The Danes Sketched by Themselves Volume I Part 17

Shaking with fear in every limb, in a faint voice he said: 'Oh, angel! 'tis not death I dread, but help me out of h.e.l.l!'

The angel laughed: 'You're in good hands--you ought to know us well.

This is the smithy--from your sledge thrown out upon the ground, Lying alone amidst the snow half-frozen you were found; And I'm no angel, bless your heart! I'm Annie, don't you see?'

Rubbing his eyes, and staring round, up Morten jumped in glee; And that he soon forgot his fright 'tis needless to declare-- The roasted goose, the foaming ale, and other Christmas fare, As might be guessed, put all to rights--and Annie by his side At supper sat, that Christmas night, as Morten Lange's bride.

_Note by the Translator_.

The ghost-story alluded to--'Den hvide Qvinde' (The White Woman)--is to be found in Thiele's collection of Danish 'Folkesagn.' This spectre is said to haunt some old ruins near Flensborg. Two soldiers, long, long ago, were keeping their night-watch on the ramparts of the castle; one of them left his post for a short time, and when he was gone the other sentry was approached by a tall female figure in white, who accosted him thus:--'I am an unblessed spirit, who have wandered here for many hundred years, and have never found rest in the grave.' She then informed him that under the walls was buried an immense treasure, which could only be found by _three_ men in the world, and that he was one of the three. The soldier, fancying his fortune made, promised to obey her in all things, and received her command to be on the spot the following midnight. In the meantime the other sentinel had returned to his post, and had overheard what the spectre had related to his comrade. He said not a word, however, but the next night he went to the appointed place, and concealed himself in some recess close by. When the soldier who was to dig for the treasure arrived, with his spade and other implements, the white spectre appeared to him, but knowing that he was watched, she put off the _digging_ till another night. The man who had intended to act as a spy was taken suddenly ill as soon as he got home; and feeling that he was about to die, he sent for his comrade, confessed that he had watched him, implored him to avoid witchcraft and supernatural beings, and recommended him to consult the priest, who was a wise and good man.

The soldier took his advice, and laid the matter before the priest, who directed him to do the spectre's bidding, only taking care that _she_ should be the first to touch the treasure. The man accordingly met the ghost at the appointed time and place, and she showed him the spot where the treasure was deposited; but before taking it up, she told him that one half would be for him, and the other half must be divided between the church and the poor. But the demon of avarice had entered into his heart, and he exclaimed: 'What! shall I not have the whole of it?' Scarcely had these words pa.s.sed his lips, than the spirit uttered a fearful thrilling cry, and disappeared in a blue flame over the castle moat. The soldier was taken ill, and died three days afterwards.

The story became noised about, and a poor student determined to try his luck. He repaired to the old castle at midnight, saw the wandering 'White Woman,' told her his errand and offered his services. But she informed him that he was not one of the chosen three, and could not a.s.sist her, and that the walls would thenceforth stand so firmly, that hand of man should never overthrow them. However, she promised at some future time to reward him for his good intentions.

One day, long after, when he happened to be loitering near the old castle, and thinking with compa.s.sion of the fate of the restless spirit who haunted it, he stumbled over something; and, on stooping to see what it was, he discovered a large heap of gold, of which he forthwith took possession. As foretold by the spectre, the walls of the castle are still standing, and the story goes, that whenever any portion of them has been overthrown, it has always been raised again by invisible agents during the night. Matter-of-fact people a.s.sert that the locality of this ghost tradition is a _hill_, not a _castle_.

A TALE OF JUTLAND.

BY S. S. BLICHER.

I had often beheld the highest hill in Denmark, but had not hitherto ascended it. Frequently as I had been in its neighbourhood, the objects of my journeys had always required me to turn off in another direction, and I was thus obliged to content myself with seeing at some distance the Danish Schwarzwald; and as I pa.s.sed on, to cast a hurried glance down the valleys to the charming lake, dotted with green leafy islets, and which winds, as it were, round jagged tongues of land. At length I overcame all obstacles, and resolved to devote two days to a pleasure-trip amidst this much-admired scenery. My cousin Ludwig, who had just arrived from the capital, agreed to accompany me.

