My travelling companion also informs me of a curious discovery made lately by Lange, the author of a History of Norwegian Monasteries.
It has always been supposed that the precious treasures which adorned the tomb of St. Olaf, in the Cathedral of Trondjem, were stolen by King Christian the Second, and that the ship conveying the ill-gotten booty sank near Christiansand.
At Amsterdam, however, from whence Lange has just returned, he found incontestable documentary evidence that the Archbishop of Trondjem was himself the thief. He fled to Amsterdam, got into debt, and the jewels were sold and dispersed.
Landing at Moss, I passed through a wretchedly ugly country to Frederickshal. There is nothing in the place worth seeing, except the fortress and the statue to the patriotic burgher, Peder Colbjörnsen. Some of the houses are far beyond the average of many of the Norwegian towns; to which detracting people might be inclined to apply the old description of Granville:—
Granville, grand vilain,
Une église, et un moulin,
On voit Granville tout à plein.
A small enclosure outside the fortress marks the spot where the Swedish madman was sacrificed by one of his own soldiers while occupied in the siege. The monument, however, has utterly disappeared. A new one is talked of.