“Hans Andersen assured me that it [Hamlet’s grave] did not exist. In the good old times, when Sound duties still were, and myriads of ships stopped at Elsinore to pay their dues and be plundered by the inhabitants, each fresh English sailor, on his first arrival, demanded to be conducted to the tomb of Hamlet. Now, on the outside of the town, by the Strandvej, in the garden of a resident merchant, stood or still stands a hoi or barrow, one of the twenty thousand which are scattered so plentifully over the Danish domains. This barrow, to the great annoyance of its owner, was settled upon as a fitting resting place for Shakespeare’s hero. Worried and tormented by the numerous visitors who allowed him no peace, he, at his own expense, erected this monument in the public garden of Marienlyst, caused it to be surmounted by a cross and a half-erased inscription, fixing the date of Hamlet’s death the 32d of October, Old Style, the year a blank. Admirably, too, it succeeded. The British public was content, and the worthy merchant was allowed to smoke his pipe in peace under the grateful shade of his veranda.”
Butlin says of his first visit to Denmark that on inquiring for Hamlet’s grave he was told by a sarcastic Dane—the time being early autumn—that it was not usually built up before the spring, in time for English and American tourists to carry it away in chopped-off morsels during the summer.
As to Elsinore, that is an interesting place, with or without the actual grave of Hamlet. It is the scene of more historical events, connected with Norway, than almost any other place in Denmark. You remember that Marryat refers to the fact that it collected tolls from all the ships that passed through the Sound; and think of the nerve of it—it continued to do so even after Sweden had won the opposite coast of Skaane. All the nations concerned finally clubbed together and gave little Elsinore an immense ransom as token of future exemption from duty.
I have just discovered by referring to my Norges Communicationer that we are due in Kornsjö in twenty minutes, so I shall soon be taking in the delights of Norway. As to this Norges Communicationer, let me tell you what an absurd system of time-tables they have here. This foolish Communicationer is published every week and costs thirty öre (about eight cents). This week’s edition has one hundred and eighty-four big pages, and a whole year’s edition takes up actually almost as much room as the new Encyclopædia Britannica. By subscribing to this very interesting weekly magazine you can get it for about a dollar per quarter, and less than two dollars and a half for the entire year. Think of that! The price includes postage, too. Oh, it’s a shame to pay so little; therefore I think I won’t subscribe.
I don’t know when I shall have time to write again. I am planning to go to Bergen in a few days and take from there one of the Bergenske and Nordenfjeldske Dampskibsselskab boats up along the coast. Every one has taken this trip in summer, when the country is looking for tourists all along the line, but I want to see the country out of season, and so I am planning to visit it in winter, regardless of warnings about the gloomy, perpetual night.
I shall write to you from somewhere, sometime.
As always,
Aylmer.