The morning was clear and warm, and gave the promise of a fine evening, but shortly after mid-day there gradually arose in the south-west a range of whitish clouds tinged at the sides with flame-colour. My cousin did not notice them; but I, who am experienced in the signs of the weather, recognized these indications of thunder, and announced to him 'that the evening would not be as fine as the morning.' We were riding exactly in such a direction that we had these clouds opposite to us, and could, therefore, perceive how they kept rising higher and higher, how they became darker at the base, and how they towered like mountains of snow over the summit of the hill. Imagination pictured them to us like the Alps of Switzerland, and we tried to fancy ourselves in that mountainous country; we saw Schreckhorn, Wetterhorn, and the Jungfrau; in the valleys between the clouds we pictured to ourselves the glaciers; and when a solitary ma.s.s of cloud, breaking suddenly, sank down, and seemed to mingle with the mountain chain, we called it an avalanche which would overwhelm villages and scattered chalets with everlasting snow. We continued, absolutely with childish pleasure, to figure to ourselves in the skies the majestic scenery of the Alps, and were quite wrapt up in our voluntary self-deception, when the sudden roar of thunder awoke us from our fantastic dreams. Already there stretched scarcely the thinnest line of light in the heavens above us, and the wood which lay before us seemed as if in a moment enveloped in a thick mist by the fast-falling rain. We had been too long dilatory, and now we rode as hard as possible to reach the nearest village; and we were soaked to the skin before we got to Alling, where we sought shelter under an open gateway.

The owner of the place, an elderly farmer, who seemed a sort of half-savage foreigner to us, received us with old Danish hospitality; he had our horses taken to his stable, and invited ourselves into his warm parlour. As soon as he observed our drenched condition, he offered us garments belonging to his two sons to wear while our own wet ones were dried by the blazing hearth. Joyfully did we avail ourselves of his kind proposal; and in a room upstairs, called the best apartment, we soon made the comfortable change of apparel, while laughing and joking at our unexpected travestie. Equipped as peasant lads in their Sunday's clothes, we shortly after rejoined the family. Our host was much amused at the change in our outward men, and warmly extolled our homely appearance, while his two daughters smiled, and stole sly glances at us--

'Blushed the Valkyries, whilst they turned and laughed.'

The coffee-urn stood ready on the table, surrounded by china cups; the refreshing beverage, amply provided with brown sugar and rich unadulterated cream, poured out and handed by one of the pretty daughters, speedily restored genial heat to our chilled blood; and then the father of the family thought it time to inquire the names, occupations, and places of abode of his unexpected guests.

Meanwhile the thunderstorm had pa.s.sed away; the sun smiled again in the cloudless west; far away to the east, indeed, could still be heard the distant whistling and rattling of the winds, but where we were all was mild and tranquil. The spirits of the storm had folded their dripping wings, and the raindrops sparkled like diamonds upon every leaf and flower. The evening promised once more to resemble the morning in beauty.

'And now for the ascent of the mountains!' we exclaimed to each other.

'But your clothes?' interrupted the farmer. We hastened into an outer room, where the other fair daughter was busy drying them; but, alas!

they were still quite damp, and she said she feared she could not promise that they would be in a fit state to be put on for at least an hour; and then it would probably be too late to enjoy the view from the top of the hill, as the ascent, proceeding from where we were at that moment, would take, perhaps, another hour. What was to be done? The good-natured countryman helped us out of our dilemma.

'If you are not ashamed of wearing the boys' clothes,' said he, 'why should you not keep them on?'

'That is a capital idea,' we both replied, and thanking him for the offer, as we shook hands with him cordially, we asked him where we could find a guide.

'I will myself be your guide,' he said, as he took from a corner a juniper-stick for each of us. We then lost no time in commencing our journey, and still more gaily than before, for we were much amused at our masquerade, especially my cousin, who seemed to feel no small admiration for himself in the rustic blue frock-coat, ornamented with silver b.u.t.tons--the jack-boots--and the head surmounted by a high-crowned hat.

'I sincerely wish,' said he, 'that we could fall in with some other travellers up yonder; that would be great fun.'

Our guide laughed, and hinted that he would not be able to talk like the peasantry.

'Yes, I can though,' said my cousin, who immediately began to speak in the Jutland dialect, to the infinite diversion of the worthy Peder Andersen who, however, found still another stumbling-block to the perfections of the pretended peasant--namely, that his nice white hands would betray him.

'I can put them in my pocket' ('A ka put em i e Lomm),' cried my gay cousin, who was determined to admit of no drawback to his a.s.sumed character.

Presently we reached the river Gudenade, which is here tolerably wide, and has rather a swift current. We crossed in a boat something like a canoe, and then entered on quite another kind of a country; for here commenced the moorlands, covered with heather whose dark tints formed a strong contrast to the bright green on the east of the river. We had yet a good way to walk, and as the heather, which almost reached up to our knees, was still wet with rain, we had good reason to be grateful to our long boots. We approached the wood--a wood of magnificent beech-trees--which appeared to me here doubly beautiful, standing out, as it did, against so dark a background. Amidst sloping dales the path wound always upward; but the thickness of the foliage for a time deprived us of any view. At last we emerged from the wood, and found ourselves upon the open summit of the mountain.

