"We will set you unscathed on shore at Copenhagen, noble sir," continued Henrik Gullandsfar, "provided you promise to be silent concerning what you perhaps may have heard and perceived, which might get us into disfavour in high places, or injure our trade and enterprises."
"I leave grocers and pettifoggers to wage war with the tongue," answered the knight haughtily. "What I have heard of your fine plans and projects I deem not worth wasting one word upon; but from this hour I defy you all to the death.--Until I set foot on shore you are unmolested; but from the moment we separate broken heads will be the consequence of our meeting."
"That is but natural," returned Gullandsfar. "We accept your proffer in the first instance; keep but quiet! In a few hours you will be on shore."
There was a murmur of dissatisfaction and uneasiness on board the vessel. Some of the boldest seamen grumbled at the shameful peace with the two captives. They blamed Henrik Gullandsfar for cowardice and treachery; but none cared to go down into the hold, and dare an encounter with the redoubted captives, who had both ship and crew in their power. At last, however, they submitted to necessity. Berner Kopmand had lost the use of his tongue, and the discreet Master Henrik had taken the command of the ship. He ordered every one to go quietly about their business, and was obeyed without any objections being made. The captain himself stood on the forecastle, with rolling eyes and crimson cheeks. He concealed with his large person a man in a black priestly mantle, who conversed with him in a low tone, and kept his back constantly turned towards the stern. A fresh breeze had sprung up. The wind was favourable, and ere noon the vessel glided into Kallebo strand, between the Isle of Amak and the green pastures of the village of Solbierg, which occupied the whole of the western side where the suburb of Copenhagen, Vesterbro, was afterwards built. It was a fine spring day. The proud castle of Axelhuus[[12]] rose towards the east in the sunshine, with its circular walls and its two round towers, and was mirrored in the surrounding waters. The castle lay apart from the town, without any bridge, and was only accessible by boats. Behind the castle island were two other small islands, almost covered with buildings, whither boats were constantly plying. The one was the abode of the stationary skippers, and on the other (Bremen Island) the warehouses of the Bremen merchants seemed to tower in emulation of the castle of Axelhuus itself. The Rostock vessel steered not to the great haven, from which the city afterwards derived its name, but ran into the Catsound, on both sides of which were seen a number of small houses of frame-work, the walls of which were plastered with clay, and the roofs thatched with straw and reeds; between the houses were cabbage gardens and orchards, with wooden fences, or thorn hedges; and in the neighbourhood of the quay was seen the little church of St. Clement.
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1]: The word Runes is here used in its original signification,--that of mystery or secret. Each letter of the Runic alphabet was supposed to possess a mysterious and magical power. In the Scandinavian mythology, each Rune was originally dedicated to some deity; it also denoted some natural quality or object: their Asiatic origin is now proved beyond doubt. There is a remarkable poem in the elder Edda--the Song of Brynhildé, in which mention is made of several kinds of Runes. Among them may be classed numerous amulets of most of the Asiatic tribes, as well as of the Egyptians, Greeks, &c., on which these characters were cut or traced. The custom among sailors of marking their skins with letters and devices may clearly be traced to Runic origin, and the tattooing among savage tribes is evidently similarly derived. In Wilson's account of the Pelew Islands, King Abba Thulé is represented as tattooed with two crosses on the breast and two on one shoulder, with a snake, and these distinct northern Runes [Illustration of rune]. In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, when superstition dragged her victims to the stake throughout all Christian Europe, the use of Runes became an especial object for the persecutions exercised by the authorities and clergy of Iceland,--the word Rune there signifying a mysterious and magical character. The songs of the Finns and Laps, which are supposed by them to possess magic powers, are still called Runes.--Translator. Vide Professor Finn Magnussen's Notes to the Elder Edda, vol. iii.
[Footnote 2]: King Eric the Sixth of Denmark, surnamed Plough Penny, the son and successor of Valdemar the Victorious, was murdered by the command of his brother, Junker Abel, Duke of Slesvig, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity, on the 4th of August, 1250. Abel had frequently rebelled against his brother; but at last finding that his forces were unequal to the contest, he had recourse to stratagem, and made overtures of friendship to Eric, who gladly accepted them, and hesitated not to visit his brother at one of his palaces in Slesvig. After an apparently cordial reception, however, the duke contrived to turn the conversation on their former feuds, and reproached the king with having devastated his territories, saying, "Dost thou not remember how thou didst plunder my town of Slesvig, and compel my daughter to fly barefoot to a place of shelter? Thou shalt not do so twice." Eric was then seized and led to the river Slie, where he was placed in a boat, beheaded, and his body sunk by stones into the deepest part of the stream. In order to cover this crime, Duke Abel and twenty-four of his knights, according to the usage of those times, endeavoured to clear themselves of suspicion, by solemnly affirming that the king had met with his death by the upsetting of the boat, but two months afterwards the headless trunk floated to the river side, and the murder became known. The body was deposited in St. Benedict's church at Ringsted, where the Translator not long ago was shown one of the bones through an aperture of the walled-up niche.
[Footnote 3]: The placing runes upon the tongue was employed in Runic magic to waken the dead priestess, and compel her to give a prophetic answer to the magician whose spells had aroused her from the sleep of death. In the song of Vegtam, in the Elder Edda, known to the English reader in our poet Gray's fine translation, "The Descent of Odin," the Scandinavian bard describes the magic power of runes traced on the ground towards the north, and repeated as incantations, in calling forth the prophetic response from the tomb.
Right against the eastern gate,
By the moss-grown pile he sate,
Where long of yore to sleep was laid
The dust of the prophetic maid;
Facing to the northern clime,
Thrice he traced the Runic rhyme;
Thrice pronounced in accents dread,
The thrilling verse that wakes the dead,
Till from out the hollow ground,
Slowly breathed a sullen sound."
Translator's Note.