Well do I remember, years ago, meeting a goggle-eyed young man, with lanky, dark hair, ungainly figure, and wild countenance, and nails just like filberts, at a table-d’hôte in Germany. All the dinner he rolled about his large eyes in meditation. This was Hans Christian Andersen, now enjoying a European reputation, and holding, with a good stipend, the sinecure of Honorary Professor at the University of Copenhagen. Hitherto he had been candle-snuffer at the metropolitan theatre, but his hidden talents had been perceived, and he was being sent to Italy to improve his taste and get ideas at the public expense.
If we contrast the fate in England and in Denmark of genius in rags, we may be reminded of the märchen, told, if I remember, by Andersen himself, how that once on a time a little dirty duck was ignored by the sleek fat ducks around, when it meets with two swans, who recognised the seemingly dirty little duck, and protected it. Whereupon the astonished youngster happens to see himself in a puddle, and finds that he is a genuine swan.
What a contrast between these flat plains of Zealand, with the whitewashed cottages and farm-houses—the ridge of the thatched roof pinned down with straddles of wood—and the rocky wilds of Norway, its log-houses, red or yellow, with grass-covered roofs, nestling under a vast impending mountain. In Denmark, the highest land is only a few hundred feet above the sea. How immensely large, too, the cows and horses look after the lilliputian breeds of Norway. There being hardly any fences, the poor creatures are generally tethered: yonder peasant girl with the great wooden mallet is in the act of driving in the iron tethering-pin.
No wonder that in a country so open, superstition has had recourse to terrify the movers of their neighbour’s landmarks. Thus the Jack-o’-Lanterns in the isle of Falster are nothing but the souls of dishonest land-measurers running about with flaming measuring-rods, and crying, “Here is the right boundary, from here to here!” Again, near Ebeltoft, there used to live a rich peasant, seemingly a paragon of propriety, a regular church-goer, a most attentive sermon-hearer, one who paid tithes of all he possessed; but somehow, nobody believed in him. And sure enough when he was dead and buried, his voice was often heard at night crying in woful accents, “Boundary here, boundary there!” The people knew the reason why.
Instead of those dark and sombre pine-forests so thoroughly in keeping with the grim, Dantesque grandeur of the Norwegian landscape, or the ghostlike white stems of the birch-trees, the only trees visible are the glossy-foliaged, wide-spreading groves of beech, with now and then an oak.
I descend at Ringstedt to see the tombs of the great Valdemar (King of Denmark), and his two wives, Dagmar of Bohemia, and Berengaria of Portugal. The train, I perceive, is partly freighted with food for the capital, in the shape of sacks full of chickens (only fancy chickens in sacks!) and numbers of live pigs, which a man was watering with a watering-can, as if they had been roses, and would wither with the heat.
Having a vivid recollection of Ingermann’s best historical tale, Valdemar Seier, it was with no little interest that I entered the church, and stood beside the flag-stones in the choir which marked the place of the King’s sepulture. On the Regal tomb was incised, “Valdemarus Secundus Legislator Danorum.” On either side were stones, with the inscriptions, “Regina Dagmar, prima uxor Valdemari Secundi,” and “Regina Berengaria, secunda uxor Valdemari Secundi.” The real name of Valdemar’s first wife was Margaret, but she is only known to the Dane as little Dagmar, which means “dawning,” or “morning-red.” Her memory is as dear to the people as that of Queen Tyra Dannebod. She was as good as she was beautiful. The name of “Proud Bengard,” on the contrary, is loaded with curses, as one who brought ruin upon the throne and country.
At this moment a gentleman approached me with a courteous bow; he was dressed in ribbed grey and black pantaloons, and a low-crowned hat. I found afterwards that he was a native of Bornholm, and no less a personage than the Probst of Ringstedt; he was very polite and affable, and informed me that these graves were opened not long ago in the presence of his present Majesty of Denmark. Valdemar was three ells long; his countenance was imperfect. Bengard’s face and teeth were in good preservation. Dagmar’s body had apparently been disturbed before.
In the aisle near, he pointed out the monument to Eric Plugpenning, the son of Valdemar. He had the nickname of Plugpenning (Plough-penny), for setting a tax on the plough. He was murdered on a fishing excursion by his brother. The fratricide’s name was not Cain but Abel. There was no luck afterwards about the house; the curse of Atreus and Thyestes rested upon it. Of course, after such an atrocity King Abel “walks,” or more strictly speaking he “rides.” Slain in a morass near the Eyder in 1252, his body was buried in the cathedral of Sleswig. But his spirit found no rest; by night he haunted the church and disturbed the slumbers of the canons; his corpse was consequently exhumed, and buried in a bog near Gottorp, with a stake right through it to keep it down; the peasants will still point out the place. But it was all to no purpose; a huntsman’s horn is often heard at night in the vicinity, and Abel, dark of aspect, is seen scouring away on a small black horse, with a leash of dogs, burning like fire.
Here, then, in Denmark, we see the grand Asgaardsreia of Norway localized, and transferred from the nameless powers of the invisible world to malefactors of earth; while in Germany it assumes the shape of “The Wild Huntsman.”