A Danish Parsonage

by John Fulford Vicary

"'That's easy to answer,' replied the clerk. 'The fact is, you think I am the priest, but I am only the clerk.'

"'Then go you home and be priest, and, let the priest be clerk,' commanded the king."

"A very excellent story," said Hardy, "and, as you say, shows a strong sense of rough justice and humour."

"There is a child's story," said the Pastor, "with its humour; but it is very simple, as all stories of the people should be. A boy found a pretty box in a wood, but he could not open it, for it was locked. A little further he found a key. The question was whether the key would fit the box. He blew into the key and put the key into the lock, when lo! it fitted, and the box opened. But can you guess what was in the box? No, of course not. There was a calf's tail in the box, but if the calf's tail had been longer, so would this story be."

"But that is a Norwegian story," said Hardy. "Are there none essentially Danish?"

"They are related to some extent in H. C. Andersen's stories, and they have been translated into English. There is a story, however, that may not have been translated. A king and queen had no children; but a beggar came to her and said, 'You can have a son, if you will let me be his godfather when he is christened.' The queen assented. The queen had a son, but the king had to go to war to quell a rebellion. The king made her promise that she would nurse the child herself, and not trust to nurses and other people. The queen did so, and the beggar stood godfather. The beggar bent down over the child, and said that everything it wished for it should have. This the king's attendant heard. He was accustomed to attend the king when hunting, and he thought that such a child was worth possessing. The queen, however, watched the child night and day. One day she was in a summer-house and had fallen asleep, with the child in her lap; when she woke the child was gone. When the king returned, he had a tower built in a wood, and he walled the queen up in it, as a punishment for losing the child. The attendant brought the child up as his own, and there was no suspicion. He took the child, when grown up, out hunting when the king went, and taught him to wish for such and such a head of game, and if he shot an arrow at it, he always hit. The king could not understand how so young a hunter could always be so successful, but the attendant assured him that it was only a sure hand and eye. The attendant had meanwhile become very rich, by getting the king's son to wish him to be so. The attendant had taken a girl into his service, who grew up to be very beautiful. She had suspicions that all was not right, and asked the attendant; but he would not tell her. At last the attendant told her the boy must be killed, and she must do it, and cut out his tongue, to show him that she had murdered him. She, however, killed a hind, and cut out its tongue, and showed the attendant the tongue. The attendant thought she had done as she was told, and told her the story, which the king's son heard from a place where she had hid him. The king's son immediately wished the attendant should be a three-legged dog, that must always follow him. He wished the girl to be a rose and put her in his button-hole. The king's son then attended the court, as the king wished to go hunting. 'Where is the attendant?' asked the king. 'He is here close by,' said the king's son. The king was satisfied with the answer, and went out hunting. The king's son led the hunt to the tower where the queen was walled in, and wished that the tower might fall down and the queen be found in it yet living. This happened, although she had been there seventeen years. The prince then took the rose out of his button-hole, and married the girl who had so well served him."

"A graphic story," said Hardy, "and has the same tendency that you attributed to the Norwegian stories of the people, or Folke-Eventyr."

"There is a story more peculiarly belonging to Jutland," said Pastor Lindal, "and that is of a Trold who lived in a wood in a large Kæmpehøi, or tumulus. He was an old grey-bearded Trold, and the people in the district were afraid of him. There was an old woman who lived near with her son. They had a cow, and it was difficult to get grass for it, particularly in the winter. The boy took the cow and grazed it on the Trold's Kæmpehøi. The Trold came out and objected, and threatened, and drove the boy and the cow away. The boy, however, got a piece of soft cheese from his mother, and stole a bird sitting on its eggs in a nest, these he put in his pocket; so the next day he took the cow to the same place, and the Trold came out and threatened. The Trold took up a stone and pressed it in his hand, so that water came from it, to show how he could crush him. The boy said that is nothing, and took the cheese from his pocket and pressed it, so that it appeared as if he was squeezing more out of a stone than the Trold could. So the Trold said, 'I will throw a stone up, and you can count until it comes down. The boy did so, and counted up to one hundred and thirty-one. 'That is good!' said the boy. 'But now count for the stone I cast;' and the Trold counted, but the boy threw the bird up in the air, and of course it flew away. The Trold was astonished, and asked the boy if he would come into his service. The first thing was to fetch water, as the Trold wanted to brew. The Trold had a large bucket to fetch water, which the boy could not even lift; so he said, 'This will not do at all; we had best fetch in the river.' But this the Trold could not do. The boy behaved in the same way with fetching turf and fuel; and when the Trold went out to pick nuts, he picked up stones and gave the Trold to crack. This gave him the toothache, but the boy advised him to fill his mouth full of water and sit on the fire until it boiled. This did not succeed, and so the boy continued to tease the Trold until he compassed his destruction, and taking all the Trold's gold and silver, he went home, and had enough to live on all his days, with his mother."

"I have heard a parallel story from many lands," said Hardy.

"That is true enough; it is a story very widespread, with different incidents and features," said the Pastor.