This poet did much to encourage the home industries of the moor-dwellers, being in sympathy with them, as well as with their lonely moorlands.
The old-time moor-dwellers' habitations have become an interesting museum in Herning. This little mid-Jutland town is in the centre of the moors, so its museum contains a unique collection from the homes of these sturdy peasants. The amount of delicate needlework these lonely, thrifty folks accomplished in the long winter days is surprising. This "Hedebo" needlework is the finest stitchery you can well imagine, wrought on home-spun linen with flaxen thread. Such marvellous patterns and intricate designs! Little wonder that the best examples are treasured by the nation. The men of the family wore a white linen smock for weddings and great occasions. So thickly are these overwrought with needlework that they will stand alone, and seem to have a woman's lifetime spent upon them. Needless to say, these family garments were handed down as heirlooms from father to son.
Knitting, weaving, the making of Jyde pottery and wooden shoes (which all wear), are among the other industries of these people.
As we journey through Skjern and down the west coast to Esbjerg, the end of our journey, we notice the picturesque attire of the field-workers. An old shepherd, with vivid blue shirt and sleeveless brown coat, with white straggling locks streaming over his shoulders, tends his few sheep. This clever old man is doing three things at once—minding his sheep, smoking his pipe, and knitting a stocking. The Danes are great knitters, men and women being equally good at it. Many girls are working in the fields, their various coloured garments making bright specks on the landscape. Occasionally a bullock-cart slowly drags its way across the field-road, laden with clattering milk-cans. We pass flourishing farmsteads, with storks' nests on the roofs. The father-stork, standing on one leg, keeping guard over his young, looks pensively out over the moors, thinking, no doubt, that soon it will not be worth his while to come all the way from Egypt to find frogs in the marshes! For the indefatigable Dalgas has roused the dilatory Danes to such good purpose that soon the marshes and waste lands of Jutland will be no more.
[CHAPTER IX]
[THE PEOPLE'S AMUSEMENTS]
"Have you been in Tivoli?" is the first question a Copenhagener would ask you on your arrival in the gay capital. If not, your Danish friend will carry you off to see these beautiful pleasure-gardens. Tivoli is for all classes, and is the most popular place of amusement in Denmark. This delightful summer resort is the place of all others in which to study the jovial side of the Danish character. Even the King and his royal visitors occasionally pay visits, incognito, to these fascinating gardens, taking their "sixpenn'orth of fun" with the people, whose good manners would never allow them to take the slightest notice of their monarch when he is enjoying himself in this way. To children Tivoli is the ideal Sunday treat. Every taste is catered for at Tivoli, and the Saturday classical concerts have become famous, for one of the Danes' chief pleasures is good music. Tivoli becomes fairyland when illuminated with its myriad lights outlining the buildings and gleaming through the trees. The light-hearted gaiety of the Dane is very infectious, and the stranger is irresistibly caught by it. The atmosphere of unalloyed merriment which pervades when tables are spread under the trees for the alfresco supper is distinctly exhilarating. These gardens have amusements for the frivolous also, such as switchbacks, pantomimes of the "Punch and Judy" kind, and frequently firework displays, which last entertainment generally concludes the evening.
The Royal Theatre in Copenhagen is a national school of patriotism, and the healthy spirit of its plays has an ennobling effect on the people. Everything is Danish here, and Denmark is the only small nation in Europe which has successfully founded a national dramatic art. The "Molière of the North," Ludwig Holberg, was the father of the Danish drama, and the first to make the people realize the beauty of their own language. This gifted Dane was a great comedy-writer, and had the faculty of making his fellows see the comic side of their follies.
The "Royal Ballet" played at this theatre is quite distinctive. Bournonville, its creator, was a poet who expressed himself in motion instead of words, and these "dumb poems" appeal strongly to the Scandinavian character. This poet aimed at something more than spectacular effects upon the people: his art consisted in presenting instructive tableaux, which, while holding the attention of his audience, taught them their traditional history. The delicate daintiness of the Danish ballet everyone must appreciate. The exquisite and intricate dances, together with the magnificent tableaux, are accompanied by wild and magical music of Danish composition. Bournonville ballets represent scenes from classical mythology, as well as from ancient Scandinavian history, and the Danish people are much attached to this Northern composer of ballet. "Ei blot til Lyst"—Not only for pleasure—is the motto over this National Theatre door, and it is in the Ballet School here that the young Danes begin their training. These young folk take great pleasure in learning the beautiful dances, as well as in the operatic and dramatic work which they have to study, for they must serve a certain period in this, as in any other profession.