taking from
his pocket a tobacco-pouch and pipe. Having filled his pipe, he
endeavoured to strike a light, but the tinder would not catch.
"Let me help you," said Mads, and without getting or waiting for an
answer, struck fire in his own tinder, blew on it, and handed it to the
keeper; but while the latter was in the act of taking it, he grasped the
stock of the gun which lay across the pommel, dragged it with a powerful
tug out of the strap, and sprang three steps backwards into the heather.
All this was done with a rapidity beyond what could have been expected
from the broad-shouldered, stout and somewhat elderly deer-stealer.
The poor gamekeeper, pale and trembling, roared with rage at his
adversary, without the power of uttering a syllable.
"Light thy pipe," said Mads, "the tinder will else be all burned out;
perhaps it is no good exchange thou hast made; this is certainly
better,--"here he patted the gun,--"but thou shalt have it again when
thou givest me my own back."
Niels instantly took the other from behind him, held it out to the
deer-stealer with one hand, at the same time stretching forth the other
to receive his own piece.
"Wait a moment," said Mads, "thou shalt first promise me--but it is no
matter, it is not very likely you'd keep it--though should you now and
then hear a pop in the heather, don't be so hasty, but think of to-day
and of Mike Foxtail." Turning then towards the traveller, "Does your
horse stand fire?" said he, "Fire away," exclaimed the latter. Mads held
out the keeper's gun with one hand, like a pistol, and fired it off;
thereupon he took the flint from the cock, and returned the piece to his
adversary, saying, "There, take your pop-gun; at any rate it shall do no
more harm just yet. Farewell, and thanks for to-day." With these words
he slung his own piece over his shoulder, and went towards the spot
where he had left the deer.
The keeper, whose tongue had hitherto been bound by a power like magic,
now gave vent to his long-repressed indignation, in a volley of oaths
and curses.
The traveller, whose sympathy had transferred itself from the escaped
deer-stealer to the almost despairing game-keeper, endeavoured to
comfort him as far as lay in his power. "You have in reality lost
nothing," said he, "except the miserable satisfaction of rendering a man
and all his family unhappy."
"Lost nothing!" exclaimed the huntsman, "you don't understand the
matter. Lost nothing! The rascal has spoiled my good gun."
"Load it, and put in another flint," said the traveller.
"Pshaw!" answered Niels, "it will never more shoot hart or hare. It is
bewitched, that I will swear; and if one remedy does not succeed--aha!
there lies one licking the sunshine in the wheel-rut; he shall eat no
young larks to-day." Saying this, he stopped his horse, hastily put a
flint in his gun, loaded it, and dismounted. The stranger, who was
uninitiated in the craft of venery, and equally ignorant of its
terminology and magic, also stopped to see what his companion was about
to perform; while the latter, leading his horse, walked a few steps
forward, and with the barrel of his piece poked about something that lay
in his way, which the stranger now perceived to be an adder.
"Will you get in?" said the keeper, all the while thrusting with his gun
at the serpent. At length, having got its head into the barrel, he held
his piece up, and shook it until the adder was completely in. He then
fired it off with its extraordinary loading, of which not an atom was
more to be seen, and said, "If that won't do, there is no one but Mads
or Mike Foxtail who can set it to rights."
The traveller smiled a little incredulously, as well at the witchcraft
as at the singular way of dissolving it; but having already become
acquainted with one of the sorcerers just named, he felt desirous to
know a little about the other, who bore so uncommon and significant a
name. In answer to his inquiry, the keeper, at the same time reloading
his piece, related what follows:--"Mikkel, or Mike Foxtail, as they call
him, because he entices all the foxes to him that are in the country, is
a ten times worse character than even Black Mads. He can make himself
hard.[8] Neither lead nor silver buttons make the slightest impression
on him. I and master found him one day down in the dell yonder, with a
deer he had just shot, and was in the act of flaying. We rode on till
within twenty paces of him before he perceived us. Was Mike afraid,
think you? He just turned round, and looked at us, and went on flaying
the deer. 'Pepper his hide, Niels,' said master, 'I will be answerable.'
I aimed a charge of deer-shot point-blank at his broad back, but he no
more minded it than if I had shot at him with an alder pop-gun. The
fellow only turned his face towards us for a moment, and again went on
flaying. Master himself then shot; that had some effect; it just grazed
the skin of his head: and then only, having first wrapped something
round it, he took up his little rifle that lay on the ground, turned
towards us, and said, 'Now, my turn is come, and if you do not see about
taking yourselves away, I shall try to make a hole in one of you.' Such
for a chap is Mike Foxtail."