When I hear delightful music, or witness an interesting theatrical representation, I always like to enjoy it for a time in silence.

Nothing acts more unpleasantly, jars more on my feelings, than when any one attempts to call my attention to either. The moment the remark is made to me, 'How beautiful that is!' it becomes less beautiful to me These audible outbursts of admiration are to me like cold shower-baths, they quite chill me. After a time, when I have been left undisturbed, and by degrees have cooled in my excitement, I am willing to exchange thoughts and mingle feelings with those of a friend, or of many friends; indeed, I find desire growing within me to unburden, if I may so express it, my overladen mind. It is thus that a poet utters his inspirations: at the sweet moment when he conceives his ideas, they glow within him, but he is silent; afterwards he feels constrained to give them utterance; the voice or the pen _must_ afford the full heart relief. Our guide's anxiety to please was a dreadful drawback to my comfort, for, with the usual loquacity of a cicerone, he began to point out and describe all the churches that could be described from the place where we were standing, invariably commencing with, 'Yonder you see.' I left my cousin to his elucidation of the country round, and, wandering to some little distance, I sat down where I could _see_, without being compelled to _hear_.

When s...o...b..rg had finished translating Homer into German, he threw down his pen, and exclaimed, despondingly, 'Reader, learn Greek, and burn my translation!' What is a description of scenery but a translation? Yet the most successful one must be as much inferior to the original as the highest hill in Jutland is lower than the highest mountain in Thibet.

Therefore, kind reader, pardon my not describing to you all I saw.

_What_ I saw I might, perhaps, be able to relate to you, but scarcely _how_ I saw it. My pen is no artist's pencil; go yourself and take a view of it! But you, who perhaps have stood on the summit of the Brochen, or of St. Bernard, smile not that I think so much of our little mountain! It is the loftiest that I, or perhaps many of my readers, have beheld; therefore, what is diminutive to you is grand to us.

I was startled in my meditations by a thump on my shoulder--it was from my cousin, who was standing behind me. He informed me that our guide had gone home at least half-an-hour, and that I had been sitting for a long time perfectly motionless, without giving the slightest sign of life. He told me, moreover, that he was tired of such solemn silence, and I must really awaken from my fit of abstraction.

'And at what have you been looking that has engrossed your thoughts so much?' he added.

'The same as you have been looking at,' I replied: 'Air, and earth, and water.'

'Well, cast your eyes down now towards the lake,' said he, handing me his spy-gla.s.s, 'and you will see that there are some strangers coming over this way.'

I took the gla.s.s and perceived a boat a little way from the sh.o.r.e, which seemed to be steering straight across the water; it was full of people, and three straw bonnets indicated that there were women among them. My cousin proposed that we should await their coming, although it would be late before we should reach our quarters for the night at Alling. As the evening was so charming, I willingly consented; we could not have wished a finer one. The sun was about to set, but it seemed to us to sink more slowly than usual, as if it lingered to behold longer the beauty of earth when tinged with its own golden rays. The winds were hushed, not a blade of gra.s.s, not a leaf was stirring. The lake was as a mirror, wherein were reflected the fields, the groves, the houses that lay on its surrounding sides, while here and there, in the valleys towards the west, arose a thin column of smoke from dwellings that were concealed by trees. But if in the air all was silence, sounds enough proceeded from the earth. Feathered songsters carolled in the woods behind us, and before us the heath-lark's love-strains swelled, answering each other from the juniper-bushes. From the bulrushes which grew on the margin of the lake was heard the quacking of the wild ducks; and from a greater distance came the plashing of the fisherman's oar, as he was returning to his home, and the soothing tones of his vesper hymn.

The sun had now sunk below the horizon, and the bells that rang from many a church for evening prayer, summoned the weary labourer to rest and sleep. The heavy dews of night were already moistening the ground, and its mist was veiling the woods, the lake, and the sloping banks.

Now broke upon the ear the cheering yet plaintive music of wind instruments. It seemed to come nearer and nearer, and must undoubtedly have proceeded from the boat we had observed putting off from the opposite sh.o.r.e. When the music ceased, we could distinctly hear the voices of the party in the boat, and presently after the slight noise made by their landing. We stood still for a few minutes, expecting to see them ascending the hill, but soon perceived that, on the contrary, they were going in another direction, for the sound of the voices became fainter and fainter, and was lost at last apparently among the woods to the west. Had it not been that the airs they had played were of the newest fashion, we might have fancied it a fairy adventure--a procession of woodland elves, or the bridal of the elf king himself.

