"That is very possible," replied Pastor Lindal. "The same landscape painted by different artists would make each their impression; how much more, then, would nature, with influences we cannot understand, produce different effects?"
Mrs. Hardy looked as if a fresh field of thought was opened to her, and her son observed his mother's look of surprise.
"I have been often astonished," he said, "to hear from Pastor Lindal and Helga a similar cast of thought that has given me something to think of for long after. I think it is the outcome of a natural singleness of thought we do not often meet."
"I believe you are right, John," said his mother. "But possibly Herr Pastor can tell us a tradition of Svendborg;" and she raised her voice and addressed him.
"There is the tradition of St. Jørgen," he said, "or, as you call it in English, St. George and the dragon. The features of the story, of course, are the same; with us the tradition runs as follows:—There was a temple inhabited by a dragon, who issued from it and laid waste the country. Each day the monster craved a human life, until at last lots were drawn as to who should be the victim, and from this neither the king nor his family were exempt, and the lot fell on his only daughter. The king offered half his kingdom to any one who should destroy the dragon. A knight called Jørgen attempted to do so, by putting poisoned cakes in the dragon's way; but that availed nothing. He then attacked it, and the monster retreated to Svendborg; but it again came forth, and a combat between the knight and the dragon ensued. The dragon was slain, and where its poisonous blood poured out no grass will grow. The combat is said to be delineated on the church bells. It is very probably only an echo of the Greek story of Perseus and Andromeda. You will observe the dragon in our tradition is said to have issued from a temple. We had no temples, the Greeks had.
"There are not many special traditions connected with Svendborg. There is the story of a noble lady who was murdered at Svendborg, but the murderers were men of rank, and the whole town agreed to pay blood-money, and some farms were apportioned to the murdered woman's relatives and a wooden cross set up over her grave; and it was agreed that when the wooden cross fell into decay, whoever first repaired it should possess the farm so apportioned. The consequence was that a wooden cross was always kept ready to repair the original cross. This story has many variations and is differently localized."
"Are there not many proverbs with regard to the weather, or the like, in Denmark?" asked Hardy.
"There are, but they are identical with the English," replied the Pastor. "There are some that may be new; for instance, we say that there is always some sun on a Saturday, that the poor may dry the clothes they wash. The farmers also say that if the priest takes his text from St. Luke in preaching his Sunday's sermon, it is sure to rain. Also, that a southerly wind is like a woman's anger, it always ends in weeping. Of days in the week we say, that if it rains on a Sunday and a Monday it will rain the whole week. Again, we say—
'Søndags Veir til Middag
Er Ugens Veir til Fredag.'
'Sunday's weather to midday
Is the week's weather to Friday.'
There is another of the same character: