A Danish Parsonage

by John Fulford Vicary

"I guess it to be so; but we will soon see," replied Hardy, as he took a little spring balance out of his pocket, and held it up to her with the trout on it. "That little line is the half-pound, and the fish pulls the spring to that line."

"What a pretty thing to weigh with! Is it silver?" asked Helga.

"Yes, it is silver," replied Hardy. "I will leave it with you, with the rest of the fishing gear, on the condition that the first time you catch a trout weighing one pound you write and tell me all about it."

"Yes, that I will!" said Helga. "I write my father's letters, and shall have to write to you for him about Rosendal."

At breakfast, Helga described to her father all the little incidents of the morning, and her bright fresh look testified to the benefit of early morning exercise.

"I think, Helga," said the Pastor, "that when Karl is gone, you had better go fishing in the morning with Axel; you look the better for it."

When the tobacco parliament was opened that evening, and the Pastor had finished puffing like a small steam launch to get his porcelain pipe well lit. Hardy asked him if there was anything in the superstitions of Jutland, corresponding to those of the sea, about the rivers.

"Yes," replied the Pastor. "Our Danish word for river is 'Aa' (pronounced like a broad o). Thus, the Gudenaa is the Guden river. The tradition is that each river has its Aamand or river man, who every year craves a life; if a year passes without a victim, he can be heard at night saying, 'The time and hour are come, but the victim is not yet come.' Sometimes the Aamand is called Nøkken."

"That is the Norsk name," said Hardy. "In Scotland they have a superstition as to changelings; that is, a human child is stolen and a child of the Trolds substituted. This is referred to by Sir Walter Scott in one of his poems. Does anything of the sort exist in your Jutland traditions?"

"There are several varied stories," replied Pastor Lindal. "One is of a couple who had a very pretty child; they lived near a wood called Rold Wood. The Trolds came one night and stole the child, leaving one of their own in its place. The man and his wife did not at first notice any change, but the wife gradually became suspicious, and she asked the advice of a wise woman, who told her to brew in a nutshell, with an eggshell as beer barrel, in the changeling's presence, who exclaimed that it had lived so many years as to have seen Rold Wood hewn down and grow up three times, but had never seen any one brew in a nutshell before. 'If you are as old as that,' said the wife, 'you can go elsewhere;' and she took the broom-stick and beat the changeling until it ran away, and as it ran he caught his feet in his hands and rolled away over hill and dale so long as they could see it. This story has a variation that they made a sausage with the skin, bones, and bristles of a pig, and gave the changeling, who made the same exclamation, with the result as I have before related. There is also another variation, where the changeling is got rid of by heating the oven red hot and putting it into the oven, when the Trold mother appears and snatches it out, and disappears with her child."