The shades of night were falling around. Here and there a star glimmered faintly in the pale-blue skies. In the north-west was visible a red segment over the horizon, where the king of day was wandering beneath, on his way to lighten another hemisphere. Now, all was still; only at a distance on the heath we heard the plover's melancholy note, and beneath us, on the lake, the whizzing of the water-fowls' wings as they skimmed its darkened surface. 'Let us go homewards now!' cried my cousin. 'Yes, home!' I replied. But we had not gone far before we both stopped at once with a 'Hush! hark!' From the margin of the wood, through which we had just come, issued suddenly the sound of harmonious voices, singing as a duet a Tyrolese air. There is something indescribably charming and touching in this unison of voices, especially in the open air, when the sweet tones seem to float upon the gentle breeze; and now, at the calm evening hour, when the surrounding hills were awakened from the deep repose into which they had just subsided, the sweet tones had the effect of the nightingale's delightful song. My cousin seized my hand and pressed it, as if to entreat that I should not, by any exclamation, disturb his auricular treat. When the vocalists ceased, he sighed deeply. I gazed in astonishment on him; he was in general so gay, and yet at that moment tears actually stood in his eyes! I attributed to the mighty enchantment of music, the power of softening and agitating the hardest and the lightest heart, and I remarked this to him.

'Ah, well!' he replied, 'the human breast is like a sounding-board, which, although untouched, yet gives an echo when certain chords are struck.'

'You are right,' I said; 'as, for instance, the story of the tarantula dance.'

He sighed again, and said gravely,--

'But such chords must be connected with peculiar events--must awaken certain recollections--yes'--he took my hand, and pointing to the trunk of a tree which had fallen, we placed ourselves on it--'yes, my friend, yon air recalls to me a souvenir which I have in vain tried to forget.

Will you listen to the story?'

'Tell it,' I said, 'though I can partly guess what it must be.'

It was on such an evening as this (he continued), about two years ago, that, accompanied by a friend, I had gone on a little tour of pleasure to Lake Esrom. We remained sitting a long time on a fallen tree before we could prevail on ourselves to wend our way homewards, so charmed were we with the beauty of the scenery and of the evening. We had just arisen when a Tyrolese air--the very one you and I have recently heard--sung delightfully as a duet, attracted our attention. It came from the side of the lake, but the sounds appeared to be gradually approaching nearer. We soon heard the plashing of oars, which kept time to the music, and shortly after we saw a boat making for the part of the sh.o.r.e where we were. When the song was ended, there was a great deal of talking and laughing in the boat, and the noise seemed to increase the nearer they came to the sh.o.r.e. We now saw distinctly the little skiff and its merry freight. 'Lay aside your oars!' said one; 'I will steer you straight in to the land.' They did so. 'I know a quicker way of making the land,' cried another, as he sprang up, and striding from gunwale to gunwale, set the boat rocking frightfully. 'Be quiet!

be quiet!' roared a third; 'are you mad? The fool will upset the boat!'

'You shall have a good ducking for that,' said the madcap, swaying the boat still more violently. Then came shouts of laughter mingled with oaths; in the midst of the uproar a loud voice called out, 'Be done. I tell you! Fritz cannot swim.' But it was too late--the boat was full of water--it upset. Happily it was only a short way from the sh.o.r.e. In one moment they were all silent; we heard only the splashing and hard breathing of those who were swimming. There were six of them. Presently one of them cried, 'Fritz! Fritz! come here! take hold of me!' Then cried another, 'Fritz, come to me!' And then several voices shouted, 'Fritz! Fritz! where are you?' Two of them had by this time reached the sh.o.r.e, and they stood looking anxiously at those who were still swimming in the lake. One of them began counting, 'Three, four!' Then crying in a voice of extreme consternation, '_One_ is wanting!' he sprang again into the water, and the other instantly followed his example!

My friend and I could no longer remain mere spectators of this scene; we threw off our coats and were speedily in the water, searching with the party for their lost friend. We thought he must be under the boat; therefore we all gathered round the spot where it lay keel upwards, and the best swimmer dived beneath it. In vain! he was not there. But at a little distance, amidst the reeds, one of us observed something dark--it was the missing Fritz! He was brought on sh.o.r.e; but he was lifeless. Zealously, anxiously, did we try all means of restoring him; they were of no avail. It was decided that he should be carried to the nearest house. A plank, which had formed one of the seats of the boat, and which had floated to the sh.o.r.e, was taken up; he was placed upon it, and they carried him towards the road. We followed them mechanically. What a contrast to their late boisterous mirth was their present profound silence! We had not proceeded far, when one of the foremost of the bearers turned round and exclaimed, 'Where is Sund?' We all looked back, and beheld the unfortunate madcap who had caused the accident half-hidden behind a tall bush, stuffing his pockets with pebbles.

'He will drown himself,' said the person who had just spoken; 'we must take him with us.'