In south-eastern Skåne--not far from the sea there is an old castle
called Glimminge. It is a big and substantial stone house; and can be
seen over the plain for miles around. It is not more than four stories
high; but it is so ponderous that an ordinary farmhouse, which stands on
the same estate, looks like a little children's playhouse in comparison.
The big stone house has such thick ceilings and partitions that there is
scarcely room in its interior for anything but the thick walls. The
stairs are narrow, the entrances small; and the rooms few. That the
walls might retain their strength, there are only the fewest number of
windows in the upper stories, and none at all are found in the lower
ones. In the old war times, the people were just as glad that they could
shut themselves up in a strong and massive house like this, as one is
nowadays to be able to creep into furs in a snapping cold winter. But
when the time of peace came, they did not care to live in the dark and
cold stone halls of the old castle any longer. They have long since
deserted the big Glimminge castle, and moved into dwelling places where
the light and air can penetrate.
At the time when Nils Holgersson wandered around with the wild geese,
there were no human beings in Glimminge castle; but for all that, it was
not without inhabitants. Every summer there lived a stork couple in a
large nest on the roof. In a nest in the attic lived a pair of gray
owls; in the secret passages hung bats; in the kitchen oven lived an old
cat; and down in the cellar there were hundreds of old black rats.
Rats are not held in very high esteem by other animals; but the black
rats at Glimminge castle were an exception. They were always mentioned
with respect, because they had shown great valour in battle with their
enemies; and much endurance under the great misfortunes which had
befallen their kind. They nominally belong to a rat-folk who, at one
time, had been very numerous and powerful, but who were now dying out.
During a long period of time, the black rats owned Skåne and the whole
country. They were found in every cellar; in every attic; in larders and
cowhouses and barns; in breweries and flour-mills; in churches and
castles; in every man-constructed building. But now they were banished
from all this--and were almost exterminated. Only in one and another old
and secluded place could one run across a few of them; and nowhere were
they to be found in such large numbers as in Glimminge castle.
When an animal folk die out, it is generally the human kind who are the
cause of it; but that was not the case in this instance. The people had
certainly struggled with the black rats, but they had not been able to
do them any harm worth mentioning. Those who had conquered them were an
animal folk of their own kind, who were called gray rats.
These gray rats had not lived in the land since time immemorial, like
the black rats, but descended from a couple of poor immigrants who
landed in Malmö from a Libyan sloop about a hundred years ago. They were
homeless, starved-out wretches who stuck close to the harbour, swam
among the piles under the bridges, and ate refuse that was thrown in the
water. They never ventured into the city, which was owned by the black
rats.
But gradually, as the gray rats increased in number they grew bolder.
At first they moved over to some waste places and condemned old houses
which the black rats had abandoned. They hunted their food in gutters
and dirt heaps, and made the most of all the rubbish that the black rats
did not deign to take care of. They were hardy, contented and fearless;
and within a few years they had become so powerful that they undertook
to drive the black rats out of Malmö. They took from them attics,
cellars and storerooms, starved them out or bit them to death for they
were not at all afraid of fighting.
When Malmö was captured, they marched forward in small and large
companies to conquer the whole country. It is almost impossible to
comprehend why the black rats did not muster themselves into a great,
united war-expedition to exterminate the gray rats, while these were
still few in numbers. But the black rats were so certain of their power
that they could not believe it possible for them to lose it. They sat
still on their estates, and in the meantime the gray rats took from them
farm after farm, city after city. They were starved out, forced out,
rooted out. In Skåne they had not been able to maintain themselves in a
single place except Glimminge castle.
The old castle had such secure walls and such few rat passages led
through these, that the black rats had managed to protect themselves,
and to prevent the gray rats from crowding in. Night after night, year
after year, the struggle had continued between the aggressors and the
defenders; but the black rats had kept faithful watch, and had fought
with the utmost contempt for death, and, thanks to the fine old house,
they had always conquered.
It will have to be acknowledged that as long as the black rats were in
power they were as much shunned by all other living creatures as the
gray rats are in our day--and for just cause; they had thrown themselves
upon poor, fettered prisoners, and tortured them; they had ravished the
dead; they had stolen the last turnip from the cellars of the poor;
bitten off the feet of sleeping geese; robbed eggs and chicks from the
hens; and committed a thousand depredations. But since they had come to
grief, all this seemed to have been forgotten; and no one could help but
marvel at the last of a race that had held out so long against its
enemies.
The gray rats that lived in the courtyard at Glimminge and in the
vicinity, kept up a continuous warfare and tried to watch out for every
possible chance to capture the castle. One would fancy that they should
have allowed the little company of black rats to occupy Glimminge castle
in peace, since they themselves had acquired all the rest of the
country; but you may be sure this thought never occurred to them. They
were wont to say that it was a point of honour with them to conquer the
black rats at some time or other. But those who were acquainted with the
gray rats must have known that it was because the human kind used
Glimminge castle as a grain store-house that the gray ones could not
rest before they had taken possession of the place.