The poor old queen-dowager was so kind and good, so affable and motherly, and bore her diminished fortune with such philosophical equanimity of temper, that it was impossible not to love and respect her; but she prosed sometimes, and inflicted upon us interminable stories of Holger Danske, King Waldemar, and Lille Torve, and repeated the profound sayings of that pedantic blockhead, her son-in-law, the King of Scotland.*
* The pen has been drawn through this in the original. In 1694, Lord Molesworth gave an account of Denmark similar to that which follows. It proved so offensive to the Danes, that their king demanded, by his ambassador, the author's head, from King William of Orange.
During my residence at Nyekiöbing, I discovered why King Christian, the patron of poetry and the drama, employed so many Scots, Irish, German, and French soldiers of fortune to fight his battles; for, unlike the Holsteiners, the majority of his subjects had really lost much of their ancient bravery, and, being somewhat addicted to cheating, were, as usual with the false, full of mistrust of others. In short, they loved not to wage war, while they could get so many gallant Scots and Irishmen to wage it for them; but, oppressed by its consequences, poverty and poor fare were every where apparent. The slavish boors fed on roots, rye-bread, and salted fish; the burghers or citizens on lean flesh, stock-fish, bacon, and bad cheese. When the land is sold, the men, their wives and children who inhabit it, go with the freehold, like the trees and walls thereon. Their songs bore a strong resemblance to the old ballads sung by our Border harpers; and I have no doubt that many of those ancient lays which the Goths brought out of the East, and which Tacitus mentions in his account of the Germans, might be traced among our Scottish hills, where the wandering bards of other times have brought them from Denmark.
I found them great vaunters, too, those Danes. It was their frequent boast that they were the conquerors of England, and this is graven on the tombs of many of their kings. Thus at Roskilde, on the graves of Harold VII., of Sueno III., and others, they are always designated Rex Daciæ, Angliæ et Norvegiæ. Being Scots, we could not quarrel with these assumptions, as they did not concern us; the Baron Fœyœ in particular, when the schnaps or corn brandy were more potent than usual, was a vehement upholder of the ancient Danish glory, of which Ian was always somewhat sceptical.
"I assure you it is a fact, Herr Rollo," the baron would say, counting on his fingers; "we have defeated the Swedes in twenty-two pitched battles, and made them swear allegiance to four-and-twenty of our kings. We have overthrown the Norsemen in thirty-two battles. Russia has paid tribute to eight of our monarchs; we have conquered Ireland eight, and England ten times. Canute IV. conquered Livonia, and Helgo won Saxony by his sword; while Courland, Esthonia, and Prussia, have all, at various times, belonged to the Danish crown."
"Thank God, and the stout hearts of our fathers, these conquering Danes never found aught but their graves on Scottish ground!" Ian would retort with a grim look; "and you may see them yet, Herr Baron, on the battle-fields of Crail, Cru-dane, and Luncarty; but I marvel much that the descendants of these enterprising rovers, are unable to hold yonder poor peninsula of Juteland against the soldiers of Wallenstein, Tilly, and Merodé."
From our dreamy mode of passing the time, we were roused to our active military labours by the opening spring; and, from leading the quiet life of a very Dutchman, I was soon to become immersed in a succession of the most stirring incidents.
The season was that which at home in Britain we call spring; but in those northern isles of Denmark the snow lay thick upon the land, and with its dreary sheets the white field-ice covered all the Baltic and the Guldborg Sound; for that infallible authority who exists every where, the oldest inhabitant of Nyekiöbing, could not remember a season so cold or so severe. From my windows, which overlooked the Sound on one side, and the castle garden on the other, the view was intensely desolate and dreary.
The fortress was very old, and my chamber was hung with faded tapestry, representing the martyrdom of Erik Plogpenning, and his ghastly body gashed with fifty-six wounds; my bed was an immense antique four-poster of the most alarming dimensions, old perhaps as the days of Holger Danske, and completely shrouded by curtains of sombre blue velvet. A tall wardrobe and cabinet of walnut wood, a table and two chairs of oak, all curiously and somewhat barbarously carved, made up the furniture; while the stone fireplace was so capacious, that within it I could stand upright with my bonnet on. And so thick were the walls, that even at noonday, but a dim light straggled through the strongly barred and deeply embayed windows.
A mound—doubtless the barrow in which reposed the bones of some bold Cimbric warrior—lay under the castle wall. Therein as the Baron Fœyœ told me, dwelt a vast number of little Trolds, all clad in green dresses, with heavy ungainly persons, long noses, crooked backs, and red caps. He averred having seen them at a festival on St John's night; when the mound opened, its womb seemed full of light, and there, around a dead man's skeleton, were the little Trolds seen dancing, drinking fairy wine out of limpet shells, and keeping in thrall the wife of Heinrich Vüg (the Royal gateward), whom they had spirited away, and who had not the power to return to her spouse; though he frequently heard her wailing, when, in the calm summer evenings, he sat on the summit of the mound, smoking his long pipe, and reflecting that, all things considered, his bereavement was not so hard that it could not be borne patiently.