Among the crowd of knights and courtiers who waited the next morning in
the antechamber of Helsingborg castle to offer their congratulations to
the king and the young queen, were present two influential and well
known persons, who had recently landed on the quay. The one was an aged
personage of short stature, with an extraordinary degree of energy and
determination in his stern yet animated countenance; he was the
renowned statesman John Little, who had made so long a sojourn at the
Romish court. A tall powerful man stood at his side, in a splendid
knight's dress, with a roll of documents in his hand. He was the king's
former master in arms, Drost Peter Hessel. They had both arrived from
Rome, with important tidings for the king. They were instantly
admitted, and those without heard that they were most joyously
welcomed. Among the glad voices in the king's chamber were recognised
those of the queen and the Drost's noble consort, the Lady Inge.
Close to the door of the antechamber stood Morten the cook, in his
pilgrim's dress, with old Jeppe the fisherman and his daughter at his
side. He was regarded with curiosity. At first he appeared somewhat
uneasy and dejected; but when the king was heard to speak with
animation, and in a tone of satisfaction, Morten drew himself up
fearlessly, and paced up and down with an air of importance among the
distinguished assemblage.
The papers which Drost Hessel had under his arm contained proofs of
Archbishop Grand's treachery and connection with the outlaws; they were
copies of the same important documents which Junker Christopher, at the
time of the archbishop's imprisonment, had removed from the sacristy
chest of Lund and brought to Wordingborg. There the dexterous cook had
contrived to possess himself of them shortly before he abetted the
archbishop's flight from Sjoeborg. His object had been to restore them
to Grand; but as the archbishop had broken the promise he had made to
his deliverer while on the rope-ladder of freeing the king and country
from ban and interdict, Morten determined to retain these documents,
and while on his pilgrimage to bring them to Chancellor Martinus and
the Danish embassy at Rome, where they mainly contributed to justify,
or at least excuse the king's conduct towards Grand, and ultimately to
depose him from the Archbishopric of Lund.
Morten was soon summoned to the king. When he returned he gaily threw
aside his pilgrim's mantle, seized the pretty fishermaiden with the one
hand and Jeppe with the other, and skipped with them down the hall
staircase, as a free and wealthy man, to celebrate his wedding at
Gilleleie.
Notwithstanding that the suit against Archbishop Grand, and the
dangerous differences with the Romish see, were not adjusted until
after the lapse of several years, and at the cost of considerable
sacrifices, King Eric succeeded at length in obtaining the deposition
of Grand, and the instalment of another and more peaceable prelate in
the archiepiscopal chair of Lund; in the person of the formerly dreaded
Isarnus, who had now, however, learned from the fate of his predecessor
how to use his spiritual authority with moderation, and wisely
refrained from all interference with state affairs. By the final treaty
with the papal court the wanting dispensation of kindred was granted to
the king, and his marriage with the noble Princess Ingeborg of Sweden
declared to be perfectly valid.
Three weeks after the king's nuptials, the faithful Drost Aage was
again seen at his side; but he was unalterably grave and pensive. It
was not until some years afterwards that he was freed from the ban,
together with the king. He never alluded to his journey with Marsk
Stig's daughters. Some affirmed that he had only found the elder sister
in the prison-tower of Wordingborg, but that the younger had fled.
Others insisted they had seen her among the masquers at Helsingborg
castle, on the evening of the king's bridal. It was also rumoured that
she had been carried off by a merman. A ballad, relating this supposed
adventure, has been preserved among the people. The merman was affirmed
by some to have been the outlawed Kagge, who was shortly afterwards
seized and slain by the burghers at Viborg. Meanwhile the beautiful and
pathetic ballad, which still preserves the memory of these sisters,
bears witness to their having traversed Sweden as fugitives, and having
found protection, for the first time, at the court of Norway. According
to this ballad the youngest of these exiled sisters was afterwards
married to a Norwegian prince; probably an illegitimate son of King
Haco.
This popular ballad, as well as many obscure traditions, and what the
chronicles record of the latter part of the thirteenth century, bear
striking testimony to that troublous time, in which the unhappy
consequences of the last regicide in Denmark, hovered, like restless
demons, over throne and country, and cast so deep a shade even over the
happiest days of the upright King Eric Ericson.