“Do thou hear, Sir Ove Hals!
Do to me no injury!
Thou my faithful cousin art,
Prythee, Ove, let me flee.”
“Our affinity I know
Well I know its near degree;
But my Lord you’ve foully slain,
Niels! I will not let thee flee.”
Bleat the sheep, the ganders hiss,
Crows the cock upon the wall;
Ove Hals was sore beset,
Must to the Holsteiners call.
’Gainst the Danes he could not stand,
Must to the Holsteiners call;
“Murdered is your liege the Count
Up, and on his butchers fall!”
Fight Sir Ove and Sir Niels,
Ebbesen he would not fly,
He Sir Ove’s head smote off,
Left the corse in blood to lie.
Ebbesen to Randers bridge
Came, there grew the combat hot,
There he found the tiny Frost
Who had late dismissal got.
Niels sped over Randers bridge,
Holstein’s men came thronging after;
What did then the tiny Frost
But the bridge drop in the water.
Thanks to Niels’s sister’s son,
Well he served his uncle then;
In the firth the planks he cast,
No bridge found the Holstein men.
Niels a widow visited,
She’d but barley bannocks two,
One she gave to Niels, because
He the hairless tyrant slew.
Ebbesen! God sain thy soul,
Never was a braver Dane;
Thou didst free thy fatherland
From a foreign tyrant’s chain.