The chapel of the castle, in which six Danish kings have been crowned, is very elaborately and richly decorated with much of gilding and stucco and carving and many religious paintings. And in it is a gem of a pulpit in ebony and silver. The organ now used is of German manufacture and is three hundred years old. Its keys are of ivory, very thick, and are partially covered with engraved silver plates. The instrument was given to King Christian IV by his German brother-in-law.
After leaving the chapel we spent some time in the park again. The grass was wonderfully green yesterday under the summer sunshine; and there was something peculiarly homelike and cosy about the rounded masses of the dark green trees. It seemed as natural to be on this excursion connected with the castles of Denmark as it was to go off to spend the day among the mountains of my Far West when I was a child. An open-air Sunday appears also to appeal especially to the Danes, for there were great numbers of happy, frank-faced people sitting or walking about the grounds, among the trees, or loitering upon the picturesque arched bridges.
After a time we went to the pavilion where we had luncheon under the trees, in view of the fine old towers of Frederiksborg. Then we drove in a drosky through the beautiful National Forest to Fredensborg Castle, which was built in commemoration of peace between Denmark and Sweden (“Fred”—pronounced with a long e—means peace in Danish). This is situated upon the beautiful lake, Esrom Sö, and is the autumnal residence of the Danish royal family. It is by no means as pretentious as Frederiksborg, but it is pleasant. The buildings are white and have a large octagonal court in front. The interior is richly furnished; there are the usual frescoes and tapestries, rich brocades, gold leaf and carvings. The housekeeper showed us through the rooms. She seemed particularly proud of the dining room, furnished in beautiful blue tints, and possessed of a ceiling of remarkable height.
One room, called the “Garden Room,” is lighted with many great windows which overlook a garden of the French style, containing a number of marble statues and marble vases thrown into sharp relief against smooth-cut lawns and trim flower beds. But I have always felt that there is something painfully incongruous about a carved marble vase with carved marble flowers out in a garden filled with Nature’s own floral triumphs; and white marble statues in such a setting are suggestive of graveyards and ghosts. We cared much more for the broad park of the Castle of Peace; it is the most beautiful park that I have ever seen. Spreading trees in soft, curving masses are scattered over the rolling grassy slopes in a manner charming indeed; but the real glory of the park is the avenues lined with gigantic Danish beeches, the branches meeting overhead. To such trees can the adjective “noble” be well applied. The only similar avenues that I know of in our own land are those shaded by great plane trees on the Capitol grounds at Washington. But at Fredensborg there are wonderful vistas that Washington does not possess. Through one leafy arcade we caught a glimpse of a white-winged yacht sailing on the blue surface of the lake and outlined against the bluer summer sky; at the end of another avenue were the towers of Frederiksborg Castle looming above the clustering trees. I was quite moved by the perfection of the varied scenery, and wandered about the gardens of the Castle of Peace in the hope of absorbing something lasting from it all.
“In Denmark there lies a castle named Kronborg,” wrote Hans Christian Andersen in his tale of “Holger Danske,” which I read and loved as a child. But as a child I only dreamed of grand old Kronborg; yesterday I saw the castle of my dreams. As all lovers of Shakespeare know, it is at the town of Elsinore—called by the Danes Helsingör—and is situated at the entrance to Öresund. This guardian of the Sound was built by Frederick II in the last part of the sixteenth century. Three broad red brick walls surround the old fortress, and from between the ancient bricks sturdy young trees have sprouted; a fair-sized young oak has also forced its way through the iron-barred window of the inner wall.
Kronborg is still a fortress and still guards the Sound, but not as jealously as of yore; for more than a century the cannon of the castle have boomed only in friendly greeting to passing vessels. As Andersen put it, this is the cannon’s way of saying “Good-day” and “Thank you.”
First we explored the interior of the inner wall of the castle, following a droll old guard who carried a lighted torch. In the seventeenth century when the Swedes overran Denmark they got control of the castle and held it for some time. The Swedish general used one of the large rooms as his office. In another room still stands the great cooking tank—heated by means of a fireplace in the wall—in which could be prepared food enough for three thousand men at one time. Near at hand are manger-like bins of stone, in which the invaders stored their food supply. In the bottom of one of these receptacles were some patches of white and yellow plaster which had fallen from the wall above. These the Danish guard solemnly declared, with a tiny twinkle in his eye, were Swedish fried eggs left in the hurry of the final Swedish departure from Kronborg. Below the floor containing the kitchens and store rooms are mostly dungeons—terrible, dark, airless, dripping dungeons—many of them V-shaped with places for iron gates which were graduated in size so as to make the inclosures smaller and smaller, finally becoming mere cages in which the poor imprisoned wretches had not sufficient space to lie down.
Stork Fountain, Copenhagen
