CHAPTER XI
ROSKILDE AND ODENSE; GOOD-BY TO SCANDINAVIA
Odense, Denmark,
September 14, 191—
My dear Cynthia:
You perhaps remember that in my first letter to you after reaching Copenhagen I mentioned Roskilde. I stopped there for a short time on my way here on Monday. The place, though now only a small provincial town of but nine thousand inhabitants, has had an eventful and interesting past. In the tenth century Harold Bluetooth, son of Gorm the Old, and grandfather of Canute the Great, who ruled England, made the place his capital and built a cathedral there. And it remained the capital for five hundred years—until it was supplanted by Copenhagen.
I stopped off at Roskilde primarily to see the cathedral, but I enjoyed poking about the narrow, crooked streets between the low-built, tile-roofed houses. As in practically every other European town, the market-place of Roskilde is centrally situated. I passed it early in the forenoon on my way from the station. A sale of livestock was in progress. Horses were being trotted for the benefit of prospective buyers, pigs were squealing, cattle were lowing; and men were sealing bargains for the transfer of animals by the customary handshake.
The original Roskilde cathedral erected by Harold Bluetooth was of wood, but in the eleventh century this was replaced by a larger building of limestone; and about two centuries later the brick building, some fragments of which are incorporated in the present beautiful cathedral, was erected on the site of the limestone one. The present building is the pride of Roskilde. It is a great red-brick pile, quaintly beautiful, with copper roofs discolored a bluish green, and with sharp, oddly-shaped twin towers. This cathedral is the Westminster Abbey of Denmark; more than thirty Danish sovereigns, including Harold Bluetooth, are buried within its walls.
When the ancient limestone building was pulled down, the bones of the founders and benefactors of the cathedral during its early years were removed and immured in the new structure; and two centuries later, in 1521, the bishop Lage Urne had their effigies, dressed in the style of his period, placed on the pillars. There they are as the artist of the time conceived them to have looked: Harold Bluetooth, who built the wooden cathedral; Bishop William, who began the erection of the limestone building; King Svend, who, in order to atone for having killed some men in the cathedral, gave to the bishopric a large tract of territory; and his mother, Estrid, or Margarethe, sister of Canute the Great, who also gave rich gifts to the church.
The most famous tomb in the cathedral, however, is that of the great Queen Margaret, whose remains rest in a black marble coffin behind the high altar. On the lid of the coffin is an effigy of the queen in alabaster—a purely imaginary likeness, made by a foreign artist who had never seen the queen. The figure is a beautiful one, though, with pure and determined features. The queen’s hair lies in a thick braid around her forehead, and a veil and a crown are upon her head; around the waist of her graceful robe is a girdle with pendulous bells. Behind the head of the queen is a splendid canopy bearing the arms of the Scandinavian Union, with a Latin inscription around its margin which, being interpreted, reads: “A. D. 1412, on the day of the Apostles Simon and Judas died the illustrious Princess, Lady Margaret, once Queen of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, but in the following year on the 4th of July, she was buried here. As posterity is not able to honor her thus as she has deserved, this work has been constructed in memory of her at the expense of Erik, our present King, 1423.” The Eric mentioned was Margaret’s grand-nephew, Eric of Pomerania, who succeeded the great queen.
The tombs of some of the Christians and Fredericks are also pretty elaborate; and they furnish varied information about the reigns of these rulers. Christian IV is buried in a chapel named for him, decorated with frescoes of allegorical figures and historical scenes illustrating the character and life of the king. The coffin itself is of oak covered with black velvet decorated with silver plates. On the lid lies the King’s sword and a crucifix. This was the King Christian who “stood by the lofty mast, in mist and smoke,” you will remember. One of the paintings on the chapel wall represents him in his brave stand in the battle of the Baltic.
Frederick IV, who lived in a more ornate age, has a great marble sarcophagus done in rich rococo style. On the lid is a figure of Fame bearing a medallion with the king’s portrait, and publishing his name by sound of trombone; at the head sits the figure of a woman, with a burning heart, meant to represent the people’s love for their king; at the foot is an old man, Father Time in new guise, with a tablet on which is written: “King Frederick died 1730.” On the sides are historical illustrations—victories of war on land and sea; the freeing of the serfs; the establishment of the “land militia”; the founding of the village schools.
