The runes roll, you see! Wood-grown rocky isles appear in the light, grey morning mist; numberless flocks of wild birds build their nests in safety here, where the fresh waters of the Mälaren rush into the salt sea. The Viking's ship comes; King Agna stands by the prow—he brings as booty the King of Finland's daughter. The oak-tree spreads its branches over their bridal chamber; at daybreak the oak-tree bears King Agna, hanged in his long golden chain: that is the bride's work, and the ship sails away again with her and the rescued Fins.
The clouds drive past—the years too.
Hunters and fishermen erect themselves huts;—it is again deserted here, where the sea-birds alone have their homes. What is it that so frightens these numberless flocks? the wild duck and sea-gull fly screaming about, there is a hammering and driving of piles. Oluf Skötkonge has large beams bored down into the ground, and strong iron chains fastened across the stream: "Thou art caught, Oluf Haraldson,[[H]] caught with the ships and crews, with which thou didst devastate the royal city Sigtuna; thou canst not escape from the closed Mälar lake!"
It is but the work of one night; the same night when Oluf Hakonson, with iron and with fire, burst his onward way through the stubborn ground; before the day breaks the waters of the Mälar roll there; the Norwegian prince, Oluf sailed through the royal channel he had cut in the east. The stockades, where the iron chains hang, must bear the defences; the citizens from the burnt-down Sigtuna erect themselves a bulwark here, and build their new, little town on stock-holms.[[I]]
The clouds go, and the years go! Do you see how the gables grow? there rise towers and forts. Birger Jarl makes the town of Stockholm a fortress; the warders stand with bow and arrow on the walls, reconnoitring over lake and fjord, over Brunkaberg sand-ridge. There were the sand-ridge slopes upwards from Rörstrand's Lake they build Clara cloister, and between it and the town a street springs up: several more appear; they form an extensive city, which soon becomes the place of contest for different partisans, where Ladelaas's sons plant the banner, and where the German Albrecht's retainers burn the Swedes alive within its walls. Stockholm is, however, the heart of the kingdom: that the Danes know well; that the Swedes know too, and there is strife and bloody combating. Blood flows by the executioner's hand, Denmark's Christian the Second, Sweden's executioner, stands in the market-place.
Roll, ye runes! see over Brunkaberg sand-ridge, where the Swedish people conquered the Danish host, there they raise the May-pole: it is midsummer-eve—Gustavus Vasa makes his entry into Stockholm.
Around the May-pole there grow fruit and kitchen-gardens, houses and streets; they vanish in flames, they rise again; that gloomy fortress towards the tower is transformed into a palace, and the city stands magnificently with towers and draw-bridges. There grows a town by itself on the sand-ridge, a third springs up on the rock towards the south; the old walls fall at Gustavus Adolphus's command; the three towns are one, large and extensive, picturesquely varied with old stone houses, wooden shops, and grass-roofed huts; the sun shines on the brass balls of the towers, and a forest of masts stands in that secure harbour.
Rays of beauty shoot forth into the world from Versailles' painted divinity; they reach the Mälar's strand into Tessin's[[J]] palace, where art and science are invited as guests with the King, Gustavus the Third, whose effigy cast in bronze is raised on the strand before the splendid palace—it is in our times. The acacia shades the palace's high terrace on whose broad balustrades flowers send forth their perfume from Saxon porcelain; variegated silk curtains hang half-way down before the large glass windows; the floors are polished smooth as a mirror, and under the arch yonder, where the roses grow by the wall, the Endymion of Greece lives eternally in marble. As a guard of honour here, stand Fogelberg's Odin, and Sergei's Amor and Psyche.
We now descend the broad, royal staircase, and before it, where, in by-gone times, Oluf Skötkonge stretched the iron chains across the mouth of the Mälar Lake, there is now a splendid bridge with shops above and the Streamparterre below: there we see the little steamer 'Nocken,'[[K]] steering its way, filled with passengers from Diurgarden to the Streamparterre. And what is the Streamparterre? The Neapolitans would tell us: It is in miniature—quite in miniature—the Stockholmers' "Villa Reale." The Hamburgers would say: It is in miniature—quite in miniature—the Stockholmers' "Jungfernstieg."
It is a very little semi-circular island, on which the arches of the bridge rest; a garden full of flowers and trees, which we overlook from the high parapet of the bridge. Ladies and gentlemen promenade there; musicians play, families sit there in groups, and take refreshments in the vaulted halls under the bridge, and look out between the green trees over the open water, to the houses and mansions, and also to the woods and rocks: we forget that we are in the midst of the city.