In these brave noblemen Duke Waldemar had, in the course of his journey, made new acquaintances, whom he seemed highly to prize, and had invited them to accompany him to Sleswick. The margraves were the intimate friends of the good-natured, excellent Count Gerhard, and they had therefore invited the duke to rest a few hours at the hospitable Kiel Castle--a proposition to which he could not refuse acquiescence, without creating reasonable surprise at the haste with which he journeyed homewards.
The duke had not met Count Gerhard since the evening he had seen him in company with Sir John, at the Dane-court of Nyborg, shortly before his own imprisonment. The interest with which the count had afterwards laboured to obtain his freedom, and to procure him terms with the king, had impressed the duke with a degree of shame for having, on many previous occasions, slighted the plain, gay-hearted gentleman, and made himself merry at the expense of his somewhat ungainly figure, as well as his bashfulness and lack of courtly language, when he desired to shine in presence of the ladies. That the brave, honest count, notwithstanding his awkwardness in the dance with the queen on that evening, had awakened far greater interest with her than his more polished rival, was a piece of good fortune which the proud, ambitious duke had never been able to forgive him.
Count Gerhard had received them with his wonted openness and gay good humour; for the rumours respecting the important crisis of affairs in Denmark had not yet reached Kiel. His guests and himself were seated at the drinking-board, entertaining each other with merry songs.
The Margrave Otto, who was about the middle age, with a calm and reflective countenance, was a skilful knight, an esteemed general, and a prince who cherished and encouraged the arts and sciences. He was a great admirer of the German minne-singers, and sang several of their lays in a fine deep bass voice. To satisfy the Danish gentlemen that his royal brother-in-law, King Erik Christopherson, was more esteemed in Germany than by his own people, he sang Reinmar von Zweter's well-known eulogium on the king, which, in the Schwabian dialect, thus commences:--
"Ein kunig der wol gekroenet gat:"
and which may be thus translated:--
"A king so well becrown'd, and true,
And eke a crown beking'd well, too,
Maintains that crown aright:
Should thus the king his crown adorn,
That crown adorns him in return,
And each does each requite."