Frederick VII is buried in an oak coffin ornamented with bronze. The surface is covered with allegorical figures. One of these—that on the right hand—represents the king’s motto: “The people’s love is my strength,” and that on the left, Denmark mourning his death. Upon the lid of the coffin I noticed two silver wreaths and a gold one—the last presented by Danish women. And well might the people of Denmark cherish this Frederick’s memory, for it was during his reign that the land was given a constitutional government; and well might they mourn his death, for his death without an heir led to bitter war and to the loss of the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein to Germany.
In striking contrast to the elaborate tombs of their predecessors are the plain oak coffins of the late Christian IX and his queen, Louisa. Beside Christian’s coffin is a silver wreath sent by the Danes of America. The king was their king during childhood and youth, until they adopted a new land; so the Danes of America had a friendly place in their hearts for him.
Most of the earlier Danish rulers—those of the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries—are buried in the old convent church of Ringsted. And in the convent church of Sorö, which is near at hand, sleeps the great warrior bishop Absalon, founder of Copenhagen.
My next destination after leaving Roskilde was Odense, which is a corruption of Odins Ö, the Danish for Odin’s Island. In the heathen days the place was a favorite with the Father God, it seems. But the present-day Odense is a thriving town of about forty thousand, the third town in size in Denmark. It is the metropolis of the large island of Fyen, or Fünen, which is separated by the Little Belt from the peninsula of Jutland on the west, and by the Great Belt, from the island of Seeland on the east. Odense is a very lovable old place, possessing the air of dignity and wisdom frequently associated with ancient things; and this in spite of the fact that it contains many up-to-date manufacturing establishments.
St. Knud’s, the most important church in the town, is a red brick Gothic structure, with low, broad-spreading wings and a copper-roofed, blunt-pointed single spire, which as regards shape reminds me somewhat of Roskilde. Inside are the usual paintings, memorial tablets, and tombs; and below in the shadowy crypt, which possesses arches suggestive of those in the crypt beneath Lund Cathedral, are more tombs. Some of these tombs date back to the sixteenth century, and several have crude, interesting inscriptions. On the wall of the vestibule, for instance, I noticed a tablet dated 1670, bearing some verses beginning:
“Her under denne Steen
Sig hviler deris Been.”
which is, being translated,
“Here under these stones
There rest the bones,”
and then followed an account of the earthly tribulations of Rasmus Andersen. Rasmus Andersen lived in dark, weary days when fratricidal wars tore Denmark and Sweden.
In a quiet square, where the Odense children love to play, is a bronze figure of Hans Christian Andersen. It is a good statue; the limp, ungainly figure is faithfully reproduced. Upon the face is the sweet expression peculiar to the child-hearted man who never became sufficiently grown up to lose the children’s point of view.
Odense is, in fact, primarily important because of its being the birthplace of Andersen; and that is why I made a pilgrimage to it. The house in which he was born has been restored, in consequence of a movement which started in 1905, during the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the poet’s birth. The building now belongs to the city; its official title is “Hans Andersen’s House.” The whole house, however, was not occupied by the little “ugly duckling” Hans and his parents. The family was exceedingly poor, both parents appear to have been shiftless, and the father, though talented, was erratic. Only one room, the one containing the old-fashioned alcove in the wall for the bed, constituted the home of the Andersens. But the fairy-tale writer left enough mementoes of various kinds to fill the several rooms with charming reminders of him, and to impress upon one how broadly he ranged and how many great souls he met and knew.
The building is of the low-roofed, box-shaped type, such as my three aunts live in in Svaneke, Bornholm; and it stands squarely against the sidewalk where two streets cross. When I knocked at the door yesterday afternoon, the museum was closed for the day, as the curator informed me; but when I told her that I had stopped off at Odense especially to see Hans Andersen’s House, and must leave on the morrow before the opening hour, she remarked that in that case it would be a great pity for me to be disappointed; and she proceeded to take down the shutters.
