“Count Gerhardt of Holstein was then (Jan. 1340) in Lubeck. He heard tidings that his sister’s son, Count of Sleswik, had made agreement with the Danes that they should establish the aforesaid Valdemar (V. Atterdag, King Christopher’s son) in the kingdom, and marry him to Hedvig, the Duke’s sister. Moreover, the Count knew well that many nobles and cities would fain, for the sake of peace, have a King in the land.... Count Gerhardt sent far and wide for help, and there came to him much people.... He invaded North Jutland.... Not long thereafter the Count fell sick in Randers.... It was his custom, when he was able, to sit up at night with his chaplain, and keep the Hours like a priest. When the Danes learnt his whereabouts, sixty doughty karls assembled, came to Randers on Thursday night (April 1, 1340) and, as though they were the night-watch for the sleeping army, took possession of a stone house. When the Count had read his Hours and lain down again, they came and struck him dead in his bed, with his chaplain and three pages. This heard a renowned knight from Westphalia, Henrik von Vitinghof, whose lodging was hard by: he came forth and attacked them, but they escaped, each his own way, without hurt. The foreign men-at-arms are much to be blamed for defending their lord so ill; and they were forced with shame and scathe to return to the far countries whence they came.”
We learn from other sources that the patriots fired a house to divert the Germans’ attention, and that they escaped over Randers Bridge, which—having previously loosened the timbers—they broke down behind them. Thus they, and their leader Niels Ebbeson, saved Denmark from becoming a German province.
Little or nothing, apart from this exploit, is known of Niels Ebbeson; his very dwelling-place, “Noringsris”—“Norroway” in one version of his Ballad—is unidentified. He and two of his brothers fell, fighting against the Holsteiners, at Skanderborg, on November 1, 1340; and their bodies were taken to the family burial-place in Vestervig monastic church.
Three noble families claimed him; but recent researches have proved that he belonged to the Strangesons, chieftains in Ty, and descendants of Ebbe Skammelson (see No. 11), which family played a prominent part during the first half of the fourteenth century. They were connected by blood and intermarriage with another clan of Strangesons, with the Frosters, Ove Haas, Niels Bugge, and the Globes of Vendesyssel. (This Ove Haas was a partisan of Count Gerhardt’s, and fell at Randers.) In the opening dialogue of the Ballad the Count hints at Ebbeson’s rumoured complicity with Bugge, leader of the rebellion, and tries generally to discover the attitude of Niels’ powerful connections. With the latter’s defence of Anders Frost, the trial of wits becomes a quarrel—for here the German and Danish systems of fealty are brought into collision.
The services of the vassal, by German law, belonged from birth to his liege lord, with whose consent alone could the contract be broken; whereas the Danish chieftainship was based on the Law of Commutation, which gave the vassal the annual right to “take leave” (Orlov tage) and serve another chieftain. Twice over in the Ballad does Ebbeson gives his “swains” the choice whether or no they will follow him into danger; and twice over the system of free-will service is vindicated by their answer.
Valiant attempts have been made by Danish antiquaries to identify “Swain Trøst”—Vedel, for instance, provided him with a name and a family—just as their English confrères would fain find an original for Robin Hood. But this Trusty Page had no local habitation: his very name is borrowed from the Ballad of Young Danneved; for the Svend Trøst who saves his lord at a pinch is a figure frequently found in the ballad-world. Popular imagination, through him, does honour to all his class.
This Ballad is obviously the work of a minstrel (not contemporary with Niels), and is not associated with the Dance.
The Revised Conclusion is by another hand, and slightly later in date than the original version. A third exists, very imperfectly preserved, which is more historically accurate than either. It replaces Anders Frost by Esge, his father, and depicts Niels as asking aid of his brother Knud Ebbeson of Bygholm. We learn from it—with regret—that Niels’ speech to his house-carles, and Swain Trøst’s achievement, are the inventions of an admiring posterity.
One other poetical pæan must be quoted—the song-burst of a grave chronicler:
“M semel et ter C bis binos X lege per te.