But when he rode over Ribe Bridge
Then rode the King alone.
In Ringsted sleepeth Queen Dagmar!
Over the wildsome moor he had come, neither resting nor sleeping, his face set ever toward the sea, the one wild prayer in his heart that he might not be too late. But ride man ever so fast, death travels faster. As his horse’s hoofs struck fire from the stones in Grönnegade,[16] with the castle beyond the pillared gate at its end, the Ribe church bells rang out the tidings of Dagmar’s death.
Now help, O Lord, my Dagmar dear,
Me thinketh my heart must break.
The King’s Ride over the Moor.
On his knees at her bed the King begs her weeping women to pray that she may speak to him once more, and the Queen opens her eyes and smiles upon her lover. “Fear not for me,” she says, “I did no worse sin than to lace my silken sleeves on Sunday.” And her last thought as her first is for her people. She prays him to pardon every outlaw, and with her dying breath pleads with him not to take Bengerd to his heart. “The evil Bengerd,” the ballad calls her, and evil did she bring to Denmark. For, when in after years the King did marry the Portuguese princess, whose beauty was so great that even her dust after ages bore witness to it, she brought King and land but sorrow and misery, aye! and of both a full measure.[17]
But these things were not yet. Still I dreamed by my study lamp. I saw a mighty host of men and ships; fifteen hundred sail did I count in line. But the men wore no fine raiment; they were clad in steel and carried battle-axes and swords. Every knight wore on his left shoulder a crusader’s cross. And I saw the King, grown stern and gray, lead them toward a foreign shore, where there dwelt men who worshipped idols. And there by night the pagan hosts fell upon them in such multitudes that the King’s men were swallowed up as sands by the sea. I saw them struggling in darkness and dread in which no man knew friend from foe, and the Christians were driven back in despair, their standards taken; and a great cry arose that all was lost.