A Danish Parsonage

by John Fulford Vicary

The next day, as soon as signs of the tobacco parliament were apparent by Frøken Helga filling and lighting her father's pipe, Karl and Axel, who had been interested in listening to the conversation on traditions the previous evening, besought Hardy to lead Pastor Lindal to the same subject.

"The many ancient burial places existing all over Jutland," said Hardy, "must have given rise to traditions of hidden treasure. Our English word for these tumuli is barrows."

"And ours," said the Pastor, "is Kæmpehøi, or Kæmpedysse, meaning a fighting man's burial place; the verb to fight is kæmpe, and present Danish. It was, however, a custom to bury treasure in secluded places, and to kill a slave at the place that his ghost might guard the treasure. There is a tumulus or barrow between Viborg and Holstebro. It is related that this barrow was formerly always covered with a blue mist, and that a copper kettle full of money was buried there. One night, however, two men dug down to the kettle, and seized it by the handle; but immediately wonderful things happened, with a view of preventing them from taking away the kettle and the money—first, they saw a black dog with a red hot tongue; next, a cock drawing a load of hay; then a carriage with four black horses. The men, however, pursued their occupation without uttering a word. But at last came a man, lame in one foot, halting by, and he said, 'Look, the town is on fire!' The two men looked, and sure enough the town appeared to them to be on fire. One of them uttered an exclamation, and the kettle and the treasure sank in the earth far beyond their reach. There are many of these stories, but the principle inculcated is, that when digging for treasure it must be carried out in perfect silence. You will have observed that a great many of the tumuli you have met with in Denmark have been opened. This has chiefly been done by the hidden-treasure seekers; but it has had one good result, and that is, it has enriched the museums in Denmark, especially that of Northern Antiquities in Copenhagen. You have probably seen the museum in Bergen, Norway. You will have seen precisely the same type of subjects there as in Copenhagen; and in the tumuli in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, what has been found is, coeteris paribus, identical in type."

"You said just now that a slave was killed at places where treasure was hidden," said Hardy; "is there much belief in that direction?"

"Yes; the belief in ghosts was very strong," replied the Pastor, "and still exists. The general view was that if a man's conduct was criminal in a high degree, that within three days after he 'walked;' that is, his ghost appeared at the places he had been attached to when in life, attended by more or less supernatural attributes. This, of course, arose from our Saviour's resurrection on the third day; but as to this, I will tell you a tradition that is an exception. There was once a man who was exceptionally wicked and bad; he was a thief and a robber, never went to church, and committed all manner of crimes. When he died and was buried in the churchyard, and the people who had attended the funeral had returned to the man's house to drink the Gravøl—that is the beer that was specially brewed for consumption at a funeral—lo! there was the dead and buried man sitting on the roof of the house, glaring down on all those who ventured to look up at him. The priest was sent for, and he exorcised the ghost, and ordered him to remain, until the world's end, at the bottom of a moss bog, and to keep him there had a sharp stake driven through him; but, notwithstanding, the ghost rises at night, but as he cannot, from the exorcising of the priest, assume human form, he flies about in the likeness of the bird we call the night raven until cock crow."

"In English," said Hardy, "the night jar. It was the practice in England to bury suicides with a stake driven through their bodies at four cross-ways. It is possible that this arose from a desire to prevent the ghost of the dead person from troubling the living, and being at a four cross-ways, that it should not know which direction to take."

"It may be so," said Pastor Lindal; "but in discussing these things we are apt, as in philology, to assume our own comparisons to be correct. We have also the traditions of spectral huntsmen, with the accompaniment of horses and hounds with red-hot glowing tongues; and, singularly enough, the tradition often occurs that their quarry was the Elle-kvinder, that is women of the elves, but who are described as of the size of ordinary women. The spectral huntsmen have often been seen with the Elle-kvinder tied to their saddles by their hair."

"Your traditions of witches," said Hardy, "appear to be similar to ours. You appear to have burnt and thrown them into ponds to drown after the same cruel custom as in England."

"True," replied the Pastor, "and the description in Macbeth of witches answers to our traditions. On St. John's night witches were supposed to fly to Bloksberg, a mythical place in Norway, upon broomsticks and in brewing tubs. There they met Gamle Erik, the evil one, who entered their names in his ledger, and instructed them in witchcraft, and, after executing the witches' dance, they returned to their respective homes in the same fashion. This tradition is common to other countries, but in Jutland the belief was that the favourite form a witch adopted was that of a hare, which evaded the huntsmen, and could not be shot except by a piece of silver, which must have been inherited—a piece of silver purchased or given had no effect. The witch was then found in the person of some old woman with a wound, who was forthwith dealt with in the cruel fashion then the rule. The gypsies, or, as they are called with us, Tâtarfolk, from their eastern origin, drove a good business by professing to cure the effects of witchcraft; they generally managed to cause the ill effect, however, before they cured it. They would give a drug to a farmer's cow, and call a few days after and offer to drive away the witch that possessed the cow. They would take with them a black furry doll tied to a string. A hole was dug several feet deep in the cowhouse; suddenly the black furry thing was at the bottom of the hole, just sufficient for some of the people to see it when it disappeared. That was the witch; the cow was, of course, cured by an antidote."

"The gypsy is common enough in England," said Hardy; "but they do less in telling fortunes or in thieving farmyards then formerly was their custom. They appear to do a good business in small wares, as brushes and mats, which they take about in vans."