Along the walls of the first room which I entered were several show cases containing many souvenirs of Andersen’s life, each accompanied by explanations in Danish, English, French, and German. Among the reminders of his early years I noticed with interest his school records, which showed him to have been a very ordinary student, for “slet” (bad), and “maadelig” (mediocre) appeared frequently upon them. In the early Odense days, Hans Christian was an “ugly duckling,” indeed. Representative of the poet’s maturity was a little leather bag found upon his breast after death. It contained a letter from his sweetheart, Riborg Voigt, whose portrait I noticed upon the wall above the case. Thus was published to the world the unconsummated romance of the romancer. Andersen’s will, which spoke of his declining years, reminded me that the well-plumed swan remembered to the last the days when he was an “ugly duckling”; for in the first clause of the document was a bequest of a legacy to the charity school of Odense, at which, as a blundering, misunderstood small boy, he received his low grades.
Gifts from friends, high and low, were very much in evidence. A tiny mirror framed in deer’s horn was sent to Andersen in a teasing mood by the “Swedish nightingale,” Jenny Lind, in order that he might see “how pretty he was.” One of Andersen’s many peculiarities was his firm conviction, which he maintained in the face of his gawky homeliness, that he was of distinguished appearance. Above a book-case filled with many editions of his works, was a wreath of “everlasting” flowers, made for him by the Countess Holstein-Holsteinberg. And beside the funny old eighteenth-century stove was the gift of the Countess Danneskjold-Samsoe, a fire screen decorated with a queer conglomeration of pictures cut from illustrated papers, which appears to have been the fashionable screen of the time, for Andersen himself made one of the same style. On the sofa was another present from a lady of high degree—a cushion embroidered with a large, handsome, prosperous-appearing swan, evidently the swan which had evolved from the “ugly duckling.” The traveling bag in one of the rooms is believed to have been the one used by King Christian IX during a journey in southern Europe, and afterwards given to the poet. But the most pleasing token of all was offered by little American school children. Laboring under the impression that the writer of their beloved fairy tales was living in poverty, they started a collection with the intention of sending him money; but when they learned that prosperity had come with fame, they sent him instead two large volumes entitled “Picturesque America.”
Roskilde Cathedral
Hans Andersen’s House
In the last room which I explored was the furniture which Andersen had used in his rooms in Copenhagen. The rocker was later used by Alexander Kielland, the Norwegian who has written such charming short stories; and the penholder lying upon the poet’s old desk was for a time the property of Edward Grieg, the Norwegian composer. Near the table were Andersen’s trunk and hat case, and upon it were his tall silk hat and his fat, clumsy umbrella, as if he had just returned from a jaunt about Europe. It seemed as if the quaint old man himself must appear, equipped with a new wonder story all ready for the telling.
The great number and variety of photographs of himself in evidence about the rooms were, in themselves, ample proof that the dear old chap was exceedingly vain. He had a childlike fondness for dress and decoration, and also for being photographed. Under one of the photographs he had written in Danish some words which must be translated, “Life itself is the best wonder story”; but the Danish for wonder story is “aventyr,” which comes from the same root as our work “adventure,” and consequently means much more of interest than the translation would lead one to suppose. And I heartily agree with the verdict; I would not miss being alive for anything!
Perhaps the most valuable treasure in the museum is the collection of the original lead-pencil drawings made by the Danish illustrator, Wilhelm Petersen, for Andersen’s fairy tales. Many of these pictures were old friends of mine, friends which I had not seen for many long years—soft, delicate drawings of round-faced children in quaint dress; tall, graceful lovers and their ladies; and old people with strong and gentle faces. It was a rare pleasure to renew their acquaintance in such an intimate way. And, for old times’ sake, before leaving Odense I bought a volume of Andersen’s wonder stories, illustrated by Petersen, taking care that “The Ugly Duckling” was included in the collection.
It is again morning. Since five o’clock when I left Odense, I have journeyed westward over Fünen, have been ferried across the Little Belt which separates Fünen from the peninsula of Jutland, and have started upon my southward way toward Antwerp and home. Now we are about to cross the southern boundary of Denmark and to enter the lost province of Schleswig. Therefore, it must be good-by to Denmark and to the whole pleasant Scandinavian land. It is a fond good-by, and were not love for my own dear Western country hurrying me on, it would be a most regretful one. No kind friends stand at the border to wave farewell, with “Hils hjemme” and “Komme igen”; but the Jutish landscape which smiles upon my right hand and my left does that. And I shall not forget the invitation and shall remember to deliver the greeting.