In the evenings we had a little ball, and danced to the flute and tabor, or, at times, to the great war-pipe of Torquil Gorm, which shook the dust from the rafters of the hall. At times, the old queen told us legends of the Trolds, or of the imps that haunted the ancient church of Nyekiöbing.
Like every old building in the Danish isles, it had a nis (or brownie) attached to it. This spirit kept the seats clean and swept the aisles, arranged the cushions and dusted the pulpit. He was seldom seen at these duties, but was known to wear a green dress and conical red hat, which on the feast of St. Michael he regularly exchanged for a broad Spanish beaver, which overshadowed the whole of his squat figure. He was called the kirckegrim, and for his use a basin of groute was deposited every night in the vestry, by the wife of the beadle. Once this was omitted, and the spirit, in revenge, turned all her holiday garments into clouted rags. King Waldemar, the wild huntsman, was another source of many a legend, to which all the old queen's listeners gave implicit faith.
"Every night he rides across Laaland at this season," the queen would say, "and sweeps over the Möens-klint."
"I, myself, have heard him approaching," the Baron Fœyœ would add in corroboration; "once on St. John's night, when crossing the rocky ridges of the Möens-klint, I heard on the midnight wind a shouting and winding of horns, the barking of dogs, and the rushing sound of a mighty wind, coming up as from the waters of the Grön-sünd."
"And you knew the approach of Waldemar," said the old queen, all attention, as we drew our chairs closer round the glowing hearth—"of the wild huntsman?"
"My heart seemed frozen within me, and when the spirit passed before me, as the book of Job saith, 'the hair of my flesh stood up.' A storm of wind swept over the dark ridges of the Möens-klint, there was a gleam of lightning, and in the passing flash I saw the coal-black hounds of Waldemar, with long red tongues hanging out of their foam-covered mouths, as they ran snuffing and questing among the grass."
"And what aspect had Waldemar?" asked twenty voices in whispers.
"The aspect of a gigantic shadow, brandishing a hunting-sword; and his horse was but a shadow, for the stars shone through them both as they swept into the hollow, and I heard the clatter of farm-gates, the crackle of roofs, and the crash of chimneys, as the infernal train sped over Klintholun and vanished in the distance."
Told by the winter fire, while the night wind rumbled hollowly in the vast tunnelled chimney of the old castle hall, some of these wild legends were more impressive than any relation of mine can make them.
My company lay in winter quarters at the fort of Nyekiöbing for four months, during a most severe winter, in which (after having had the extremity of summer heat) we had to endure the extremity of cold. Over our cuirasses we wore doublets of fur or sheepskin, and my soldiers of course retained their tartan kilts, to the astonishment of the Danes, who were ignorant of the actual warmth and comfort of the Scottish garb; for one accustomed to it, feels less cold in his knees than other men do in their faces. The Guhlborg Sound was frozen over; even the Baltic was clothed with ice, which stood, as it seemed, in silent waves, and covered by long accumulated snow. All the adjacent isles, Möen, Nyord, and Bogöe, were covered with the same white mantle, and we travelled between them on sledges; but the cold was so much more severe than even the most hardy of our men were accustomed to, that I am sure they spent nearly all their pay in potent corn brandy.