“To brew and bake full well ye know”—
“Alas, Sir King, not so, not so.
“To brew and bake we do not know,
We never stoop’d to employ so low.
“To spin red gold that is our pride,
Our mother taught us ere she died.
“And we can weave galloon as well
As the maidens with the Queen that dwell.
“We can weave red gold with wool,
But oh, our hearts with grief are full.
“Had Marsk Stig stay’d in Denmark green,
Different far our fate had been.
“Had Ingeborg not chanc’d to die,
We had not borne this misery.”
King Erik replied in gentle tone:
“I knew your father like my own;
“He was a man in heart and hand,
Whose like lives not in any land.”
O’er them he threw his mantle red,
To the ladies’ chamber them he led.